Third Street Theatre Announces 2013-2014 Season is all about Partnership
Calgary, AB – After an incredibly successful inaugural season – including Critter Award nominations for Best New Script (The Queer Theatre Creation Ensemble, This is How I Left), Best Actress in a Drama (Alyssa Bradac, This is How I Left), and a win for Best Solo Performance (Paul Welch, I Am My Own Wife), along with a Betty Mitchell Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Drama (Paul Welch, I Am My Own Wife) – Third Street Theatre is thrilled to announce our second season.
“Last season was a big risk for us,” says Paul Welch, Artistic Director. “It was an experiment and we had no idea how our vision would be received. The risk paid off beyond our wildest dreams. We are excited to launch our second season, which is all about partnership.”
The 2013-14 Season opens with Unsex’d by Jay Whitehead and Daniel Judes; the winner of our 2013 New Queer Playwriting Competition. It is a co-presentation with Lethbridge’s Theatre OUTRÉ. Set in the 1600s, two Elizabethan boy players vie for the role of a lifetime in the Bard’s newest play, Macbeth. “Unsex’d was a hit at both the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival and the Atlantic Fringe Festival, and we look forward to presenting this dark comedy in Calgary,” says Welch. Unsex’d runs October 29 – November 2, 2013, at 7:30pm and Saturday November 2 at 2PM at MOTEL in the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts.
Our first project of 2014 is Club Carousel: A Celebration of Calgary’s Gay History, a co-presentation with the Calgary Gay History Project and the High Performance Rodeo. “We invite audiences to connect with and celebrate Calgary’s LGBTQ history. It’s important to know how we got here and we want people to know we are proud of that,” says Artistic Producer, Jonathan Brower. The cabaret will feature a panel discussion on the evolution of Calgary’s queer community. Club Carousel will be presented in The Big Secret Theatre on January 30th, 2014, at 9:30pm.
Alyssa Bradac (MFA Directing, University of Calgary) will be directing Late: A Cowboy Song by Sarah Ruhl. Mary, always late and always married, is caught in a battle between societal expectations and experiencing true freedom. “As playwright Sarah Ruhl says, this show is ‘for all the cowboys of heart and mind who ride outside the city limits of convention,’” says Brower. “It’s a story about the search to find authenticity and true love outside the box.” Late: A Cowboy Song runs March 12th – 22nd, 2014 at 7:30pm at MOTEL in the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts. 2pm matinees March 15, 16 and 22nd.
Paul Welch returns to facilitate the Queer Theatre Creation Ensemble in a new project: The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus. “In 300 AD, two Roman soldiers covertly joined the secret sect of Christianity, where their love was united in a brother-making ceremony,” says Welch. “When the Romans found out, the two were executed for their religious beliefs and later canonized as paired saints. It’s an incredibly controversial and unexpected spin on our understanding of traditional partnerships, and I cannot wait to explore this topic further.” The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus runs April 23rd – May 3rd, 2014, at 7:30pm at MOTEL in the EPCOR CENTRE for the Performing Arts, with 2pm matinees on April 26, 27, and May 2nd.
Tickets are $15-$20 for our EPCOR CENTRE’s Motel series (Unsex’d, Late: A Cowboy Song, and The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus). Season passes for those three shows are available for $55. Ticket price for Club Carousel has not yet been announced.
