The CENTAUR THEATRE's Season Launch swept us away!

From Left to right top row: Roy Surette, Artistic and Executive Director of the Centaur Theatre,  Vanessa Rigaux, Outreach Coordinator & Eloi Savoie, Communications Director;  Johanna Nutter, behind podium, with cast and crew for CHLORINE: Florence Longpré, Niko, Linda Smith, Kat Lemieux: presented from 19.10 - 29.10.2016 / Left to right bottom row: François Archambault playwright YOU WILL REMEMBER ME presented 07.03 - 02.04.2017;  Mike Nadel, Just for Laughs; Annabel Soutar, playwright THE WATERSHED presented 08.11 - 04.12.2016; Mark Crawford playwright and actor BED AND BREAKFAST presented 25.04 - 21.05.2017
Photos © Lena Ghio 2016

Last week I attended the Season Launch 2016-2017 of THE CENTAUR THEATRE. In Theatrical style the bar was set up with flying balloon posters and one real basket with ropes to whisk us away to the dream world of theatre.

The plays are in chronological order of presentation:

CONSTELLATIONS from October 4 to 30, 2016
Written by Nick Payne, directed by Peter Hinton 
This play explores love as it splinters into quantum mechanics as two lovers, Marianne, a physicist and Roland, a beekeeper, fall in love anew in multiple realities.

THE WATERSHED from November 8 to December 4, 2016
Written by Annabel Soutar, directed by Chris Abraham 
This play was ripped from the headlines. A young family crosses the country to learn about water as it relates to the Alberta oil sands and Ontario's Experimental Lakes Area.

BAKERSFIELD MIST from January 31 to February 26, 2017
Written by Stephen Sachs, directed by Roy Surette
Based on a real life event, the play tells the story of Maude Gutman who is convinced she bought a realJackson Pollock painting worth millions.

YOU WILL REMEMBER ME from March 7 to April 2, 2017
Written by François Archambault, translated by Bobby Theodore, directed by Roy Surette
A highly respected professor deals with memory loss but finds a way to reinvent the past and heal old wounds by confusing a cell phone-obsessed young girl for a lost family member.

CLYBOURNE PARK from April 4 to 30, 2017
Written by Bruce Norris, directed by Ellen David
A very important piece on racial relations that picks up Lorraine Hansberry's seminal play A Raisin in the Sun to 2009 when white families are trying to buy homes in the same neighborhood where the drama unfolded for a black family in 1959.

BED AND BREAKFAST from April 25 to May 21, 2017
Written by Mark Crawford, directed by Ashlie Corcoran
A very funny play about what happens when a homosexual couple opens a bed and breakfast in a tiny tourist town. VERY FUNNY!

From the series Centaur's Brave New Look 2016 selection, CHLORINE will be presented this fall from October 19 to 29, 2016. The play is based on a true life tragedy that made a young girl crippled for life and an unlikely friendship. Translated and directed by Johanna Nutter.

Then there are the events to look forward to: URBAN TALES - WILDSIDE THEATRE FESTIVAL - and a special presentation of this year's META big winner, HOSANNA with this year's META winners Eloi ArchamBaudoin and Davide Chiazzese. A play by Michel Tremblay that explores the tourments of transgendered individuals. Playing July 6 to 23, 2017 - Directed by Mike Payette.

This month, you can see the play PILLOW TALK an essay on dreaming with Dulcinea Langfelder.

PS Be sure to check out the special subscription offers.

-LENA GHIO