About the Play:
The Arts Club Anthology:
50 Years of Canadian Theatre in Vancouver
is an anthology edited by director and
dramaturg Rachel
Ditor. In time for the Arts
Club Theatre Company's fiftieth anniversary, this anthology collects
six of the most cherished and popular plays that have captivated
audiences for the past five decades.
As the largest theatre in Western Canada, the Arts
Club Theatre Company has attracted millions of people to celebrate
artistic talent during its impressive fifty-year history. An integral
part of Vancouver's theatre scene and Canadian theatre history, the
company helped launch the careers of many Canadian talents and
introduced the city to tremendous playwrights such as Carol Bolt and
Michel Tremblay. The Arts Club
Theatre Company has also developed and premiered over 90 new
Canadian plays in 50 years. That’s an average of almost two per
season. The full list is in the back of The Arts Club Anthology,
which celebrates that history by collecting six of the most unique
and cherished plays that have premiered at the Arts Club Theatre over
the past five decades.
The Arts Club Anthology
includes:
Talking Dirty is a standout comedy by
Sherman Snukal about
dishonesty in intimate relationships. It burst onto the stage in 1981
and set a record for the longest-running Canadian play to that date.
(Cast: 3 women, 2 men)
The Matka King is a drama by Anosh Irani
that reveals a landscape of betrayal and redemption come to life in
the red-light district of Bombay, India. His first play, it premiered
to rave reviews in 2003. (Cast: 2 women, 3 men)
The Dishwashers is a drama by Morris
Panych that walks a razor's edge between comedy and tragedy
chronicling the plight of men working in the lower depths of a high
end restaurant. First produced in 2005, the play was selected to kick
off the Americas Off Broadway festival in 2008. (Cast: 3 men)
Unless adapted by Carol Shields and Sara
Cassidy from the Carol Shields’
popular and critically acclaimed novel. The story of Reta, a mother
forced to re-evaluate her life after her daughter is discovered on a
Toronto street corner, mute and bearing a sign that says “Goodness”.
A beautiful, heart-wrenching tale of pain, enlightenment and
reconnection by one of Canada’s best-loved writers.
Premiered in 2005 in a
co-production with the Toronto's Canadian Stage Compay.
(Cast: 3 women, 5 men)
Mom's the Word Remixed: For Crying Out
Loud by Jill Daum, Linda A. Carson, Alison Kelly, Barbara
Pollard, Robin Nichol, and Deborah Williams
From the terrible twos to
the terrifying teens, experience the frustrations, embarrassments and
dizzying joys of parenthood. Audiences around the world have roared
with laughter and tears at these outrageously funny, poignant and
true vignettes of motherhood. This
revised version of Mom's the Word
premiered in 2009. (Cast: 6 women)
Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist
Cantata by Veda Hille, Bill Richardson, and Amiel Gladstone
is a contemporary
exploration of humanity through the lens of Craigslist – an online
classified site with over 50 million ads posted each month. Premiered
in 2012 in a co-production with the PuSh Festival.
About the Editor:
Rachel Ditor is a freelance director and
the current Literary Manager of the Arts Club Theatre, where she acts
as dramaturg on new plays written for the company. She is an adjunct
professor at UBC, teaching dramaturgy; a member of Literary Managers
and Dramaturgs of the Americas; and the editor of The Arts Club
Anthology: 50 years of Canadian Theatre in Vancouver. She
makes her home in Vancouver.