CABARET

season sponsor

title sponsor

In tribute to Gloria & Joseph Gilbert WELCOME

What good is sitting alone in your room? I’ve always wanted to direct something in this gem of a theatre that would show off how versatile it is. This stage is a wonderfully conceived space, full of secret corners and magic possibilities. When pondering what show I could direct here to really explode Supporting and celebrate the space, Cabaret was sug- gested. Immediately I realized how perfect it would be to transform this stage into an underground club in the spirit of a real enter- the arts, tainment house—a cabaret—where anything goes. Everything about this production has been imagined anew: the journey you took through the backstage area, the chance to musical was created, it looked back at a time locally. buy a drink or two, and the opportunity to when a certain country was overtaken by a experience a bar that contains echoes of the leader who put on display the hatred he felt past as well as signs of the present. Throw towards anyone different than himself. He in a gifted gang of artists who not only sing, managed to destroy millions of lives. Now, dance, and act, but can also play instru- our production of this musical looks to the ments. These multitalented performers—who present, and acts as a terrifying warning: will be up close—are all part of the celebra- yet again, without notice, evil can slip in and tion of this incredible space. take over. Is history repeating itself? Art is Cabaret is considered one of the greatest at its most powerful when it reflects back to musicals of all time, and in 2019, it takes us the world we live in—here, the result is a on a whole new life. I discovered how eerily classic musical that becomes highly relevant relevant this musical has become once more. again, considering the powerful leaders that Our goal with this immersive experience is dominate our world today. Every song and to celebrate you, titillate you, and remind every scene emphasizes an idea that we all you of the evil hiding in the shadows — all in now know to be real: when those who take one musical bundle. Life is a Cabaret. Which power do so using incredible distractions, song, what act, are you willing to perform? all rules of decency and humanity can be challenged, restricted, and thwarted with- Each year, through various donations dennis garnhum out realizing where it will lead. When this and sponsorships, we are committed artistic director to helping our local communities. We would like to acknowledge the history of the traditional territory in which the Grand Theatre operates. We We’re proud to be the 2018/2019 season would also like to respect the longstanding relationships of the three local First Nations groups of this land and sponsor of the Grand Theatre. place in Southwestern Ontario. The three First Nations communities closest in proximity to the Grand are the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation (part of the Anishinaabe), the Oneida Nation of the Thames (part of the Haudenosaunee) and the Munsee-Delaware Nation (part of the Leni-Lunaape).

18-1626 The Grand Theatre_Ev2.indd 1 20/08/2018 12:06:49 PM Spriet Stage, April 9 to May 11, 2019 Opening Night April 11 Cabaret Book by Joe Masteroff Based on the Play by John Van Druten and Stories by Christopher Isherwood Music by John Kander, Lyrics by Fred Ebb Original Production Co-Directed and Choregraphed by Rob Marshall and Directed by Sam Mendes

cast Bobby ISAAC BELL Sally Bowles TESS BENGER Emcee OLIVIA SINCLAIR-BRISBANE Cliff JAMES DALY Max PHOEBE HU MOTION PICTURE | TELEVISION | ANIMATION Ernst LAWRENCE LIBOR Herr Schultz W. JOSEPH MATHESON Fraulein Schneider CHARLOTTE MOORE bronstudios.com Fraulein Kost MARGARET THOMPSON The company also appear as the Kit Kat club boys and girls, as the musicians, and as all the denizens of this underground club. production team Director DENNIS GARNHUM Music Director WAYNE GWILLIM Choreographer CAMERON CARVER Set & Costume Designer ALEXANDRA LORD Sound Designer PAUL FUJIMOTO-PIHL Lighting Designer DANIEL BENNETT FOUNDERS Stage Manager KATERINA SOKYRKO Apprentice Stage Manager ANNA SPENCER Aaron L. Gilbert & Brenda Gilbert

Cabaret is presented by arrangement with Tams-Witmark Music Library Inc., 560 Lexington Ave, New York, New York, 10022.

