Ottawa, Ontario – Artistic Director Jillian Keiley took to the NAC Fourth Stage today to announce her inaugural season for English Theatre at the National Arts Centre. In her own unique talk-show format, Ms Keiley, joined by special guests, unveiled her 2013-14 Season and introduced the ten-member, coast-to-coast Ensemble, as well as outlining her future plans for artistic collaborations across Canada.

“The wonderful job of creating a season’s worth of programming for English Theatre at the National Arts Centre offers a particular challenge: capture the heart of a nation and crystallize it into a series that reflects not only this moment in time, but the great artistry of our country,” said Ms Keiley. “In response, we’ve built our season around the most primary of theatre practitioners – the actors.”

The 2013-14 Ensemble will take to the stage in three productions: a new adaptation of a classic, a biting satire of a recent scandal, and a twist on a timeless musical. The Ensemble will perform in two productions in the Theatre Series, opening the season with a re-imagining of Molière’s Tartuffe, adapted by and featuring Andy Jones, followed by a special holiday production of The Sound of Music, in which audiences will sing-a-long with the show! Rounding out the Theatre Series are: Toronto Theatre Critics’ darling Kim’s Convenience by Ins Choi from Soulpepper Theatre (Toronto, ON); Annabel Soutar’s Seeds from Porte Parole (Montreal, QC) featuring Eric Peterson; and the season finale from Artistic Fraud (St. John’s, NL), Robert Chafe’s Oil and Water, directed by Jillian Keiley.

The Studio Series launches with Raoul Bhaneja’s award-winning take on Shakespeare with HAMLET (solo), followed by ENRON, Lucy Prebble’s scorching exposé of corporate madness featuring The 2013-2014 Ensemble, and closes with Cliff Cardinal’s one-man tour de force, huff.

The Family Series includes The Sound of Music and is followed by two very special productions for children: Roseneath Theatre’s (Toronto, ON) dib and dob and the journey home by David S. Craig and Robert Morgan, which will arrive in time for Family Day; and Presentation House Theatre’s (Vancouver, BC) production of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.

The Ensemble was brought together through an extensive search by Ms Keiley and Associate Artistic Director Sarah Garton Stanley. Over the past six months they auditioned more than 600 artists from coast to coast.

“Rather than programming the season and then slotting the right actors into it,” said Ms Keiley, “we’re beginning to shift our approach towards finding the right actors first – and then the scripts that will make them shine. Each season will feature a new array of stars from stages across the country.”

The actors for The 2013-14 Ensemble are Petrina Bromley (St. John’s, NL); Christine Brubaker (Guelph, ON/Toronto, ON); Dmitry Chepovetsky (Regina,SK/Vancouver, BC/Toronto, ON); David Coomber (Ottawa, ON/Toronto, ON); Eric Davis (Ottawa, ON/Montreal, QC); Leah Doz (Edmonton, AB/Toronto, ON); Sheldon Elter (Grimshaw, AB/Edmonton, AB); Quancetia Hamilton (Toronto, ON); Eliza-Jane Scott (Kingston, ON/Ottawa, ON); and Joey Tremblay (Ste-Marthe, SK/Regina, SK). From September to March, The Ensemble will be involved in workshops, the development of new plays, and the education of young people, in communities across Canada.

Ms Keiley, in describing her vision for English Theatre at the NAC, unveiled a new approach to collaborations. “The NAC should be involved in bringing new work to the stage. But I believe that process needs to happen in the very communities and in the very theatres where people are creating the work.” Ms Keiley and Ms Stanley travelled across Canada to find plays they believe in with the intention of supporting their development and premieres in their own communities. The hope is that some of these works will eventually appear on the NAC stage. 

“It’s like investment banking for theatre,” she commented. “It takes a lot of time to bring a great work to the stage. It’s exciting to think some of the excellent works we’re investing in now will eventually be seen by NAC audiences.”  

Ms Keiley added, “We aspire to have a theatrical conversation at a national level, hearing stories from far and near, and bringing them here to the NAC. At the heart of it, I am very interested in people and The Ensemble is such a perfect representation of this national story.”
 

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13-14 NAC English Theatre Subscriptions

• Subscribers save up to 25% off regular ticket prices.
• Subscription packages start at $91 for 5 plays.
• Plus – subscribe online by April 26^th and save an additional 5%.

nac-cna.ca/subscribe

 

For full information on the 2013-14 Season, visit www.nac-cna.ca/en/theatre.

NAC English Theatre would like to thank the Government of Canada for its generous support.

The National Arts Centre Foundation extends a warm thank you to the members of the Donors’ Circle and Corporate Club who generously support English Theatre at the National Arts Centre and the National Youth and Education Trust. A special thank you to the Embassy Hotel & Suites, the Official Hotel of NAC English Theatre, the Ottawa Citizen, Media Partner, as well as Ridley Terminals Inc. for its support of Aboriginal programming.

 

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For more information or to schedule an interview with Artistic Director Jillian Keiley:

 

CONTACT

Mr. Sean Fitzpatrick,

Communications Officer,

NAC English Theatre

(613) 947 7000 ext. 389

cell: (613) 899-9737

sean.fitzpatrick@nac-cna.ca