Theatre St. Thomas announces a 45th season featuring Improv by an acclaimed STU Alumnus, the Maritime premiere of a play about one of the most exuberant yet tense moments in our country’s history, and a fierce Ancient Greek revel.
In choosing this season’s plays, STU faculty member and TST artistic producer Robin C. Whittaker started from an interest in programming variety so that students and audiences can immerse themselves in different times, places, and styles.
“TST’s unique niche in the Fredericton theatre community,” says Whittaker, “is partially built on the fact that we can offer STU students, and Fredericton audiences, shows that other companies can’t in one of the greatest, flexible performance spaces east of Montréal. And we can do so by showcasing STU’s incredible student talent on and offstage working alongside members of the Fredericton theatre community.
“TST is a great motivator for students pursuing any and all of our liberal arts programs,” added Whittaker. “It builds teamwork even as it offers pre-professionalizing theatre experience. Compared to other extra-curricular university theatre groups across Canada, TST’s mixture of professional leadership and programming diversity in a top-notch Black Box theatre really makes STU stand apart.”
To start the season, Marcel St. Pierre’s Unrehearsed & Unprepared will take Fredericton audiences on a hilarious one-hour improv romp akin to the Who’s Line Is It Anyway? short-form style. St. Pierre will train a handful of STU students for the show.
Michael Hollingsworth’s timely Trudeau and the FLQ, created by the company VideoCabaret, which Hollingsworth founded, uses VideoCab’s unique performances aesthetic to both send-up and laydown Canada’s political fervour during the hippy era of free love and ferocious Québec nationalism. Whittaker will direct.
“This is a theatre company and an aesthetic I’ve idolized for years, on both visceral and intellection levels,” says Whittaker. “This will be a unique experience our audiences (and our actors!) will be talking about for years.”
The season concludes with Euripides’s The Bacchae, which will transform the Black Box into the home of ribald Bacchanalia delights amid the fierce conflicts of the gods. STU Drama professor and artistic producer of Fredericton’s Solo Chicken Productions, Lisa Anne Ross, directs.
Auditions are happening this weekend, beginning Friday September 18 at 4 p.m. at The Black Box Theatre, St. Thomas University. No preparations or sign-up required. Simply bring your enthusiasm. Monologues and scenes will be provided.
For more information, email TST Artistic Producer and Faculty Advisor Dr. Robin. C. Whittaker at rwhit@stu.ca.
Visit Theatre St. Thomas online.
