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Culture Stage

Artists to watch

Rating: NNNNN


DAVID JANSEN
Who: Actor in The Arabian Night , a hot new German play that’s like Hitchcock meets Sheherazade.

Buzz: Just back from two years in England, where he worked with director Peter Hall, Jansen – a sharp performer who’s always worth watching – makes a welcome return to the T.O. stage.

ELIZABETH BROMSTEIN
Who: Singer/dancer in Every Night’s Hot At The Va Va Voom , A cheeky vaudeville-style musical about a burlesque dancer and other half-naked women chasing their showbiz dreams in 1940s New Jersey.

Buzz: NOW music writer Bromstein waxes bitchy about other performers’ shortcomings, so let’s see if she can deliver the goods herself. Her experience in burlesque troupe the Scandelles should come in handy.

ANNA CHATTERTON and EVALYN PARRY
Who: Actors in Frances, Mathilda & Tea , a dark comedy about two sisters who hold an annual birthday party for their dead ma.

Buzz: Last year the co-creators (with director Karin Randoja ) deservedly walked home with the SummerWorks Jury Prize for their Edward Gorey-esque Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine. Their new show looks like it’s also filled with wordplay, sardonic observations and physicality. More of the same, or something new?

ADAM PETTLE
Who: Actor in Fish Shack , a northern noir comedy set on a cold January day in the ice-bound structure of the title.

Buzz: Better known as a playwright (Zadie’s Shoes, Sunday Father), Pettle’s also performed in his own Therac 25. What are his acting chops like when he tackles someone else’s writing?

HUME BAUGH
Who: Actor in Woody , an adult version

of the Pinocchio story, with the former wooden boy working in the porn trade.

Buzz: Baugh and playwright Michael Maclean previously collaborated on the riveting Smoke. Will this new solo show burn up the stage the way Smoke did?

ED GASS-DONNELLY
Who: Playwright/director of Descent , an interwoven series of narratives in which five people search for an escape from pain and isolation.

Buzz: After spending four years directing short films by Judith Thompson and James Harkness, Gass-Donnelly – who’s written and directed a number of indie plays – returns to the theatre. How’s his stagecraft been affected by his time in the film world?

BRENDA KAMINO
Who: Actor in Suicide Notes , a play about a trio of people whose lives are connected through suicide notes.

Buzz: Kamino’s seen way too infrequently onstage (Dreams Of Blonde & Blue), so her grounded, thoughtful approach to acting should heat up this look at life, language and limits.

BELLTOWER THEATRE
Who: The collective artists behind The Unforgetting , about survival in Depression-era British Columbia.

Buzz: The folks behind last SummerWorks’ Ma Jolie – writer/director Alan Dilworth , performers Maev Beaty and Patrick Robinson – know how to tell ambitious stories with bold theatricality and playfulness. But is 1930s BC as theatrical as Ma Jolie’s fin-de-siécle Paris setting?

KILBY SMITH-McGREGOR


Who: Author of Charlotte (unfinished) , a semi-autobiographical look at a young Jewish artist in 30s Berlin.

Buzz: Smith-McGregor has worked with Stranger Theatre and Nightwood. Let’s see how she applies her feminist imagination to a historic figure caught up in opera, painting and philosophy, a world soon to catch fire on several levels.

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