The St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, home of Toronto’s Canadian Stage Company.Fernando Morales/The Globe and Mail
Helen Lawrence, an eagerly awaited stage collaboration between visual artist Stan Douglas and screenwriter Chris Haddock, will now make its Toronto debut in October, 2014, after stops at high-profile theatres and festivals internationally and at home.
The film-noir thriller – which will see live performers interact with a computer-generated postwar Vancouver – will have its world premiere at Vancouver's Arts Club in March, then tour to Montreal's Festival TransAmériques, the Munich Kammerspiele and Edinburgh before landing at co-commissioning theatre company Canadian Stage in Toronto.
Director Kim Collier is no longer involved in the project, but the National Arts Centre's Sarah Stanley has joined on as an associate director.
Canadian Stage announced its full 2014-2015 season on Tuesday.
Along with Helen Lawrence, the main St. Lawrence Centre stage will see artistic director Matthew Jocelyn direct the long-awaited Toronto premiere of Harper Regan by British playwright Simon Stephens, and Daniel Brooks helm the Canadian premiere of The Other Place by Sharr White, a drama that recently had a limited run on Broadway.
In the company's second space at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Chris Abraham of Crow's Theatre will direct three of Canada's top actors – Yanna McIntosh, Eric Peterson and Tom Rooney – in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, while Jennifer Tarver of Necessary Angel will premiere a new work about chansonnier Charles Aznavour created with composer Justin Ellington.
Canadian Stage's 2014-2015 season will also include a timely spotlight on South Africa that will bring Handspring Puppet Theatre – the geniuses behind the puppets in the international hit War Horse – back to Toronto with a show by playwright Jane Taylor called Ubu and the Truth Commission.
For the full slate of 14 Canadian Stage productions, visit canadianstage.com.
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J. Kelly Nestruck