Canadian Stage takes more of the show on the road

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Interdisciplinary and international: Canadian Stage artistic director Matthew Jocelyn announced a 2015-16 season on Wednesday that stretches the Toronto performance company further beyond theatre – and further beyond Canada – than ever before.

Hot on the heels of its European tour of Helen Lawrence, two new Canadian Stage commissions will head off into the world after being presented in Toronto.

Betroffenheit, a collaboration between choreographer Crystal Pite and West Coast actor Jonathan Young, will have its world premiere at the Bluma Appel Theatre during the Pan Am Games next summer, return for a second tour of duty there in February, 2016, then head off on tour.

Additionally, Cold Blood, a new creation from Belgian artists Michèle Anne De Mey and Jaco Van Dormael co-commissioned by Canadian Stage, will have its North American premiere in Toronto in February as part of an international tour.

Kiss & Cry – De May and Van Dormael's indescribably beautiful mixture of hand choreography, miniature sets and live-on-stage film – will also return to the Bluma Appel for four encore performance that month.

Jocelyn, who has expanded Canadian Stage's purview beyond theatre to dance during his tenure, will now stage the company's first opera in November, 2015.

Julie, a chamber opera composed by Belgium's Philippe Boesmans, will have its North American premiere with a Canadian cast.

There are still plays on offer at the theatre company, of course: Canadian Stage will present hotly tipped new scripts from the U.S., Britain, Germany and Canada in the 2015-16 season.

Domesticated, the latest from Clybourne Park playwright Bruce Norris, will be directed by Philip Riccio (in co-production with the Company Theatre) in November, 2015.

Chimerica, Lucy Kirkwood's gripping West End hit about the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre that won the Olivier Award for best new play in 2014, will have its eagerly anticipated North American debut with Chris Abraham at the helm in March, 2016.

Das Ding, German playwright Philipp Lohle's inventive comedy about a cotton fibre, will have its English-language debut directed by Ashlie Corcoran (in co-production with Theatre Smash) in April.

And representing the home team, up-and-coming Toronto playwright Jordan Tannahill will have a double-bill of plays staged in April: Botticelli in the Fire, and Sunday in Sodom.

Rounding out the 2015-16 season are a staging of Hedda Gabler by Jennifer Tarver (who had a hit at Canadian Stage with Venus in Fur); The Kiss, a new play by top Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderon; the return of dancer Akram Khan with a new flamenco-infused show called Torobaka; and, as per usual, a pair of Shakespeare shows in the park, Julius Caesar and The Comedy of Errors.

For more information, visit www.canadianstage.com.