The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production or distributing recordings on any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author’s rights and actionable under United States VANCOUVER LOS ANGELES NEW YORK TORONTO copyright law. For more information, please visit www.samuelfrench.com/whitepaper.

title sponsor

In tribute to Gloria & Joseph Gilbert In Tribute: Grand Gala Gloria & Joseph Gilbert The Gilbert Family’s roots to London, to the Grand Theatre, and to Cabaret run deep. 2019 “Dennis was always over at our house”, noted Gloria Gilbert recently, speaking of Dennis SAVE Garnhum, the Grand’s Artistic Director. When Dennis attended CCH in London, he THE became fast and furious friends with Shira, Date one of the Gilbert’s three children and was a fixture at the Gilbert home on St. Anthony Road. The Grand Theatre first presented theatrical performances, artworks, and June 13 Cabaret twenty years ago, and the Gilberts poetry readings under unimaginably diffi- fondly remember housing one of the actors cult conditions in the Nazi camp system. from that production. 2019 Gloria is quick to point out that from very SPRIET STAGE Joe and Gloria moved to London in 1972 and early ages, they exposed their children, Zvi, since then have left their mark on various Shira and Aaron to the arts — music, opera, programs services supporting the Jewish and the theatre. As parents with professional community including work with the National backgrounds based in science and medicine, Council of Jewish Women, London Jewish Joe and Gloria speak proudly of their three Foundation and London Community Hebrew of their children who have all have pursued Day School. They were honoured in 2007 for careers focussed in various aspects of the their community work by the Jewish National creative arts industry. Fund. When Cabaret was announced as part of I HAVE A Joseph, is a retired neuropathologist and the 2018–19 Season, Dennis reached out to former Vice-President, Research at Victoria youngest son, Aaron, one of the co-founders Hospital. He continues as Chair of the of BRON Studios and asked if he would con- Health Sciences Research Ethics Board sider honouring his parents, their passion for at Western University, a position he has London, for the theatre and for their ongoing held for the past eleven years. Gloria is a support of the Jewish community in London celebrated physiotherapist and continues to by sponsoring Cabaret in their honour. There DREAM was no hesitation. work in Independent Practice as an educator honouring and consultant. She opened the first pri- In semi-retirement, Gloria and Joe remain vately owned practice in London called The active with combined passions for family, Downtown Clinic, Physiotherapy & Health travel, learning and education. Joe teaches Counselling. in support of on a variety of topics, including the relation- Make a Difference Youth Programs and the High School Project Joe and Gloria speak passionately about a ship between music and Judaism, as well trip to the site of the Theresienstadt Ghetto, as Russian history. The cast and staff at the Tickets Tables in the Czech Republic, that fueled their Grand were given the extraordinary oppor- desire to learn more and educate others tunity to hear their valued perspectives on ea. $250 $2500 about that piece of history. Specifically, the complex and often misunderstood his- the thousands of Jewish professional and torical context of the story from Cabaret. We To book your tickets or to enquire about PRESENTED BY amateur artists that passed through the thank the Gilbert family for their combined Sponsorship Opportunities please contact: ghetto and the development of musical works, gifts to London and to the Grand Theatre. [email protected] COUNTERPROTESTERS DURING THE UNITE THE RIGHT 2 RALLY NEAR THE WHITE HOUSE ON THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF A WHITE NATIONALIST RALLY IN CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA (AUGUST 12, 2018.)

