Past productions

Winter 2020 productions

Tickets: goodnightdesdemona.bpt.me

March 6-13, 2020

Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) by Anne-Marie MacDonald Directed by Thrasso Petras Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre  Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is an exuberant comedy and feminist revisioning of Shakespeare's Othello and Romeo and Juliet. It takes us from a dusty office in Canada's Queen's University, into the fraught and furious worlds of two of Shakespeare's best-known tragedies, and turns them upside-down. Constance Ledbelly is the beleaguered spinster academic, and unlikely heroine who embarks on a quest for Shakespearean origins and, ultimately, her own identity. When she deciphers an ancient and neglected manuscript, Constance is propelled through a very modern rabbit hole and lands smack in the middle of the tragic turning points of each play in turn.

Her attempts to save first Desdemona, then Juliet, from their harrowing fates, result in a wild unpredictable ride through comedy and near-tragedy, as mild-mannered Constance learns to love, sword-fight, dance Renaissance-style, and master a series of disguises Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) a gender-bendy, big-hearted and crazily intelligent romp, where irony and anger sing in perfect harmony with innocence and poignancy. Warnings: Strobe Lighting Smoke and haze effects

TICKETS: jekyll.bpt.me

March 13-20, 2020

Jekyll By Hal Coase Directed by Madelyn Osborne, Douglas College Theatre Alumni A lethal clash between two lives, two truths and two dreams and in this explosive, female-driven, re-imagining of the classic novella. Presented as a multi-layered story that comes hurtling towards you with a blend of heightened physical theatre, projections, music, and open-ended audience interaction. Hal Coase's Jekyll dives into society's deepest flaws and fears from identity to revenge and tackles the question when does being yourself risk those around you? Hyde is a legendary motivational speaker turned global superstar. For the right price, she can fix any of your problems and give you the confidence to be who you've always wanted to be. Jekyll is a lonely person and, like all lonely people, she knows this. Drawn towards the promise of total liberation that Hyde has to offer, Jekyll soon becomes obsessed with her latest idol. When Hyde meets her number one fan, their collision brings the curtain down.

Running time: approx 90 minutes

Latecomer Rules: Allowed during scene 2 (after opening movement piece) during Hyde's show until the end of that scene.

Fall 2019

The Departments of Theatre and Stagecraft & Event Technology are proud to present our Fall 2019 productions running November 1-15, 2019.

William Shakespeare's 

The Tragedie of Macbeth

Adapted and directed by Jeffrey Renn

November 1 - 8, 2019

Douglas College Studio Theatre

This Halloween week 
9 Women
Bloody-Bold-Resolute
Shakespeare's 
MACBETH 

Switch Triptych

By Adriano Shaplin

Directed by Deborah Neville

November 8 - 15, 2019

Laura C Muir Performing Arts Theatre

Set in a 1919 New York City telephone exchange on the eve of automation, Switch Triptych focuses on three Bell Atlantic 'hello girls' and their luckless male managers. Together they make up a microcosm of post-war urban society where the meanings of gender, technology and labor are shifting underfoot. A sexy play about labor history and clashing ideologies written by Edinburgh Fringe First winner Adriano Shaplin.

Winter 2019

Cinderella Waltz

By Don Nigro

Directed by Claire Fogal

March 8 - 15, 2019

Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre

Part Monty Python, part Brothers Grimm, Don Nigro's Cinderella Waltz, directed by Claire Fogal, is a twisted and hilarious retelling of the world's most popular fairy tale, with dashes of Beauty and the Beast and Snow White thrown in. Rosey Snow and her stepsisters Regan and Goneril live on a farm near Cinderville with their parents Mr. and Mrs. Snow, but life changes when the Prince and his Troll drop by. Zed, the village idiot, and Mother Magee, the raucous fairy godmother, are also full of surprises as the play reinvents what constitutes a truly happy ending. Veering far from the land of Disney, grotesque farce and romantic fantasy blend in this modern fairy tale.

Showtimes for Cinderella Waltz:

7 Stories

By Morris Panych

Directed by Thrasso Petras

March 15-22, 2019

Douglas College Studio Theatre 

If eyes are the windows to the soul, what then, are windows? 7 Stories is a meta-theatrical black comedy that gives the audience a view into the lives of extraordinary characters who interrupt and often unwittingly challenge the man standing on their ledge, trying "to get a better perspective on [his] situation.”  An iconic Canadian play, 7 Stories, in the 30th anniversary of its first production, remains as relevant as the day it was written. It is an examination of existential contemplation that is filled with equal parts mirth and charm. Never has staring into the abyss looked more uplifting. 

Showtimes for 7 Stories:

Fall 2018

Ted Hughes's 

Tales from Ovid

Adapted by Tim Supple and Simon Reade

Directed by Kathleen Duborg

November 2-9, 2018 

Douglas College Studio Theatre

Ovid's tales, which he wrote around 1 BCE, became Metamorphoses, a literary conduit for Chaucer, Shakespeare, and more recently, Marvel comics. This adaptation, itself adapted from a version by the English poet Ted Hughes, is a piece of theatre that plays with transformation and aspiration and shows what happens when the mythic plane is exposed to human chaos.

