30 mars 2012
Holmes play attracts film star; Segal Centre unveils ambitious program with diverse lineup of productionsBy PAT DONNELLY, The Gazette
How do you get a movie star like Jay Baruchel to headline your theatre season?
Well, first you call his mother and get his email address. That's what Segal Centre artistic producer Paul Flicker did when he wanted to get in contact with Jay Baruchel. Then he sent Baruchel a note, asking if he'd consider working live on stage in his hometown.
Flicker soon got an enthusiastic "yes" from the N.D.G.raised star of films like The Trotsky, She's Out of My League, How to Train Your Dragon. But they had to find a suitable play. Flicker and Baruchel met several times, to discuss possibilities. At first Flicker was thinking along the lines of The Graduate, or Harold and Maude. Then, about a week after Flicker had commissioned a play about Sherlock Holmes from Greg Kramer, Baruchel (who did not know about Kramer's play) suddenly confided that he'd always wanted to play the famed British detective. Flicker describes the moment as pure serendipity. The deal was struck - at an affordable, non-Hollywood rate. "He has been very, very kind in his expectations, realizing that theatre is not film," Flicker said on Thursday morning after triumphantly announcing the Segal Centre's incredibly ambitious, star-studded 2012-2013 theatre season.
Asked if he foresaw a rush on the box office akin to what happened when Keanu Reeves played Hamlet at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1995, Flicker, clearly hopeful, replied, "I think he's going to get us a lot of attention nationally when he's here and perhaps even internationally in the States as well. And it's late enough in the year that maybe some of his buddies from L.A. will come and see it. But what I'm really hoping is that he'll bring in that young audience, the 20-to 35-year olds, who don't often come to the theatre."
In addition to a movie star, Flicker is bringing in a classic musical, Guys and Dolls, directed by Diana Leblanc, to kick off the fall season. It will be followed up by a Tony Award-winning hit, RED, about two years in the life of artist Mark Rothko, by John Logan, directed by Martha Henry.
Flicker is also likely to score headlines by importing and presenting the North American premiere of a South African adaptation of Waiting for the Barbarians, by the Nobel (and Booker) Prizewinning author J.M. Coetzee, produced by former Centaur artistic director Maurice Podbrey and directed by Alexandre Marine.
Jazz diva Ranee Lee will be something of a ubiquitous presence at the Segal this season as she has been engaged as the official spokesperson of the centre. She will also star in the long-awaited The Mahalia Jackson Musical written and directed by Roger Peace, and featuring a full gospel choir. And she'll be performing the first concert of the Power Jazz series at the Centre. "I love this place," she said. "I feel at home here." Asked what the job entails, Lee replied, "When they call, I'll come."
In another ploy to nab youthful audiences, Dora Wasserman's Yiddish Theatre will be going hip with a new musical, Tales from Odessa, based on the stories of Isaak Babel, with music and lyrics by pop/hip-hop/ klezmer artist Josh Doglin (AKA Socalled) and book by Alexandre Marine*. Audrey Finkelstein will direct.
Four other local anglophone theatre companies - Black Theatre Workshop (Harlem Duet), Scapegoat Carnivale (Bar Kapra The Squirrel Hunter), Youtheatre (Dreaming Now) and the newly formed Metachrome Theatre (Richard III) - will be presenting plays in the Segal Studio. A French company, Le Productions Pas de Panique, will present its L'Augmention, and a dance company, Chartier Danse of Toronto, will present its hybrid work, Stria.
All this adds up to the Segal becoming a hopping place next season, which is exactly what Flicker has in mind.
"It's an honour to work with all these people," he said.
And while the theatre programming may form the core of the action, multiple jazz, classical music, dance and film events also figure into the mix.
* Segal Centre note: Book by Derek Goldman