Fascism—the term refers broadly to author- the first, opened in 1933, and imprisoned itarian right-wing rule. But there’s another political dissidents, German Jews, Roma, important feature to fascist regimes: homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Us and Them state-sanctioned exclusion of those identified those deemed to display “anti-social” as “other,” typically part of an ultranation- behaviour. Before the war had even begun, “Tomorrow will come when the world is mine; alist agenda which promotes the interests of Germany started imprisoning Austrian one group of people above all others. We’ve Jews from annexed lands, and during 1938’s tomorrow belongs to me” seen this ideology in action on numerous Kristallnacht—or, the “night of the broken In 2017, Richard Spencer—an outspoken Germanic nationalist anthems, it was written occasions: in Germany’s Third Reich, for glass,” where Nazi soldiers vandalized and American white nationalist—took to Twitter specifically for the musical, to critique the example. Overtaken by a zealous leader, destroyed Jewish businesses and homes in an attempt to claim Cabaret’s “Tomorrow dangerous influence of Nazism. Moreover, Adolf Hitler, the country’s Nationalist in Berlin—the Nazis arrested and jailed Belongs to Me” as promoting his neo-Nazi as Kander points out, the song’s composer Socialist Party made quick work of contain- German Jews en-masse. ing and eventually eliminating those groups values. “Tomorrow belongs to us,” he is both Jewish and gay. The alt-right leader’s This forced exclusion of a particular identity who did fit the Nazi ideal. Concentration said. Jason Kander, Cabaret composer failure to understand the song’s proper group was not new: anti-semitism ran ram- camps were built and used by the Nazis from John Kander’s nephew, quickly stepped in, context, and especially its irony, is a telling pant prior to the Holocaust, and the repeated the very beginning of their regime: Dachau, pointing out that while the song emulates marker of the politics of our time. Russian Pogroms saw persistent violence GUEST ARTISTS

Isaac Bell Bobby FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Once, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Dream a Little Dream. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story (Thousand Islands Playhouse); The Wedding Singer (Hart House); Once (Neptune Theatre); No Chance in Hell (Toronto Fringe); Legally Blonde (Randolph Academy); The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Randolph Academy). isaac bell Tess Benger Sally Bowles FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: The Penelopiad. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): The Last Five Years (YRG Productions); Girls Like That (Tarragon); Mamma Mia! (Citadel); Grease (Elgin Winter Garden); Chasse Galerie (Soulpepper/Storefront); Top Girls, Cabaret, Sweeney Todd, Philadelphia Story, The Next Whiskey Bar (Shaw Festival); Sunday in the Park with George (TIFT); Anne of Green Gables (Charlottetown). Olivia Sinclair-Brisbane Emcee “ONLY A STRONG GERMANY CAN PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT TO ITS PEOPLE” ­— A NATIONAL SOCIALIST FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Footloose DEMONSTRATION IN BERLIN, 1931. tess benger (High School Project), Anything Goes (High School Project), Annie. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): MAMMA MIA! (Rainbow Stage); done against Jewish populations. This is not an “Other,” you must perceive them as less Beauty and The Beast: In Concert, And Then…She Did! (Angelwalk a history we have left in the past, and it is not human than yourself, and less worthy of Theatre); How to Succeed In Business, Shrek! The Musical, Footloose, In limited to a singular group. In 2012, con- belonging—an adversary rather than an ally. the Heights (Theatre Sheridan); Small Wonder (Canadian Musical flict began between the ethnically Burmese This particular outlook can be dangerous: it Theatre Project); The Walk (Incubation Project); Judith (Stratford Buddhist majority and the Muslim ethnic allows for persecution, discrimination, and Springworks Festival). OTHER: Graduate of Sheridan College Music minority Rohingyas in Myanmar, resulting exclusion in their worst forms. Theatre Bachelor’s degree as of June 2019. in hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas Karl Marx once remarked that history being driven from their homes, and denied repeats itself, “first as tragedy, then as farce.” James Daly Cliff citizenship rights. In 2015, the Turkish At first glance, this thought tracks well onto olivia sinclair- FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Debut. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): government began a campaign against the brisbane the political scene of 2019—once more, a Grand Hotel (Shaw Festival); Oh What A Lovely War (Shaw Festival); Kurds, including military campaigns in charismatic leader attempts to use identity Master Harold…and The Boys (Shaw/Obsidian); Peter and the Syria and Iraq, fearing that the Kurds may as a tactic to exclude the “others”; only this Starcatcher (Shaw); Sleeping Beauty (Ross Petty Productions); attempt to establish their own nation state. time, it seems like a bit of a joke: the tan, the The Rocky Horror Show (Sudbury Theatre Centre); Next to Normal And in 2016, Donald Trump campaigned for hats, and the constant media gaffs. But too (Clearwater Theatre). FILM AND TV CREDITS (SELECTED): U.S. President on a platform that included easily dismissing the events of our times as Letterkenny (Comedy Network); Saving Hope (CTV), Republic of Doyle promises to ban Muslims from the country mere farce is dangerous. After all, tomorrow (CBC). OTHER: Graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, and to build a wall to prevent Mexicans (and belongs to whomever steps in to claim it. www.ggagency.ca/daly, instagram: @jamespatrickdaly others from central and south America) from immigrating into the country. It would “Make America Great Again,” he said. james daly MEGHAN O’HARA These are examples of “Othering,” brought education and outreach coordinator to its incendiary extremes. “Othering” refers

