PLAYBOT: I see dead people – Citadel Theatre unveils new season
One of the biggest shockers in today’s announcement of the 2019/2020 Citadel Theatre season is the addition of an annual summer musical. Like why didn’t they do this before?
It starts this summer with Ring of Fire, based on the life and music of the late, great Johnny Cash. He died in 2003, leaving a staggering legacy of authentic country music that holds up a lot better than the crap they make today. The show runs July 20 to Aug. 11 on the Maclab stage.
The Citadel season proper begins on Sept. 21 with The Color Purple – the musical – featuring a cast of 16 African-Canadian performers. Oprah Winfrey made her film debut in the 1985 movie version of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an American black community in the early 20th Century. It was made into a musical in 2005. Anything can be made into a musical. It plays on the Shoctor Stage Sept. 21-Oct. 13.
All the characters depicted in The Color Purple are no longer alive, if that means anything. Johnny Cash is no longer with us. It’s a human trait to impart a “theme” to any collection of things – and with the Citadel’s new season, too. Could death tie it all together? Bit of a stretch if you include historical dramas.
So this next one is probably just a coincidence: The Citadel is hosting another “workshop” run of a show planning to open in New York (as they did with Hadestown last season). This one is called Six, about the six wives of Henry VIII, two of which were beheaded, and one died in childbirth – and it’s a musical. Six runs Nov. 2-24 on the Shoctor stage.
Next up is the annual Christmas show: A brand new version of A Christmas Carol – featuring three, no FOUR ghosts! I see dead people. The new show promises closely-guarded “twists” on the original Dickens tale, adapted by Edmonton playwright David van Belle and personally directed by the Citadel’s artistic director Daryl Cloran. It runs Nov. 30-Dec. 23.
Not implicitly or incidentally about dead people, and coincidentally not a musical, the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cost of Living will usher in 2020. The play deals with two families living with disabilities, and runs Jan. 11-Feb. 2, 2020.
Shakespeare meets the Beatles in a zany version of As You Like It for a long run Feb. 15-March 15. Cloran co-wrote the mash-up for Vancouver’s “Bard on the Beach” festival last year: the Shakespeare comedy set to the tune of songs by the Beatles. Half of them are dead, as is all of Shakespeare. Just sayin’.
Now this is getting eerie: From March 14-April 5 is the world premiere adaptation of Todd Babiak’s novel The Garneau Block – which starts with a murder. This local author’s books are filled with death and torture and murder. “I’m a monster,” he joked once. The adaptation (not a musical) was written by Belinda Cornish (wife of Mark Meer; they’re one of several theatrical power couples in Edmonton), and is part of the Citadel’s playwright development program.
Peter Pan Goes Wrong will be the season finale April 11-May 3. It is neither a musical nor explicitly deals with dead people. Peter Pan is timeless, immortal, in what is said to be an “uproarious” play-within-a-play about an amateur theatre company trying to put on a production of Peter Pan, and like the title says, everything goes wrong. With is actually the right thing for a comedy like this. Kind of like improv.
Sprinkled in the next season will be three new Rice Theatre shows from the adventurous “Highwire” series – Fight Night (Oct. 17-27), an interactive stage fighting improv project; Every Brilliant Thing, starring Edmonton’s John Ullyatt (right, Feb. 1-23); and After the Fire (April 18-May 10), which deals with the aftermath of the Fort McMurray fire.
