SideMart making some smart moves - Pat Donnelly, The Gazette

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February 4, 2012

SideMart making some smart moves

By Pat Donnelly, GAZETTE THEATRE CRITIC, February 3, 2012

MONTREAL - SideMart Theatrical Grocery is the fastest-rising brand in English-language theatre in Quebec.

Director Andrew Shaver and company got their start in no-budget alternative theatre back in 2006, presenting David Mamet’s American Buffalo at the MainLine Theatre. They still do edgy, thought-provoking work. But this year, they’re swimming full speed ahead in the mainstream, with productions featured in the subscription seasons of our two major anglophone theatres: Centaur Theatre and the Segal Centre.

And they’re not limiting themselves to the local.

This week, Shaver was rehearsing a production of John Mighton’s Scientific Americans, to be presented in association with the Segal Centre, which covers most of the costs. It begins previews Sunday and officially opens Thursday. This is an early Mighton work, about the moral dilemmas of scientists, by a man who rules the intellectual upper level of English-Canadian playwriting.

Later this spring, Shaver will be preparing the remount of the company’s first original musical, Haunted Hillbilly, for Centaur Theatre, which has purchased it from SideMart for a month-long run. Last season, SideMart’s premiere production of Morris Panych’s Gordon, at the Segal Studio, drew rave reviews and garnered a best-actor MECCA Award for Chip Chuipka. The company’s latest cabaret show, Dick Powell’s In the Mood for Jazz, was a runaway hit at Centaur Theatre’s Wildside Festival last month.

Shaver says it feels good to have two shows at the major anglo Montreal theatres this year. “Especially at the Segal,” he said, “after working four years at the Segal Studio.” The company has been performing there regularly since 2007, inaugurating the space with its production of the Irish play Trad.

“It was really exciting when Bryna (Wasserman) and Paul (Flicker) asked us last year if we’d be interested in doing something on the mainstage,” Shaver said. They settled on the Mighton work, which premiered in New York in the late 1980s, then went on to win the 1988 Dora Award in Toronto.

“Mighton is a brilliant man,” said Shaver. “He’s a philosopher and a mathematician, as well as a playwright. I really find him inspirational. His plays are so full of big ideas, but so accessibly put.”

Shaver’s ideas are pretty big, too. Last May, SideMart presented a work-in-progress created with playwright Greg MacArthur in Toronto as part of the Canadian Stage Festival of Ideas and Creation. It was a group autobiography titled The Decameron or Things We Left Behind.

“We’re working dates for Toronto,” Shaver said.

“We’re going to take it to Dublin and, hopefully, Montreal in the fall.”

Shaver credits the Stratford Festival, where he spent four seasons, with broadening his horizons. “That’s where I met Morris (Panych) and so many other actors and directors. It just expanded my world.” And he came to realize he didn’t need to be there all the time. He turned down an offer to return to Stratford this season, in order to devote himself to SideMart.

He intends to go back, however, as does Trent Pardy, another SideMart member who spent four seasons at the festival. Pardy is about to move to Toronto, Shaver said, and the plan is to establish a SideMart beachhead there.

Shaver was born in Calgary and was raised in several North American cities. He arrived in Montreal about 10 years ago, after studying theatre at Queen’s University and at the Lecoq school in Paris. His territorial loyalties are divided. But he does love Montreal and he’s tired of our fair city being compared to Toronto as a kind of “Kansas City to New York.”

He’d like to upgrade that to “a Philadelphia to Toronto’s New York.”

And in so doing, he’d like to make SideMart into the Arcade Fire of Montreal theatre companies, rooted here but conquering the world.

He’s choosing his playwrights well. Landing the premiere of Panych’s Gordon was a coup. And reviving a Mighton work, which has lain dormant (according to the playwright) for more than a decade, is another smart move.

Mighton, who is an adjunct professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto, will deliver a lecture at the Segal Centre Sunday at 11 a.m. He’ll be talking about the transformative power of scientific knowledge, as well as the play.

Mighton is in the prime of his theatre career, having received two Governor General’s Awards, the Siminovitch Award and the Order of Canada. He has many hits behind him (Half Life, Possible Worlds, The Little Years) as well as two bestselling non-fiction books, The Myth of Ability (2003) and The End of Ignorance (2007). His math foundation JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies), which was set up to prove that anyone can learn math, is taking him on yet another, parallel journey.

Tracked down at a hotel room in Seattle, where he was attending the opening ceremonies of the Gates Foundation Visitor Centre this week, Mighton said he’s fascinated with the paradox of science:

“Science has given us more ways to kill each other,” he said. “But I think science may be the only thing that can save us.”

While Scientific Americans deals with the moral quandaries of two scientists who are concerned about the possible negative impact of their research, his next play, titled Risk, will focus on 19th-century medicine, he said.

In Seattle, Mighton was one of five “social entrepreneur” panellists chosen from around the globe to talk about their unique approaches to changing the world. (His being JUMP.)

“I’m thrilled to be here,” he said. “It’s such an honour.”

Mighton said he’s curious to see if Scientific Americans will “stand up” over the years. But he confessed to being a bit out of the loop about theatre these days.

“I founded a charity to teach kids math,” he said, “and it’s sort of taken over my life.”

Scientific Americans begins previews Sunday and opens Thursday at the Segal Centre, 5170 Côte Ste. Catherine Rd.; continues through Feb. 26. $22 to $44. 514-739-7944; segalcentre.org.

pdonnell@montrealgazette.com

Read the article online: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/SideMart+making+some+smart+moves/6099295/story.html#ixzz1lQKsXxkg

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