≈ 2 heures et 30 minutes · Avec entracte
Dernière mise à jour: 18 janvier 2019
Ce programme est seulement disponible en anglais ›
Artistic Director’s Notes
As a director I’m used to making carefully orchestrated events happen, but I couldn’t quite pull it off on my wedding day. Moments before I walked down the aisle, I flushed the eight-foot gossamer ribbon on the back of my dress straight down the toilet. Yep. Right into the pipes. I only knew I did it because it actually pulled me backwards in the stall.
When you take a high stress event like a wedding and add all of the random possibilities that ensue by inviting 300 people to watch you eat food you don’t usually eat and wear clothes you don’t usually wear, mishaps are inevitable for the bride and groom. But what about the guests? In this three-tier-high confection by Kristen Thomson, the bride and groom are secondary characters, and it’s the invitees who turn into guest-zillas. This wide-ranging and totally unpredictable gathering of family and friends is bound to ignite some fireworks, and I can’t think of a better assembly than Chris Abraham’s brilliant cast and creative team to bring the insanity of one of our most beloved and bedeviled rituals to the national stage.
I hope you enjoy the party!
Playwright’s Notes
The Wedding Party was created for the opening of Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre in Toronto, in 2017. Four years before that, I invited some of my favourite actors – Trish Lindström, Tony Nappo, Moya O’Connell, Tom Rooney, Bahia Watson – to improvise with me around a fascination I have with weddings, witnessing and belief, and the echoes of these experiences in performance and theatre. It has been everything I could have wished for, to be surrounded and grounded by artists who “have it all”: wit, spontaneity, hilarity and heart. I hope our play can offer this to you, as well as the simple pleasure of coming together in the spirit of play and imagination. These things mean the world to me. As do the following people and organizations for their support and generosity along the way:
Chris Abraham; Arkady Spivak; Andrew Kushnir; Irene Boychuck and Donald Guloein; Jim and Sandra Pitblado; Rupert Duschesne and Holly Coll-Black; Kate Alexander and David Daniels; Amrin and Sabi Marwah; Thomas Ryder Payne; Bob White; Canada Council for the Arts; Ontario Arts Council; Jim Lisser; B & W Wine; Ellie Alice; Kristi Magraw; Kathryn Beet; Pamela Sinha; Ethel Teitelbaum; Tania Melkonian; Nan Shepherd; Virgilia Griffith; Jason Cadieux; Jane Spidell.
I owe endless personal debt to Ava Roth, Liisa Repo-Martell, Lucinda Thomson, Bob Williams and Hussain Amarshi.
This play is for siblings. My own: Marcia Thomson and Todd Thomson. And my children: Zayd, Samir and Nyla Thomson-Amarshi.
Director’s Notes
Kristen’s play is about family — its pleasures, its pains. It’s about how families get made in the wedding ritual, broken and remade again. The catalyst is the joyous/nightmarish pressure cooker we call “the wedding party” — an event that always seems to stir up buried desires or old grievances. The night catches us prepared, but unready, mercilessly opening us up to the possibility of unexpected love, loss, loneliness and too much alcohol. Kristen’s plays have always been bound up in rites of passage that tie us to family. They hilariously and heartbreakingly focus their lens on divorce, adolescence, the death of a parent, and middle age as transformative cataclysms that destroy and remake their protagonists. The Wedding Party continues this commitment to the exploration of these humane and very human themes. To make The Wedding Party, Kristen created a theatrical family of her own. Through improvisation, conversation and lots of laughter, two families emerged. I am deeply grateful to her and the team for welcoming me along for the ride. This was such fun! I also want to thank our partners, Arkady Spivak and Talk Is Free Theatre, for their spirit of adventurous collaboration, and Sandra and Jim Pitblado’s beautiful and steadfast support of Kristen’s work over many years.
Artistes
Originaire de Toronto, Ming est conceptrice de costumes, stylistes et technicienne aux costumes. Elle a travaillé sur divers projets dans le domaine de la danse, du théâtre, du cinéma et de la télévision. À la Canadian Stage : New Monuments, Unsafe et Life After.
Autres collaborations : Pipeline (Soulpepper), Orphans for the Czar, Julius Caesar, The Wedding Party (Crow’s Theatre), Hamlet 911 (Festival de Stratford); Trouble in Mind, Just to Get Married (Festival Shaw), Hansel und Gretel (Compagnie d’opéra canadienne), Every Day She Rose (Nightwood Theatre), The Color Purple (Citadel Theatre et RMTC) Projets numériques : Alice in Winterland (Ross Petty Productions), Sāvitri (Against the Grain), Alice in Wonderland (Bad Hats Theatre et Soulpepper). Prix : lauréate du prix Virginia & Myrtle Cooper 2021. Site Web : www.mingwongdesign.com (anglais seulement).
Établie à Toronto, Kimberly Purtell est une conceptrice d’éclairages pour le théâtre, l’opéra et la danse. Louangées par la critique, ses conceptions ont été présentées au Canada, aux États-Unis, au Royaume-Uni, en Chine, à Hong Kong, à Taiwan, en Mongolie, à Prague et à Moscou. Elle a collaboré avec le Festival de Stratford, le Festival Shaw, la Canadian Stage Company, le Soulpepper Theatre, Mirvish Productions, le Centre national des Arts et l'Orchestre du Centre national des Arts, le Pacific Opera Victoria, l'Opera Philadelphia, l'Arena Stage de Washington D.C., le Tapestry Opera, le Hamilton Opera, l'Opéra d’Edmonton, le Theatre Calgary, le Manitoba Theatre Centre, le Citadel Theatre ou encore la Place des Arts. Elle a également conçu les éclairages des Jeux panaméricains et des Olympiades culturelles de Vancouver et de Beijing.
Kimberly Purtell a été mise en nomination pour de nombreux prix d'excellence en conception d'éclairage et a reçu trois prix Dora Mavor Moore, le prix Pauline McGibbon, un prix du Théâtre anglais de Montréal, un prix Sterling, un prix des critiques de théâtre de Toronto et un prix du Cercle des critiques d'Ottawa.
Thomas Ryder Payne est compositeur et concepteur sonore pour le théâtre, la danse et le cinéma. Il a notamment travaillé pour les organisations suivantes : le Centre national des Arts, le Festival de Stratford, le Festival Shaw, Mirvish Productions, le Soulpepper Theater, la Canadian Stage, le Tarragon Theatre, le Factory Theatre, le Theatre Passe Muraille, le Young People’s Theatre, le Crow’s Theatre, Modern Times, Aluna, Buddies in Bad Times, le Nightwood Theatre, le Toronto Dance Theatre, le Theatre Calgary, la GCTC et le Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Thomas a reçu quatre prix Dora Mavor Moore et 25 mises en nomination.
