March 22, 2013
The Montreal GazetteMarch 22, 2013
By Pat Donnelly
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MONTREAL — The Segal Centre’s unveiling of its 46th season on Thursday afternoon was a show in itself.
The warm-up acts included a jazz band and a comedy sketch starring stand-up comic Mike Paterson.
After Segal Centre CEO Manon Gauthier and artistic producer Paul Flicker delivered the news on the six plays that will be offered during the 2013-2014 season, key people from each production had their say.
The works of Fats Waller, William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, David Mamet, Caryl Churchill and Mordecai Richler will all be part of the lineup, with the Waller musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ leading the parade.
As Flicker discovered last fall, kicking off a season with a blockbuster musical (Guys and Dolls) tends to give the box office a boost. And Ain’t Misbehavin’ has already proven popular in Montreal, having had a record-breaking run at Le Stage dinner theatre (1986-87) at the now-deceased La Diligence Restaurant.
Now it’s back, co-produced by the Segal Centre and Copa de Oro Productions, and directed by Roger Peace, who was a co-producer of the Le Stage production. Alan Sandler of Copa de Oro, which is enjoying the continuing success of its Segal Centre co-produced The Mahalia Jackson Musical, promised cast revelations on Ain’t Misbehavin’ soon. It will run Sept. 29 to Oct. 20.
Shakespeare’s Othello will be directed by Alison Darcy and produced in association with her company, Scapegoat Carnivale. Darcy, who will be making her directorial debut on the Segal Centre mainstage (her works have already been seen at the Segal Studio Theatre), has cast renowned Canadian actor, playwright and director Andrew Moodie in the lead role. She also revealed that she has managed to convince former Centaur Theatre artistic director Maurice Podbrey (a.k.a. her dad) to play the role of Desdemona’s father, Brabantio. Othello is slated for Nov. 17 to Dec. 1.
Two of the Stratford Festival’s brightest female stars, Diane d’Aquila and Lucy Peacock, will shine in Chekhov’s The Seagull, directed by Peter Hinton, former artistic director of the National Arts Centre English Theatre. The play will run Feb. 2 to 16, 2014.
Flicker made the surprise announcement that he is about to make his directorial debut next spring with Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, starring four noted local actors: Andrew Shaver, Graham Cuthbertson, Mike Paterson and Brett Watson.
Having produced dozens of shows during his career, Flicker said he feels ready for the job. The run will be March 16 to 30.
For gender balance, Micheline Chevrier will direct Caryl Churchill’s exclusively female Top Girls, about prominent women throughout history. It will play April 27 to May 18.
And finally, the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre’s road-tested musical adaptation of Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, co-directed by Bryna Wasserman and Rachelle Glait, will return to the Segal for another run, marking the 10th anniversary of the death of the company’s founder.
Bryna Wasserman, who was in the audience Thursday, having driven up from New York for the occasion, was greeted with a standing ovation.
Subscriptions for the six-play 2013-2014 season are now on sale. Individual tickets for these productions won’t be available until Aug. 12.
Not all of the plays produced at the Centre belong to the subscription season, however. Individual ticket purchase is necessary for the five shows that will be staged the Segal Studio. These include Tableau d’hôte’s production of Sedna: Goddess of the Sea, Sept. 29 to Oct. 13, and Teesri Duniya’s Bhopal, by Rahul Varma, Jan. 15 to Feb. 2, 2014.
There will also be three plays for young audiences, two of them presented by Youtheatre: Dreaming Now, devised by Michel Lefebvre and Guillaume Lévesque, playing Oct. 31 to Nov. 8, and Horror Story, by Greg MacArthur, March 10 to 14. The third, The Meeting, by Jeff Stetson, a fictionalized encounter between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, will be presented by Black Theatre Workshop, Feb. 22 to March 1.
Details of the Segal Centre’s two musical series (jazz and classical), dance series, community theatre, lectures and arts education programming were also announced.
For more information on the Segal Centre Season call 514-739-2301 or visit www.segalcentre.org.