TORONTO, February 28, 2008 -- Theatre @ York caps its season with a theatrical sensation: American playwright Mary Zimmerman’s Tony Award-winning play Metamorphoses, directed by groundbreaking Canadian director Jillian Keiley. The show opens March 18 and runs to March 22 in Burton Auditorium at York University.
Hailed by Time magazine as the "theatre event of the year" in 2001, Zimmerman’s brilliantly inventive adaptation of the Roman poet Ovid’s epic Myths brings to enthralling life these classic tales of mortals and immortals punished or rewarded – or sometimes both – by the ‘morphings’ magically visited upon them by the gods.
A legendary cast of characters enacts the timeless foibles, desires and errors of humankind: the star-crossed lovers Cupid and Psyche; King Midas of the fateful golden touch; the musician Orpheus seeking to reclaim his beloved Eurydice from the Underworld; the adolescent Phaeton, yearning to drive his father Apollo’s chariot across the sky.
Jillian Keiley, a graduate of York’s theatre program, returns to her alma mater to direct a talented ensemble of fourth-year actors in Metamorphoses.
“Zimmerman brings a 21st century sensibility to stories that have moved the world since time immemorial,” Keiley said. “There is something in these tales that provokes a common understanding, a common horror and a common joy. It’s what has kept these stories alive for millennia.“
Keiley ranks among the brightest rising stars in Canadian theatre. The founding artistic director of Newfoundland’s Artistic Fraud theatre company, she is a winner of the Canada’s Council John Hirsch Prize (1997) and Canada’s most prestigious theatre award, the Siminovitch Prize (2004), in recognition of her “startlingly original and radically imaginative” work. Her stellar list of credits include Theatre Newfoundland Labrador’s Tempting Providence, which has toured across Canada, the UK and Australia, and garnered four-star reviews during its Toronto run at Factory Theatre last spring.
Working with Keiley on Metamorphoses is a creative team of undergrad theatre students handling all aspects of the production design and execution. The fact that Metamorphoses is, famously, set and around a large pool of water onstage is just one of the challenges facing the production team. Following Keiley’s vision, the entire set will be used as a musical instrument.
Praise for U.S. productions of Metamorphoses:
"Writer-director Mary Zimmerman's lovely, deeply affecting work . . . shows that theatre can provide not just escape but sometimes a glimpse of the divine." --Time
"Funny one moment, achingly sorrowful the next, Metamorphoses somehow manages both to lift you out of the moment you're living in and speak to it with piercing directness." -- Wall Street Journal
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Theatre @ York, the production company of York University's Theatre Department, has been entertaining audiences for more than 35 years. Each year, the company mounts a challenging season of plays drawn from the contemporary and classical repertoire, featuring some of Canada's most promising stage talent.
York’s theatre program has long been a springboard for some of Canada’s finest theatre artists. Alumni include screen and stage actors Rachel McAdams, Tamara Bernier, Thom Marriott, Patrick Galligan, Tara Rosling and Jennifer Gould; directors Richard Rose, Jim Millan and Soheil Parsa; playwrights Djanet Sears, Diane Flacks and Sally Clark; and stage designers Charlotte Dean, Renée Brode and Deeter Schurig.
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Theatre @ York’s production of Metamorphose is part of the third annual York Fine Arts Festival (March 11-31), spotlighting the resident talent in the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University. Also featured in the festival is a dramatic workshop production of Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf (March 13-15). Ines Buchli directs young actors from York’s graduate and third-year performance workshops in Heaney’s brilliant re-telling of the 11th century Anglo-Saxon epic, recounting the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the ferocious monster Grendel. (Nobel laureate Heaney received an honorary doctorate from York in 1996.) Other Theatre Department events in the festival are the theatre studies showcase Inter/play (March 13 & 16) and Scenes by Design (March 26-29), an exhibition of original costumes and accessories, set and lighting designs, props and stage maquettes. Details at: www.yorku.ca/finearts/festival
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What: Theatre @ York presents Metamorphoses directed by Jillian Keiley
When:
Previews March 16 & 17 at 7:30pm and March 18 at 1pm
Opening March 18 and runs to March 22 at 7:30pm nightly*; plus matinee March 20 at 1pm.
*No performance March 21 (Good Friday)
Where: Burton Auditorium, York University, 4700 Keele St. [map]
Admission: $15 / students & seniors $10. Previews: March 16 PWYC / March 17 & 18 $5
Box Office: 416.736.5888 | www.yorku.ca/perform/boxoffice
Media contact:
Amy Stewart, Communications, Faculty of Fine Arts, York U
416.736.2100 ext. 20421 | amy.stewart@yorku.ca