to a particular mindset: to make someone Titanic This London Life The Runner Fully Committed Room world curious Every Brilliant Thing Grow Between Breaths London proud Honour Beat juno’s reward season 2019/20 season sponsor jeans ’n classics

subscribe today grandtheatre.com 519.672.8800 Phoebe Hu Max Charlotte Moore Fraulein Schneider FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Debut. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Robin Phillips’ Grand Theatre Company; Foreign Tongue (Next Stage Theatre Festival); Beauty and the Beast Gypsy, You Can’t Take It With You, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, (Young People’s Theatre); Comfort (Red Snow Collective/Native Side By Side By Sondheim. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): The Rocky Earth Performing Arts); We The Family (Hart House Theatre); Avenue Horror Show (Dora Mavor Moore Award); Les Misérables, , Q (Lower Ossington Theatre); 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling The Wizard of Oz (Mirvish); Annie, Blood Brothers, Marathon of Hope Bee, If We Were Birds (Randolph College/Annex Theatre). FILM AND (Drayton Entertainment); Shaw Festival (3 Seasons); Charlottetown TV CREDITS (SELECTED): Mayday, Paranormal Witness (Discovery); charlotte Festival (9 Seasons); Gypsy (Neptune Theatre). OTHER: Two solo phoebe hu Mail Order Murder (SYFY). OTHER: 15/16 Theatre 20 Emerging Artist moore albums — Friends of Mine - Songs From Canadian Musicals and Long Conservatory. Graduate of the BA Program at National Taiwan Road Back (all original material), both available on iTunes. University. Graduate and Recipient of the Triple Threat Award at charlottemoore.ca Randolph College for the Performing Arts. www.phoebehustudio.com Margaret Thompson Fraulein Kost FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Debut. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): Lawrence Libor Ernst Holiday Inn, The Little Mermaid, The Drowsy Chaperone, Honk!, FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Debut. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): Thoroughly Modern Millie (Drayton); Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Perfect American Idiot (Arts Theatre/West End); Footloose (International Wedding (SFT); Shrek, The Addams Family (Neptune Theatre); Evil lawrence libor Tour); Grease (Winter Garden, Toronto); Brighton Beach Memoirs margaret Dead: The Musical (Starvox Ent.). OTHER: Graduate of Sheridan (Harold Green); Once (The Citadel). FILM AND TV CREDITS thompson College’s Music Theatre Performance program. (SELECTED): Teacup Travels (CBBC); God Help the Girl (British Film Company); Skins Season 2 (E4). OTHER: Graduate of The Royal Dennis Garnhum Director Conservatoire of Scotland. FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Prom Queen: The Musical (High School Project), Chariots of Fire, Beethoven Lives W. Joseph Matheson Herr Schultz Upstairs, A Christmas Carol. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): World FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Could You Wait?, The Spitfire Grill, For premiere of musical The Little Prince (Theatre Calgary); Barber The Pleasure Of Seeing Her Again. THEATRE CREDITS: (SELECTED): of Seville (Florida Grand Opera/Opera Lyra/Vancouver Opera); The Rocky Horror Show (Magnus); The Angel And The Sparrow (Segal Timothy Findley’s The Wars (Theatre Calgary/Vancouver Playhouse); w. joseph Centre); The Times, They Are A’Changin’, The Jazz Singer (HGJT); From Director / Adapter of Lost: A Memoir (Theatre Calgary/Prairie dennis garnhum matheson Here To Eternity (MGR); The Little Prince (Theatre Calgary); Stratford Theatre Exchange/Neptune Theatre); Director / Adapter of King and Shaw Festivals; Jersey Boys (DanCap); Miss Saigon, TOMMY Lear (Theatre Calgary/Bard on the Beach); Carmen, La Traviata (Mirvish); Ragtime (LivEnt); Hank Williams LIVE – 1952 (performed (Pacific Opera); West Side Story (Bangkok University); Rat in the Skull cross-Canada). FILM AND TV CREDITS (SELECTED): Orphan Black, (Berkshire Theatre Festival); Stratford Festival (four seasons); Shaw Murdoch Mysteries, Odd Squad. OTHER: Writer/co-writer for The Times, Festival (six seasons). OTHER: Artistic Director of the Grand Theatre They Are A’Changin’; Could You Wait?; Sketching Sunshine (TOV); On The since 2016. Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary from 2005–2016. Rocks (TPM); Hank Williams LIVE - 1952; Laughing Matters (FST). Recipient of a Calgary Award for Community Achievement in Arts www.joematheson.com and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. Wayne Gwillim Music Director, Orchestral Adaptation Paul Fujimoto-Pihl Sound Designer FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Debut. