THEATRE NEWS: Kim Cattrall a Mirvish highlight
8 JAN/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency

David Mirvish has surrounded himself with old friends and new, in the 2011-12 subscription season he announced Tuesday at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

The season opens with the Toronto production of THE RAILWAY CHILDREN, announced last month. Slated to open in a purpose-built tent at the foot of the CN Tower in early May, it is adapted from the works of Edith Nesbit and features a Canadian cast headed by Natasha Greenblatt that also includes Emma Campbell, John Gilbert, Richard Sheridan Willis and Kate Besworth.

Next, in September, Mirvish throws open the Royal Alexandra to welcome expatriate Canuck Kim Cattrall back to Toronto, in an acclaimed West End revival of Noel Coward’s PRIVATE LIVES, directed by Richard Eyre. Cattrall was present at Tuesday’s announcement. For her part, she said she is particularly thrilled to bring her Broadway-bound production to a stage that holds some very special memories for her. “In the ’70’s,” she said of the days when she called Toronto home, “I remember seeing NO MAN'S LAND, with John Gielgud — Sir John Gielgud — and Ralph Richardson here.”

While Catrall holds court at the Alex, another bundle from Britain will take to the stage of the Princess of Wales Theatre, taking the long way ’round to London’s West End and giving Torontonians an early glimpse of Craig Revel Horwood’s acclaimed staging of CHESS, THE MUSICAL, with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and lyrics by Tim Rice. Producer Michael Harrison insists that Horwood has done the famously unstageable musical about chess, politics and life more than proud, perhaps even living up to expectations created by the late Michael Bennett, who was hard at work on the project when he succumbed to AIDS. “I think Craig is the closest you will ever get to Michael Bennett,” Harrison said. “(He’s) attacked CHESS with the choreographic aspect in mind, and he’s cracked it. He’s taken it to a fantasy world. There’s nothing real in it. Tim (Rice) says he’s made it more like an opera.”

CHESS will head back to London in time to surrender the POW stage to the hit Broadway musical MARY POPPINS, in its Canadian première in a run that will extend through Christmas. Mirvish kicks off 2012 with a Toronto première of BLUE DRAGON, at the Alex — yet another work from Canadian theatrical wiz Robert Lepage. Written in collaboration with Marie Michaud and directed by Lepage, it is a sequel to their DRAGON trilogy.

Meanwhile, at the POW, an all-Canadian cast will be prepping for the Canadian première of an open-ended run of WAR HORSE, a visually arresting piece of theatre from Britain’s National Theatre, adapted from the Michael Morpurgo novel by Nick Stafford. It features the artistry of South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, under the direction of Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris. To close the season, Mirvish welcomes the Broadway company of HAIR to the stage of the Royal Alex, where the musical once played for a then record-breaking 53 weeks and launched the Mirvish theatrical enterprise. “HAIR was our first great success,” Mirvish said of that 1969 production. “To be able to bring a successful production back — it’s exciting.”

Subscription packages for all seven shows are on sale starting at $125.

But wait. When it comes to David Mirvish and theatre, there’s always more — and a subscription is really only the beginning. Mirvish subscribers will also have access, at a special price, to other Mirvish productions gracing Toronto stages over the next year. This year’s bonus shows include the Panasonic runs of GHOST STORIES — a West End phenom by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, slated to open in April of this year — as well as a reprise of the made-in-Toronto hit 2 PIANOS, 4 HANDS, featuring creators Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt in what is being billed as a farewell performance. It opens in late October. In addition to the previously announced run of GOOD MOURNING MRS. BROWN at the Princess of Wales in March, Mirvish will also host Kathryn Greenwood, Robin Duke, Jayne Eastwood and Teresa Pavlinek in WOMEN FULLY CLOTHED: OLDER & HOTTER for a limited June run at the Alex.

Mirvish subscribers are eligible, too, for discounts on a wide range of previously announced shows at the Sony Centre.