STAGE / FILM
The Victoria Playhouse Board of Directors, Artistic Director Erskine Smith and General Manager Pat Stunden Smith have announced the Victoria Playhouse Festival 2008 Playbill.
…and stockings for the ladies, an inspiring WWII story, will open the season June 28 and play until July 13. This theatrical piece was created by and features National Theatre School of Canada (NTSC) graduates. The Victoria Playhouse Board of Directors say they are excited to build upon the success of last season’s NTSC production Fish Eyes. Based on a moving true tale …and stockings for the ladies, recounts the story of Canadian Air Forces Squadron Leader Ted Aplin, and his efforts to help rebuild the lives of refugees in post war Germany. Winner of the Centaur Theatre’s Best English Production award at the Montreal Fringe and named Best of the Fringe in Toronto ...and stockings for the ladies (a Gesamtkunstwerk production) is described as “a unique and uplifting production.”
Toronto Adventures by Lindsay Kyte takes to the stage July 18 and plays to August 3. Based on her real life adventures as a Maritime actress battling the smog and subways of the Big Smoke Toronto Adventures is a new comedy which emerged from a series of weekly e-mails Kyte was writing back home to Cape Breton. Much to her surprise and delight, people began to forward these e-mails on to others. They have since appeared in various publications including The Toronto Star, have been a topic on CBC numerous times, are now a weekly blog in The Cape Breton Post and have been turned into a five-minute comedic series on Canada’s first Internet channel (www.untv.ca). Toronto Adventures was staged last summer at Festival Antigonish, the Membertou Trade & Convention Centre and the Atlantic Fringe Festival, where it garnered huge press and great reviews.
Norm Foster’s comedy The Foursome tees off August 8 and plays to August 31. A fifteen year college reunion brings together four buddies, who take to the golf course to catch up with each other. As the game progresses their successes and failures spill out and the bittersweet comedy of their lives is revealed. The Hamilton Spectator reviewed the show as “A warm and incredibly wise play. Passionately real and human.” The Kitchener Waterloo Record states “Foster’s script is a marvel of comedy. The laughter was prolonged and hearty from beginning to end”
The 27th season concludes with the bittersweet comedy Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell. “Gone to Greece. Back in two weeks.” This note meets one surprised husband after the frustrated Mrs. Bradshaw accepts a friend’s offer of a free trip to Greece. Reduced to talking to the kitchen wall while she prepares her husband’s dinner, the former Shirley Valentine decides to rediscover herself, stretch marks and all, on a Greek Island. Shirley Valentine won a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award for Best Play and Oliver Award for Best Comedy of the Year. The New York Post called Shirley Valentine “absolutely smashing.”
The Monday Night Showcase Series brings to the stage a roster of dynamic performers including award-winning singer-songwriter David Myles, blues artist Morgan Davis and Newfoundland’s comic genius Andy Jones in his solo show An Evening with Uncle Val.