Showtimes for Tales from Ovid:

The Canadian Premiere of Heritage

By Nicola McCartney

Directed by Deborah Neville

November 9-16, 2018

Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre 

Saskatchewan, 1914. Sarah McCrea stands on the threshold of womanhood, facing a bright future in a new country. Leaving Ulster behind, Sarah and her family carve out their existence in an emerging community. Drawn to one another through tales of a near-forgotten, mythical Ireland, Sarah and her neighbour Michael Donaghue become firm friends. But when Sarah and Michael's relationship deepens and his determination to define his identity grows, centuries of old conflict threaten to blight their love. And for Sarah, the realization dawns that old battles are being fought on new territory.

Showtimes for Heritage:

Antigone

Adapted from Sophocles by Kathleen Weiss

Directed by Thrasso Petras

March 9-16, 2018

Douglas College Studio Theatre

A classical tragedy in which a woman vows to bury her brother's body, thereby defying what she considers a cruel, heartless political edict. This contemporary adaptation by Kathleen Weiss takes Sophocles' intellectual argument--a debate between secular and spiritual power--and works toward an extended metaphor about the aftermath of war, its physical and psychological consequences, and the destruction that occurs when extreme polarities will not move toward reconciliation. The actors work with image and heightened physicality, moving beyond naturalism, to tell a story that is larger than life but central to our core beliefs. 

Showtimes for Antigone:

Lion in the Streets

By Judith Thompson

Directed by Claire Fogal

March 16-23, 2018

Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre

Lion in the Streets by award-winning Canadian playwright Judith Thompson tells the stories of many interconnected lives, and one little girl whose experience threads them all together. Straying into magic realism, the play explores moments of transformation in which polite masks and civilized behaviour fall away as the truth comes roaring out of the cage we like to keep it in. Maybe Canadians aren't so nice after all...

Showtimes for Lion in the Streets:

Fall 2017 productions

Concord Floral

By Jordan Tannahill

Directed by Kathleen Duborg

November 3-10, 2017

Douglas College Studio Theatre

Suburban teenagers have taken over a one million-square-foot abandoned greenhouse as their hang out. When two friends discover an awful secret there, they go looking for answers and set off an unstoppable chain of events. A re-imagining of Boccaccio's medieval novellaThe Decameron, in which teens must flee a mysterious plague they have brought upon themselves, Concord Floral is an exciting and thought-provoking play by one of Canada's best young playwrights.

Showtimes for Concord Floral:

The Diviners

By Jim Leonard, Jr.

Directed by Deborah Neville

November 10-18, 2017

Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre

Disillusioned preacher C.C. Showers takes work on a farm in a fictional Depression-era Indiana town called Zion. Here, he befriends an intellectually disabled teenage boy, Buddy, who is terrified of water, yet has an extraordinary gift: he can divine underground aquifers. When the community discovers that Showers is an ex-preacher, they believe that he was sent to their community as a sign from God. This sets in motion events that lead to irreversible consequences for Buddy and Showers. A story about love, companionship, and salvation, The Diviners is a touching and endearing play. 

Showtimes for The Diviners:

Winter 2017 

Out of the Garden

A Short History of Sexuality Selections from plays by Caryl Churchill and Don Nigro Directed by Claire Fogal March 10-17, 2017 Douglas College Studio Theatre

A short history of sex since Eve bit the apple, Out of the Garden tells the story of Eve in four different eras, tracking our journey out of the Garden of Eden and the evolution of sexuality in Western Civilization. 

Is Eve guilty? Could Alice be a witch? Will Elizabeth get horizontal with David? And when will Meredith love a real man more than she loves Frankenstein? Enter the tarot reading of Madame Blavatsky and you may get more than you came for.

Showtimes for Out of the Garden: 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

By William Shakespeare Directed by Thrasso Petras March 17-24, 2017 Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre

Shakespeare's most popular comedy-of-errors is brought to life in a gutsy production that pits lover against lover, lost in the darkest of woods, where every misstep can bring an actor to the point of making an ass of himself. 

Showtimes for A Midsummer Night's Dream:

Fall 2016

Love and Information  By Caryl Churchill Directed by Cheryl Swan November 3-10, 2016 Douglas College Studio Theatre

Someone can't get a signal. Someone's not ready to talk.  Someone's her sister's mother. Someone told the police. Someone got a message from the traffic lights. Someone never felt like this before.   Caryl Churchill's play is a theatrical collage which explores the relationship between our emotions and our intellect, our free will and our DNA, our interconnected world and our isolated selves, and love and information. Extremely complex and highly interpretable, this fast-moving kaleidoscope is comprised of over 40 scenes and 80 characters played by 10 actors.   Churchill scrapes the paint off our daily lives and invites us to look closely at what lies beneath.

Blackout  By Davey Anderson Directed by Deborah Neville November 10-18, 2016 Laura C. Muir Performing Arts Theatre This is the true story of a 15-year-old boy charged with attempted murder who tries to piece together his life's events that have brought him to a secure care unit, and threaten to keep him there. This is also the Canadian premiere of this play by Scottish playwright Davey Anderson!