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Over 30 productions as Technical Several seasons with the Shaw Festival and Stratford Festival as key- Director, including The Mountaintop, Silence, Buddy Holly. THEATRE board programmer and electronic music designer. Associate conduc- CREDITS (SELECTED): As Technical Director- 5 seasons at Tarragon tor of Strictly Ballroom, , Les Misérables, The Wizard of Oz, The Theatre; 2 seasons at Blyth Festival. OTHER: Paul attended Humber Sound of Music (Mirvish Productions); Music director and orches- College for Theatre Technical Production, is the Chair of the Ontario trator for Mary Poppins (Young People’s Theatre); Conductor for The Section of CITT/ICTS, serves on the Program Advisory Committee for wayne gwillim House of Martin Guerre - in concert (Charlottetown Festival). OTHER: paul fujimoto- Fanshawe College’s Theatre Arts — Technical Production Program, Originally from Saskatchewan, Wayne is a graduate of University of pihl and is director of TDArts, which provides professional development Toronto’s Faculty of Music. opportunities to Technical Directors. Paul has also mentored the last five Apprentice Technical Directors here at the Grand. Cameron Carver Choreographer FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Shrek, Elf, Miarcle on 34th Street, Joseph Katerina Sokyrko Stage Manager and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. High School Projects: West FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Silence (NAC remount), The Ladies Side Story, , Oklahoma, Fiddler on the Roof. THEATRE Foursome, PlayWrights Cabaret 2017, Julius Caesar (High School Project), CREDITS (SELECTED): As Director — Little Mermaid (Theatre Royal The Taming of the Shrew (High School Project). THEATRE CREDITS Bath — UK Theatre Award 2018); The Addams Family, The Wizard of (SELECTED): La Traviata, La Boheme, Les Feluettes, The Magic Flute cameron carver Oz (St. Lawrence College); As Movement Director/Choreographer katerina (Pacific Opera Victoria); Million Dollar Quartet, The Secret Mask, Alice — La Strada (The Other Palace — Dir. Sally Cookson), The Trojan sokyrko in Wonderland (Theatre Northwest); Selfie (Young People’s Theatre); Women (Bristol Old Vic Theatre — Dir. Sally Cookson); Manhattan 1837: The Farmers’ Revolt, The New Canadian Curling Club, The Pigeon Parisienne (The Other Palace — Alain Boublil). OTHER: Graduate of King, Mr. New Years Eve (Blyth Festival); Missing (Pacific Opera Sheridan College and The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (MA Theatre Victoria/City Opera Vancouver); Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Directing) www.cameron-carver.com and instagram: cam_carver Caesar (St. Lawrence Shakespeare Company); Twelfth Night (NAC); Stag and Doe (Festival Players of Prince Edward County); The Barber Alexandra Lord Set & Costume Designer of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, Tosca, The Magic Flute, Madama FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Debut. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): Butterfly, The Pirates of Penzance, Cinderella (Opera Lyra Ottawa). alexandra lord Rose, Bed and Breakfast, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Goat (Soulpepper UPCOMING: Assistant Stage Manager for Jumbo and Team on the Hill Theatre Company); World After Dark (Shannon Litzenberger Dance); anna spencer (Blyth Festival). The Philosopher’s Wife (Paradigm Productions); Shades (Esie Mensah Productions). FILM AND TV CREDITS: Born in the Maelstrom (Art & Anna Spencer Apprentice Stage Manager Essai). OTHER: Co-Founder of Triga Creative. FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Prom Queen: The Musical. THEATRE www.trigacreative.com CREDITS (SELECTED): The 39 Steps (Capitol Theatre); The Barber of Seville (Opera 5); Hound of the Baskervilles, Kingfisher Days, Stage Kiss Daniel Bennett Lighting Designer (Festival Antigonish); Oksana G. (Tapestry Opera); The Chocolate FOR THE GRAND THEATRE: Sound and Lighting Designer, Beethoven Soldier (Toronto Operetta Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Highland Arts Lives Upstairs; Interim Technical Director 18–19; Apprentice Theatre); L’Elisir d’Amore (Opera York); Les Misérables, Chicago, Into the daniel bennett Technical Director 17–18. THEATRE CREDITS (SELECTED): Lighting Woods (Savoy Theatre). OTHER: Graduate of Production Program at Designer: Paprika Festival 2018, Ten Creative Ways to Dispose of Your Ryerson University. Cremains (Neoteny Theatre); These Peaceable Kingdoms, we could be clouds (National Theatre School). Sound Designer: Specimen (Griffin McInnes); Much Ado (National Theatre School); Plucked (SummerWorks Performance Festival). Production Manager: Extremophiles (SummerWorks Performance Festival) Upcoming: Production Manager: Other Jesus (Public Recordings/EW&FCO/ Festival Transamériques) HURON STARLIGHT COUNTY MUSEUM TOURS

