Against the Grain Theatre is the kind of company for those who don’t think grand – at least in terms of oversize productions.
A lot of the company’s work is opera-based – it’s twice staged a contemporary and often striking version of La Bohème and offered an evening of arias sung by villainous operatic characters – but Against the Grain also includes actors, dancers, writers and some visual artists.
The troupe gets to weave some of these people into its latest production, The Seven Deadly Sins (And Holier Fare). Its centrepiece is Kurt Weill’s cabaret The Seven Deadly Sins, featuring singer Lindsay Sutherland Boal, with choreography by Matjash Mrozewski. The performance will be in German, with English surtitles by artistic director Joel Ivany. The male chorus includes Graham Thomson, Derek Kwan, Andrew Love and Giles Tomkins.
The “holier” part of the vocal program is a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Canticle II, Abraham And Isaac, a mini-dramatic cantata drawn from the Chester mystery play cycle. It features Christopher Mayell as Biblical father Abraham and Erin Lawson as his son.
The evening also includes a pair of two-piano works, John Adams’s Hallelujah Junction and Steve Reich’s Piano Phase, performed by Christopher Mokrzewski and Daniel Pesca. The latter piece has dancers Kate Franklin and Tina Fushell dancing to Mrozewski’s choreography.
There’s more Britten and another full-length opera this season from Against the Grain: a May production of the composer’s The Turn Of The Screw, based on Henry James’s ghost story.
See listing.
Theatrical tweets
The Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) celebrates World Theatre Day (March 27) with its second annual One-Tweet Play Challenge.
The organization asks aspiring playwrights to compose a full play in a single tweet – that’s 140 characters or fewer. Tricky.
You can submit your entry directly to Twitter, using the hashtag #PGC, to PGC’s Facebook page or to communications@playwrightsguild.ca.
The challenge runs through March 26, with all the plays posted on PGC’s website on World Theatre Day.
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