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A scene from Obsidian Theatre Company’s production of The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God.

The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God will get a major revival at Ottawa's National Arts Centre in the fall.

Playwright Djanet Sears will direct a cast of 21 in her own moving drama about a country doctor in Negro Creek, Ont., coming to terms with the loss of a child amid a debate over the renaming of the town. Lucinda Davis will star as Rainey Johnson in this co-production with Montreal's Centaur Theatre.

"Adventures of a Black Girl is probably one of the most profound theatre experiences I've had in Canada," said Jillian Keiley, artistic director of the NAC's English Theatre, of the show that first launched at Toronto's Obsidian Theatre Company in 2002 – and was later brought to a wider audience by Mirvish Productions.

On Tuesday, Keiley announced her full third season as artistic director – an eclectic one full of large-scale productions that will draw on talent from across the country.

For the first time in her tenure, Keiley will put her stamp on William Shakespeare – directing Twelfth Night in a collaboration with Calgary's celebrated Old Trout Puppet Workshop. Former Stratford Festival star Bruce Dow is set to play Malvolio, while the Old Trouts will be in charge of filling the world of Illyria with "colourful, bright animated objects," according to Keiley.

Two Canadian musicals are also on the bill for 2015-16. Over the holidays, Anne & Gilbert, a musical sequel to Anne of Green Gables, will entertain audiences in the capital, while the spring will see the NAC host the Segal Centre and Copa de Oro's hit production of Belles Soeurs: The Musical.

Boom – Rick Miller's tour-de-force, multimedia solo exploration of the world the baby boomers were born into and created – concludes the mainstage season.

But over in the English Theatre's Studio Series, productions will be no less large. Ottawa-raised playwright and director Jordan Tannahill will return to his hometown with his teenage thriller, Concord Floral. Tannahill and co-directors Erin Brubacher and Cara Spooner will hunt for 10 young local actors to populate the suburban gothic world of the play in this remount of their Toronto hit. Jack Charles v The Crown, an Australian play about a residential-school survivor and cat burglar, will visit from down under in January, while The December Man, Colleen Murphy's well-travelled play inspired by the Montreal Massacre, will have a new production directed by Sarah Garton Stanley. And rounding out the season, the NAC's Family Series will include Mieko Ouchi's I Am for You, to be directed by Dow, and the movement-based play Snow Angel.

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