TOUGH! by George F. Walker
Bobby and Tina are nineteen. Bobby gets caught cheating. Tina finds out she’s pregnant. Jill, Tina’s best friend, hates Bobby and welcomes the opportunity to kick his ass. Sometimes life is tough. First written in 1993 this dark comedy by George F. Walker is a wrenchingly funny, painful, and honest depiction of the conflicting desires and troubled relationships that continue to epitomize young people today.
Tough! appeared on stage at Granville Island’s Studio 1398 (formerly PTC Studio) from August 24th – September 3, 2011.
PRODIGALS (World Premiere) By Sean Minogue
After a sold-out & critically acclaimed workshop production, also named one of the Ten Best Theatre Productions for 2010, Prodigals returned for its official World Premiere. Set in a small bar in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, six young underachievers await the results of a murder trial that’s hit close to home. Their world of drinking, sarcasm and missed opportunities is flipped upside down when a former friend returns from Toronto to testify in the trial, reopening old wounds and creating some new ones as well.
The World Premiere of Prodigals, a new play by Vancouver playwright Sean Minogue, appeared on stage in a co-presentation with SFU Woodwards at Studio T, Goldcorp Centre for the Performing Arts from May 3rd – May 14th, 2011.
NOCTURNE By Adam Rapp
Adam Rapp’s highly acclaimed play Nocturne begins as a former piano prodigy recounts the tragic events that tore his family apart. At only 17 years old the young man leaves home and sets out for New York City where he seeks an uneasy refuge in books and he reinvents himself as a writer. Throughout the next decade and a half he tries to cope with the ramifications of his own anguish and estrangement while making a desperate search for redemption. With a keen eye for human relationships and a deft ear for language, Rapp explores the aftershock of an unimaginable event.
Nocturne appeared on stage at the Havana Theatre from February 22nd – 27th, 2011.
BLUE SURGE By Rebecca Gilman
Blue Surge tells the story of Curt, a small-town cop, and Sandy, the 18-year old prostitute he meets in a raid on a massage parlour. Curt finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Sandy and begins a relationship with her that puts everything he’s worked for – his career, his friendships, and his engagement to his fiancee – at risk. But Curt sees a future with Sandy, an escape from his difficult past. As the two of them chase their dreams, they must learn a skill that is foreign to them both: they must learn to hope.
The Vancouver Premiere of Blue Surge appeared on stage at Studio 16 from August 24th – September 4th, 2010.
PRODIGALS (workshop production) By Sean Minogue
Set in a small bar in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, six young underachievers await the results of a murder trial that’s hit close to home, Their world of drinking, sarcasm and missed opportunities is flipped upside down when a former friend returns from Toronto to testify in the trial, reopening old wounds and creating some new ones as well.
A workshop production of Prodigals, a new play by Vancouver playwright Sean Minogue, appeared on stage at the Havana Theatre from April 27th – May 2nd, 2010.
UNIDENTIFIED HUMAN REMAINS AND THE TRUE NATURE OF LOVE By Brad Fraser
David McMillan is a former actor, current waiter on the verge of turning thirty. Together with his book-reviewing roommate, Candy, and his best friend, Bernie, David encounters a number of seductive strangers in his search for love and sex. However, the games turn ugly when it appears a serial killer lurks among them. A compelling study of young adults groping for meaning in a senseless world.
Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love appeared on stage at Granville Island’s Playwrights Theatre Centre from August 25th – September 6, 2009.
ANNE FRANK IS IN MY DREAMS By Lee Cookson
Pete is a young man, working for a publishing company, who is a good employee and a serious worker but is he happy? Everyday Pete goes to work where he starts and finishes his day by writing the perfect thirty-word book synopsis. The repetition of his life has made him restless and jaded until a feisty new intern, Anna, begins working at his office. As Pete sits down to write the synopsis for the newest edition of “The Diary of Anne Frank” the lines between reality and dream become blurred. Anna becomes Anne and together they teach Pete how to dream again.
Anne Frank Is In My Dreams appeared on stage at the Havana Theatre from March 2 – March 8, 2009.
SUBURBIA By Eric Bogosian
One night a group of suburban twenty-year olds gather outside their local convenience store to welcome home an old friend who is returning after a successful national tour with his rock band. His arrival in a limousine with entourage in tow precipitates an all night whirlwind of drinking, sex & violence. As morning arrives tragedy and comedy have laced through the lives of these young people and changed them forever.
Eric Bogosian’s SubUrbia appeared on stage at Granville Island’s Playwrights Theatre Centre from August 19th – August 31st, 2008.
THE FEVER by Wallace Shawn
The narrator of this blistering monologue lies ill and alone in a dreary hotel room in a poverty-stricken country. A political execution is about to take place beneath her window. Far from the glib comforts of her own life, she struggles with memories and her own conscience, which are challenged by the misery and poverty she sees. As the narrator reminisces and agonizes over her own responsibility for the downtrodden, she reaches the inevitable conclusion that the politically correct are guilty themselves unless they take action. At the play’s conclusion, the narrator has succeeded in defining her own guilt, but is uncertain whether or not she has the personal courage to join the struggle.
Wallace Shawn’s The Fever appeared on stage at The Beaumont Studios from January 29th – February 3, 2008.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS by Neil Labute
How far would you go for love? What concessions would you make? What price would you be willing to pay? Such are the painful questions explored by Neil Labute in his play The Shape of Things – a modern-day telling of the fall of man. After a chance meeting in a museum, Evelyn, a sexy, aggressive artist, and Adam, a shy, insecure student, become embroiled in an intense affair that soon veers into the kind of dangerous, seductive territory that Labute does best. Only in the final and shocking exhibition, which challenges our most deeply entrenched ideas about art and love, does Evelyn reveal her true intentions.
Neil Labute’s The Shape of Things appeared on stage at Granville Island’s Waterfront Theatre from August 22 – September 1, 2007
THIS IS OUR YOUTH by Kenneth Lonergan.
In meticulous, hilarious, and agonizing detail, This Is Our Youth follows forty-eight hours of three lost young souls in the big city at the dawn of the Reagan Era. It’s 1982, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where the wealthy, articulate hippie teenagers who were small children in the ’60s have emerged as young adults in a country that has just resoundingly rejected everything in which they were brought up to believe.
The West Coast Premiere of This Is Our Youth appeared on stage at North Vancouver’s Presentation House Theatre from August 16 – September 2, 2006