If laughter is the best medicine, you may prove to be healthier and happier this Actors Workshop Theatre season.
“Last year was quite dramatic, but this year is going to be more light-hearted and fun. The shows are still drama-based, but they each have their unique and funny characters,” said Krystine Lucas, a Bachelor of Arts student majoring in theatre and minoring in English and who plays Leilah in the season’s second production Uncommon Women and Others.
“It’s going to be exciting to see what each director brings regardless of whether it’s pure comedy or not. How they add the comedic elements will be really exciting to watch.”
The season is made up of three full-length productions and the Directors Festival of one-act plays in April. See below for the full season schedule.
The long plays are directed by theatre faculty while senior directing students handle the Directors Festival. Most actors are students and drawn from the theatre program while the remaining are usually from another stream in arts.
Program coordinator Wesley Eccleston is keen to see the development students make and how they work around the presented obstacles.
“We’re always pushing our actors to create different characters of themselves and we like to do that by challenging them with different roles,” said Eccleston, who is directing Uncommon Women and Others. “That’s how you learn, by pushing yourself.”
Erik Stephany and Shannon Cooper are cast as Vanya and Sonia respectively in the season’s first show Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Both are theatre majors and finding the comedy direction to be refreshing and providing opportunities to learn.
“I don’t really feel I’m that funny, so having someone laugh at what I’m doing is a bit foreign,” said Cooper. “It’s interesting to know what does get a laugh. A lot of it is accidental. You’re going along and saying a line, you do an action and it gets a laugh. You think to yourself, ‘Wow, really?’ I’ve realized everyone is funny and if you don’t think you are funny; you are funny.”
Said Stephany: “This style of comedy is word based and intellectual, which is different than some of the physical and clowning stuff I’ve done in the past. This is new territory for me because we’re doing a lot of subtext—snide remarks for example—that other characters aren’t supposed to pick up on, but the audience is supposed to get.”
This scene from Curse of the Starving Class is a previous Actors Workshop Theatre production.
All shows are in the Black Box Theatre located in Old Main by Starbucks. Look for the black doors under the marquee. Tickets are $14 and available at the box office or by phoning 250-377-6100. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Email theatre@tru.ca for more information.
Season schedule
Oct. 13-15, 20-22
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Written by Christopher Durang
Directed by Heidi Verwey
Winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play
Middle-aged siblings Vanya and Sonia share a home in Bucks County, PA, where they bicker and complain about the circumstances of their lives. Suddenly, their movie-star sister, Masha, swoops in with her new boy toy, Spike. Old resentments flare up, eventually leading to threats to sell the house. Also on the scene is sassy maid Cassandra, who can predict the future, and a lovely young aspiring actress named Nina, whose prettiness somewhat worries the imperious Masha.
Dec. 1-3, 8-10
Uncommon Women and Others
Written by Wendy Wasserstein
Directed by Wes Eccleston
A collage of interrelated scenes, the action begins with a reunion six years after graduation of five close friends and classmates of Mount Holyoke College. They compare notes on their activities since leaving school and then, in a series of flashbacks, the audience sees them in their college days and learns of the events—some funny, some touching, some bitingly cynical—that helped shape them.
March 2-4, 9-11
The Liar
Written by David Ives, adapted from Le Menteur by Pierre Corneille
Directed by Robin Nichol
It’s Paris, 1643 and Dorante is a charming young man newly arrived in the city. He has but a single flaw: He cannot tell the truth. In quick succession he hires Cliton, a manservant who cannot tell a lie, and falls in love with Clarice, a charming young woman whom he unfortunately mistakes for her friend Lucrece. What he doesn’t know is that Clarice is secretly engaged to his best friend Alcippe. Nor is he aware that his father is trying to get him married to Clarice, whom he thinks is Lucrece, who actually is in love with him.
From all these misunderstandings and a series of breathtakingly intricate lies springs one of the Western world’s greatest comedies, a sparkling urban romance as fresh as the day Pierre Corneille wrote the original story and was masterfully adapted for today by David Ives.
April 10-15
Directors Festival
Night A – April 10,12,14
Night B – April 11,13,15
All plays are one act and directed by senior directing students. The plays are a mix of original material and adaptations.