April 9, 2019 to Nov 3, 2019 Hang on to your hat and shake the dust off your boots, this exhibit will blow your socks off! Say it with Style is a quirky look at fashion idioms and expressions, featuring clothing, textiles and accessories from the Museum’s own collection.

HURON COUNTY MUSEUM 110 North Street, Goderich www.HuronCountyMuseum.ca

2019_GrandTheatre_Ad.indd 2 3/6/2019 12:15:51 PM

COMPASS New Play Development is dedicated to creating and premiering new work on the Grand’s stages. This program is dedicated to igniting imaginations by bringing a modern, unconventional, and brand new sense of theatre engagement to London. Starlight Tours is a musical drama based on events reported in Saskatchewan in the early 2000s that trace back to the 1970s. A series of investigations revealed a practice by the Saskatoon police of taking First Nations people to the city limits and abandoning them at the side of the OPEN MAY - OCTOBER Within these walls murderers, road in the dead of winter. The practice became known as “starlight tours.” children as young as 7 years old, We are thrilled to announce that Andrea Menard will be joining Starlight Tours as the book debtors unable to make payment, writer. Menard is a singer-songwriter, writer, and actor. A passionate advocate for reconcili- those suffering the ravages of mental ation and unity among nations, she conveys the richness of her Métis culture through her live illness, petty thieves and drunkards performances, recordings, and television appearances. She has released four award-winning would all sleep under the same roof. Visit the Huron Historic Gaol and albums: Simple Steps, Sparkle, Lift and The Velvet Devil, which was adapted for TV in 2006, and discover the stories of inmates and earned Andrea a Gemini nomination for her performance. Unreservedly engaged with the staff who lived at the Gaol between world, Andrea dedicates her work to the empowerment of the Indigenous and feminine voice. 1841 and 1972. We are excited and honoured to welcome Andrea to Starlight Tours.

