CANADIAN PREMIERE
September 28 - October 24, 2004
Anna in the Tropics
By
Nilo Cruz
Directed by Gordon McCall,
Artistic director, Centaur Theatre Company
2003 Pulitzer Prize Winner!
A touchingly poignant and poetic play, the Pulitzer Prize winning Anna in the Tropics is set in sultry 1929 Tampa at a Cuban-American cigar factory where cigars are still rolled by hand, and lectors are employed to entertain the workers. The arrival of a new lector is cause for celebration, but when he begins to read Anna Karenina, he unwittingly becomes a catalyst in the lives of his avid listeners. Anna in the Tropics is a testimony to the power of art - an exotic, sensual, romantic play from a Cuban-American playwright with a truly original voice.
“Anna in the Tropics: The poetry of yearning, the artistry of desire”
-Ben Brantley, The New York Times
CANADIAN PREMIERE
October 26 - December 5, 2004
Burnt Piano
By Justin Fleming
Directed by Simon Phillips,
Artistic Director of the Melbourne Theatre Company
A Centaur Theatre COMPANY / AUSTRALIA International Collaboration Initiative
A graceful, spellbinding Australian play.
Paris, 1989. Karen has discovered that Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, opened in Paris at the moment of her birth. Inspired by this revelation, she makes the play her star sign and decides she must travel to Paris to meet Beckett in person. In a bizarre twist, Karen sends her young son, Jonah, to deliver a letter of introduction to the great man. Buried along the road of this quixotic journey is a tragic moment from Karen’s past. A play of wisdom and humanity, poetry and music, Burnt Piano, celebrates the refuge of art and the healing power of forgiveness.
“ While taking you on a journey of the mind, ‘Burnt Piano’ blazes a path to the heart”
-New York Times
“ ‘Burnt Piano’ is an enquiring psychological drama…It is a complex, intelligent and humorous work…‘Burnt Piano’ is a very fine play”
-Bryce Hallett, Sydney Morning Herald
SPECIAL RETURN ENGAGEMENT!
Centaur Theatre Company is proud to announce the return engagement of Steve Galluccio’s smash hit, “Mambo Italiano”. This wildly popular production, directed by Gordon McCall, will return to the Centaur stage for a limited return engagement in December 2004. More hilarious than ever, “Mambo” has already gone down in history as the most popular production in Centaur Theatre Company history, seen by over one hundred thousand people, and holds the all-time Centaur record for performance extensions.
November 30 - December 19, 2004
MAMBO ITALIANO
By Steve Galluccio
Directed by Gordon McCall,
Artistic director, Centaur Theatre Company
IT’S MAMBO MANIA –
YES, That Italian Play Is Back!
Two young Italian Montrealers, Angelo and Nino, are happy and in love. Without consulting Nino, Angelo decides to tell his parents that he is gay. Nino goes ballistic, the parents ‘Go Off the Deep End!’, and just to make sure the joint keeps jumpin’ along comes Angelo’s ‘wired’ sister, a confessional scene straight out of the Cohen Brothers world of wacky humour, a bizarre meeting in a cemetery and the ample charms of the voluptuous Pina.
January 11 - 22, 2005
The Wildside Festival
Bigger and Better Than Ever!
THE NEWEST ALBEE AWARD-WINNER!
February 1 – March 13, 2005
Edward Albee’s
The Goat
or
Who is Sylvia?
Winner 2002
Tony Award for Best Play!
New York Critics’ Circle for Best Play!
Outer Critics’ Circle for Best Play!
Drama Desk Award for Best Play!
Three-time Pulitzer-prize winner, Edward Albee, tests the depths of human compassion and the boundaries of love in this, his most provocative, daring, and controversial play since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Albee’s rapier wit punctures the surface of a ‘perfect’ modern American family and reveals the secret that is tearing them apart. The secret? Someone in the perfect family has fallen in love with a goat. As Albee says, “ Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances... It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid.”
WORLD Premiere
March 8 - April 3, 2005
Tales From Ovid
by Ted Hughes
Developed in association with the National Theatre School of Canada
Adapted by Chris Abraham & the artistic Company
Directed by Chris Abraham
A Classical Masterpiece For A Modern World
“ I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms. You, gods, since you are the ones who alter these, and all other things, inspire my attempt, and spin out a continuous thread of words, form the worlds first origins to my own time.”
-Metamorphoses, Ovid, 8 AD
These tales are the stories of gods, humans, and above all the importance of change as a timeless subject. Tales From Ovid is an exciting modern adaptation of a piece of literature that has survived the ages.
MONTREAL COLLABORATION
April 5 - May 15, 2005
George Boyd’s
Wade In The Water
In Association With Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop
Directed by Richard Donat
Follow Nelson Williams Johns, a man in search of his roots, on an uplifting journey that begins in Civil War-era Georgia and leads to Sierra Leone. Nelson is forced to choose between a perilous freedom and the safety of the known on his quest for increased personal and social consciousness. Filled with lyrical dialogue and nuanced characters, Wade in the Water is a poignant story that celebrates the beauty of the human spirit.
AN AMERICAN MASTERPIECE
May 10 - June 5, 2005
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
By Eugene O’Neill
Directed by David Latham
Starring Rosemary Dunsmore & Albert Millaire
In 1959 Eugene O’Neill began work on the play where he would finally summon the courage to write a clearly autobiographical piece. Long Day’s Journey into Night would only be produced after O’Neill dies, and is unquestionably an American masterpiece. An epic dealing with a family’s past as their burden to share, Long Day’s Journey into Night is a stark portrayal of the Tyrone family’s dissolution into spiritual and physical ruin, as well as an exploration of forgiveness, understanding and the human need to make peace with one’s past.
