News: Segal Announces adventurous and audacious 2012-13 season

John Gilbert, Musical director of Guys and Dolls (via: frog)

PAUL’S BABY

Segal Centre Announces It’s 2012 – 13 Season

joel fishbane

“Paul Flicker, this is your baby this year,” said the Segal Centre’s Executive Director, Manon Gauthier at today’s press conference to announce their 2012 – 13 artistic season. Flicker, who took over for former Artistic Director Bryna Wasserman, is the driving force behind this new season – and if it’s a baby then it’s one that’s going to keep a lot of Montrealers up late at night. With four world premières, three musicals, a Hollywood star, the first lady of Canadian theatre, an  international co-production and a slew of multi-racial shows, the Segal has announced its boldest season in years.

Review: Vigil

Marcel Jeannin and Kim Yaroshevskaya (photo: Andrée Lanthier)

Are you dead yet?

Darkness and Lite at The Segal

by Nanette Soucy

In Morris Panych’s Vigil, at the Segal Centre, in co-production with Rideau Vert, we meet Grace, a bed-ridden, silent crone who is besought by a houseguest come to watch over her and tend to her affairs as her life draws to a close.  Kempt, has dropped everything to travel a thousand miles to care for the auntie he spent his tortured childhood wishing he were.  Impatient for his host to kick the bucket, he spends the rest of her life unloading the rage and brimstone of his traumatic childhood in the care of an alcoholic father and a mother who desperately wanted a girl. Before Kempt pesters Grace to death, we encounter a dramatic plot twist.

Review: Scientific Americans

Michael Blake (photo credit: Andrée Lanthier)

Mighton by the Numbers

Sidemart at Segal examines issues and offers entertainment

by Chris Lane

We all know that working for the military can take over your life. And that they are always watching you. Or is it the Soviets who are watching you? Scientific Americans, by Canadian playwright John Mighton, presents numerous questions and possible answers in a sharp, witty and multifaceted depiction of a young scientist getting drawn into the harsh world of American military research.

Review: The Play's the Thing

Paul Hopkins (l) and James Kidnie

(photo: Andrée Lanthier

This Play Is Indeed The Very Thing

Broadway production values at Segal

By Byron Toben

The Play's The Thing provides a humorous antidote to the Segal Centre's last show, the gripping but intense Equus.

In the early years of the 20th century, Ferenc Molnar reigned supreme among Continental European playwrights as did Ibsen in Norway, Chekov in Russia and Shaw in England. He wrote some 40 plays, became rich and lived high on the hog until encroaching Nazism forced this witty Jewish Hungarian  writer to flee to New York, where the movie version of his play The Swan starred Grace Kelly and Carousel, the musical version of his play Liliom, became a stage and cinema hit.

CharPo's Picture of The Week, May 6, 2011

You won't find many theatre photos as clean

and evocative as Andrée Lanthier's 

portrait of the great Theodore Bikel (r) with Jamie Mayers

from Segal's Lies My Father Told Me.

Review: Blithe Spirit (Segal)

By Richard Burnett, from Hour (with permission)

Noel Coward’s 1941 play Blithe Spirit – written to lift the morale of Londoners during The Blitz – is the archetypal British sophisticates comedy that’s been pleasing audiences for decades. Its 2009 run at NYC’s Schubert Theatre (starring a dashing Rupert Everett and Angela Lansbury, who won a 2009 Tony Award for her performance) was widely considered a definitive remounting (and this reporter enjoyed it very much). So could Montreal’s Segal Theatre – with decidedly less cash and star-power – be up to the task? Well, I’m happy to report, they are. The Segal set is really beautiful, worthy of a Broadway stage, and the cast – especially Kelli Fox as Ruth Condomine and Gemme James Smith as the ghostly Elvira – are excellent in a sparkling, booze-soaked comedy about life and the afterlife – and, of course, murder. This production would make Noel Coward himself proud.

Blithe Spirit plays at the Segal Theatre until Dec 12. Surf to www.segalcentre.org