HURON HISTORIC GAOL development 181 Victoria St., N Goderich PHOTO BY KRISTINE COFSKY sponsored by www.HuronCountyMuseum.ca

Gaol2019.indd 1 2019-02-21 5:30 PM 12th Annual OXFORD

StudioMAY10am 4 & 5,–Tour 5pm 2019

2019 Featured Authors: Mona Awad, Anthony De Sa, Alicia Elliott, Amy Jones, Andy McGuire, K.D. Miller, Nino Ricci, Anakana Schofield, Ian Williams, and Joshua Whitehead www.AliceMunroFestival.ca

AMF2019.indd 1 Dundas St. 2019-02-21 5:24 PM

Open 7 days a week for private functions and banquets All functions welcome day or night We cater office or home parties Two private party rooms

Book your next function with us. Call 519- 673- 0990 519-842-6151 • www.oxfordstudiotour.ca Follow the red signs to fi nd artists studios. Only some studios accept credit cards. Others will accept cash or cheque. contrast, immersive art forms aim to elimi- nate that distance, to not only bring the spec- tator close to the work of art, but actually, to pull them inside of it. The audience becomes a character in the story through their interac- tions with and responses to what’s happening all around them. In immersive theatre, the audience plays an active role in the perfor- mance—you are part of the story. There have been several recent examples of Canadian immersive theatre: in 2015, Sheridan College staged Brantwood, a site-specific musical that took place in a school, and allowed audiences to travel back through time, a class reunion that took place over the whole building, and across decades. In 2018, Talk is Free theatre created The Curious Voyage, a secretive experience that took a small number of audience members through a performance experience that began in Barrie, Ontario, and travelled all the way to London, UK, for a visceral musical Immersive Theatre experience of international scope. “Immersive” has become a ubiquitous 5-storey warehouse in Chelsea, which has The success of immersive technologies on term—a simple Google search yields ref- been turned into the 1930s era McKittrick the mass media market indicates a cultural erences to film technology like 3D IMAX, Hotel. There, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s desire to be absorbed by worlds other than motion effect chairs, VR glasses, art exhibits, Macbeth takes place all over the building, our own, to experience the unavailable, the restaurants, concerts, and—of course—the- in real time. Audience members wander unachievable, and the impossible. This is a atre. This new genre of art and entertain- the space, wearing ghostly masks, and trend that manifests not only in technolog- ment is becoming quite a phenomenon; but, encounter performers, scenes, and shreds ical advances such as Oculus Rift and 3D what exactly does it mean for something to be of the story, as they move through the space. IMAX films: live tweeting, “breaking news” “immersive”? Often, actors will interact with audience coverage, and point-of-view, or individual members, pulling them into the action and Immersive experiences surround the audi- perspective-based personal entertainments responding to their presence. The space is similarly attest to this desire to feel involved— ence, and invite you to plunge yourself into OPPOSITE: SLEEP NO MORE AT THE MCKITTRICK more interactive than a traditional theatre to be a participant rather than merely a spec- HOTEL, NEW YORK. THIS PAGE: SHERIDAN’S the story. In contrast to traditional theatre, CANADIAN MUSIC THEATRE PROJECT’S PRODUCTION set, allowing audiences to thoroughly look where the action happens up on a stage, in tator. Putting the audience at the heart of the OF BRANTWOOD. through and examine every inch of space immersive theatre, you step—intellectually, work, immersive theatre allows us to fulfill including dresser drawers, wardrobes, filing emotionally, but most importantly, phys- our desire to feel deeply about and connect cabinets, bookshelves—if you’d like, you can ically—into a world separate from your intimately to the art we experience. spend your whole visit rifling through Lady own. In theatre, the most commercially Macbeth’s doctor’s notes. successful example of immersive theatre is MEGHAN O’HARA Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, which has been Traditionally, there is distance kept between education and outreach coordinator running in New York since 2011. Immersive audience and art—the theatre’s fourth wall, theatre often happens in non-theatre spaces: the space between the seats and the stage, for example, Sleep No More encompasses a the television or movie screen, and so on. By “The ultimate feel-good tale of love conquering all.” the guardian The global smash-hit musical!

Music and Lyrics by Benny Andersson and Björn April 23 to May 11 Ulvaeus Spriet Stage And some songs with Stig Anderson Book by Catherine Johnson TITLE SPONSOR Originally Conceived by Judy Craymer Co-production with the Charlottetown Festival