The Shaw Festival
10 Queen's Parade
Niagara-on-the-Lake
1-800-511-7429
http://www.shawfest.com
A drive outside of the city will lead you to the home of the Shaw Festival in the historic town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, at the northern end of the scenic Niagara Parkway. Theatre lovers flock to the beautiful city for world class theatre and the 2009 season is filled with productions that will not disappoint.
The Shaw Festival's 2009 season celebrates the brilliance of George Bernard Shaw yet again, but also his contemporary, Noel Coward. The 2009 season opens up a new corner of its mandate to show the continuum of provocative theatre. This year Shaw takes on a monumental and historic project with full productions of each play in Noel Coward's famous “Tonight at 8:30” collection. The Shaw's 2009 productions represent the first time all ten short plays have been performed in repertory by a professional company since they were first produced by London's Phoenix Theatre in 1935-36. The plays will be performed in sets of three, one on each of the Festival's Niagara-on-the-Lake stages, with the tenth, the rarely produced Star Chamber, being the lunchtime production in the Royal George. And to celebrate this idea for the event that it is, on three separate occasions (August 8, August 29 and September 19th), Shaw will present all ten productions in one day.
2009 Shaw Theatre Season:
* Brief Encounters
(Still Life, We Were Dancing, Hands Across The Sea)
Festival Theatre
April 11 – October 24, 2009
Repressed love after a chance meeting at a train station; flaming passion from a single dance across the floor; mistaken identity following a passing holiday acquaintance – three different stories inspired by three brief moments in time.
Sunday In The Park With George
Royal George Theatre
April 1 – November 1, 2009
Another award-winning musical from Stephen Sondheim, a compelling story about love, art and inspiration. Spend Sundays in the park with the French impressionist painter Georges Seurat as he creates his masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Hear from the figures in the painting about their lives and loves – especially Dot, the woman with the umbrella and Georges’ mistress and muse. A hundred years later, see his great-grandson, another artist, learn from the ghosts of the past.
In Good King Charles’s Golden Days
Royal George Theatre
April 17 – October 9, 2009
A philosopher, a religious leader, an artist, an actress and a King meet at Sir Isaac Newton’s house. The set-up for a joke? No, it’s Shaw’s Restoration comedy, where everyone from George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, to Sir Godfrey Kneller the painter and, of course, King Charles II appear. They debate everything – from geometry to art to love potions – with occasional interruptions from three of Charles’s liveliest mistresses.
A Moon For The Misbegotten
Court House Theatre
April 28 – October 9, 2009
A Moon for the Misbegotten is a bittersweet love story set in a dilapidated house in Connecticut where Josie Hogan and her father live off the land and struggle to survive. When the landlord, James Tyrone Jr returns, their livelihood, and Josie’s heart, is threatened. Under a moonlit sky, in spite of her reputation and his bitter charm, Josie and James tumble into a conversation and discover the truth about each other in what becomes a lyrical tale of hope and forgiveness.
Born Yesterday
Festival Theatre
May 5 – November 1, 2009
When a nouveau riche garbage king arrives in Washington, he decides his very blonde girlfriend needs an education. But he gets more than he bargained for as she and her tutor prove that knowledge is power, not to mention very attractive! A classic comedy.
* Play, Orchestra, Play
(Red Peppers, Fumed Oak, Shadow Play)
Royal George Theatre
June 9 – October 31, 2009
In Red Peppers, the backstage lives of a down-at-heel singing and dancing comedy act are almost as entertaining as their onstage routines. In Fumed Oak, Henry Gow has simply had enough – of his job, his family and his life – and tonight he’s finally going to make his move. In Shadow Play, music and fantasy combine in a story about a couple falling in and out of love – or are they? As one character opines, it would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, if we had music when things go wrong? It certainly is in the tuneful delights of Play, Orchestra, Play containing some of Noël Coward’s most celebrated songs.
The Devil’s Disciple
Festival Theatre
June 14 – October 11, 2009
It’s the height of the American Revolution and Dick Dudgeon – the black sheep son – is known as the Devil’s Disciple. When he is mistaken for a crusading minister and imprisoned by English forces, the question becomes, who is really the saint and who is the sinner? A comedy, an adventure and a love story.
Albertine In Five Times
Court House Theatre
June 24 – October 10, 2009
What would you say to your younger self if you had the chance? What if you met yourself 10, 20, 30 years in the future? In Albertine in Five Times, Michel Tremblay takes his favourite character and puts her on stage with five versions of herself to talk to – five Albertines from ages 30 to 70. And she loves to talk. About her life, her marriage and her children with passion, honesty and humour. We present a new translation of this Canadian classic.
* Star Chamber
Royal George Theatre
June 25 – October 11, 2009
A committee of actors meets to discuss the refurbishment of Garrick Haven, a home for retired thespians. While the stage manager dutifully arrives on time, the rest of the group make their entrances more dramatically and the agenda is quickly forgotten as it’s clear that everyone would really rather talk about themselves. With duelling divas, well-loved stories of past glories and the appearance of a Great Dane, the meeting quickly falls into comic chaos. The final jewel in the Tonight at 8:30 crown.
*Ways Of The Heart
Court House Theatre
July 21 – October 11, 2009
From love and heartbreak to farce via drama, the Ways of the Heart threesome demonstrates the full range of Coward’s genius. In The Astonished Heart, a patient’s obsessive love of her psychiatrist provokes disturbing results. In Family Album, after their father’s funeral, when the family gathers and the wine appears, family truths are finally revealed. And in Ways and Means, when a couple’s luck seems to have run out, they find it again with style and grace on the French Riviera.
The Entertainer
Studio Theatre
July 31 – September 20, 2009
A brilliant exposé of 1950s postwar England seen through the eyes of fading music hall performer, Archie Rice. As we veer from gin-soaked family arguments to Archie’s increasingly desperate onstage turns, an England on a precipice is revealed, a nation unable to find its place in what is clearly a new world.
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* Noel Coward’s Tonight At 8:30pm
Noël Coward is renowned for his full-length plays The Vortex, Hay Fever, Easy Virtue, Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter, Cavalcade, Private Lives and Design For Living (all of which have been produced by The Shaw). His ambitious Tonight At 8:30, which he wrote and starred in with his frequent stage partner Gertrude Lawrence, was originally written to be performed in combinations of three plays for a different line-up each night. A celebrated collection of ten brilliant short plays brought to life on three Shaw Festival stages. This marks the first time in repertory theatre history that all ten plays will be presented together. A rare theatrical event!
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