2016-17 season announced
PUBSTART CROWS
The Alchemist (staged reading)
August 15, 2016
MAINSTAGE
The Spanish Tragedy
November 16-20 2016
The Bus Stop Theatre
DEVELOPMENT + TOURING
Follow Me – written by Dan Bray
The Blazing World – written by Colleen MacIsaac
Fox – written by Dan Bray
PUBSTART CROWS: The Alchemist
Over the past three years, our Upstart Crow reading series has allowed our audiences to read full length early modern plays in a relaxed and friendly environment. This summer, we will be taking this series to the next level: setting this play in a local bar, audiences – and performers – will be invited to enjoy some potent portables while listening to – and performing – a semi-rehearsed, semi-staged, fully-fun production of The Alchemist by Ben Jonson. Come and enjoy this ribald tale of three bumbling con-artists as they cheat their way through plague-addled London in the debut performance of our brand new Pubstart Crow Series!
MAINSTAGE: The Spanish Tragedy
A ghost pulled up from deepest Hell by Revenge itself to bear witness to a story too strange to be believed.
Two lovers ripped from one another on a warm summer night – the woman locked away, the man hanged by the neck beneath his father’s window.
An old man hacks the earth with his dagger, screaming for darkest gods to deliver him – a judge himself – justice for unkindness done to him.
A play-within-a-play gone terribly wrong, culminating in one of the most shocking spectacles of the Elizabethan stage.
Over the past five years, The Villain’s Theatre have brought you such revenge tragedies as The Duchess of Malfi, The Revenger’s Tragedy, and Women Beware Women– yet no play has affected the entire Renaissance theatre quite so much as this, the first of its kind: The Spanish Tragedy. Told with an unhealthy dose of pitch-black humour and some of the period’s most stark and jarring text, this new, breathless adaptation of Thomas Kyd’s seminal drama will feature a cast of six powerful female performers and will see the Bus Stop Theatre transformed into the ultimate nest of villainy.
Triumfa Espagna!
DEVELOPMENT + TOURING:
THE BLAZING WORLD
The original Blazing World was a visionary proto-science fiction epic written in 1666 by philosopher, scientist, and author Margaret Cavendish. This modern reimagining by playwright Colleen MacIsaac sets this introspective and surprisingly funny tale in our own blazing world – one ravaged by the increasingly dire effects of climate change. This new work is an imaginative and poetic sci-fi odyssey, inspired by one of the most unique female philosopher-poets in western history. Exploring the terror of being overwhelmed in the face of an world where our options seem to oscillate between panic and apathy, it melds contemporary, Canadian issues with a bizarre and far-reaching description of a new world.
FOLLOW ME
Come see the world-famous medium and self-professed clairvoyant, “Ghost Boy” Gunter Buxtehude, as he makes his triumphant return to the stage, opening the veil between this world and the next via his audience’s personal heirlooms. But be careful, for you may discover something ominous in the dust of your relics. Follow Me is a postmodern ghost story, inspired by some of the Renaissance’s greatest scenes of horror.
FOX
In the early years of the seventeenth century, playwright Ben Jonson wrote Volpone, a comedy about a devious magnifico who’s made a lucrative career out of pretending to die. One day, however, Volpone sets his sights on a young woman named Celia, whom Volpone invites to his house and ultimately tries to rape. But through Volpone’s cunning, the tables are turned and Celia herself is put on trial for attempted murder. It is not until the very end of the play that the ruse is detected, Celia is exonerated, and Volpone is sentenced to prison.
Both english comedy and modern theatre have been hugely influenced by Ben Jonson and Volpone.
We can do better.
Like many Canadians, I have been deeply shaken by way that sexual assault cases are handled in this country; recent events illuminate how poorly female victims are treated when they take the stand. While it is only because of recent, widely-publicized trials that the majority of Canadians are aware of this issue, plays like Volpone make it apparent that this has actually been going on for hundreds of years.
Fox focuses on Celia after she has been accused of trying to murder Volpone. It sets her story in the current day and details what happens to her during her incarceration and subsequent examinations. Celia, used to being silent, must find her voice in order to convince the court of the truth and bring Volpone to justice.
Part courtroom drama, part jacobean comedy, part puppet-therapy, Fox promises to be a dynamic discussion of the Canadian judicial system, specifically as it pertains to sexual-abuse cases. It is a multi-media theatrical experience that challenges the stories told by powerful men, offers a voice to the silent, and ultimately puts Ben Jonson himself on trial.