Events
“Worlds of Exile,” Theatre @ York’s 2017-18 season, culminates in Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, an epic story in an intimate and innovative new production directed by acclaimed director, dramaturg and playwright Peter Hinton.
Shadowed by war, Dido, Queen of Carthage is the original tragic love story with its hero Aeneas, the exiled prince of Troy, compelled by Fate to leave his beloved Dido, Queen of Carthage to fulfil a political destiny. Aeneas, the son of Venus, is one of the Trojans who escapes from the city after it is destroyed. In his exile he seeks refuge in Carthage. Learning of Aeneas’ experience and loss, Dido falls in love with him, only to be forsaken shortly after. Torn between her personal abandonment and national sacrifice, Dido performs an ultimate act of resistance.
Dido, Queen of Carthage is Marlowe’s first play, written when he was just 19 and still a student at Cambridge. Inspired by the fourth book of Virgil’s Aeneid, the story of Dido and Aeneas has stimulated artists for two millennia; from Ovid to Henry Purcell to modern-day science-fiction like Battlestar Galactica, with its exiled travellers seeking a prophesied new home. It isn’t hard to see the story’s appeal.
Performance Schedule: March 18 to 23 at 7:30pm
Box Office Information: Tickets are available online or over the phone 416-736-5888
Previews: $7.00 March 18 & 19
Relaxed Performance: $5.00
Thursday March 22 7:30pm
All Other Performances:
Tickets: $20.00
Student/Senior $12.00
(Group price applies when all group tickets are purchased at once for a single performance. Not available online, please phone or visit the box office)
It’s getting colder, which means it’s time to get cozy! Keep warm at the second Winters Café next Monday, October 29th. We’re offering warm beverages, sweet treats and board games. Plus, we’ll have live performances from your student peers. Interested in performing yourself? Sign up HERE!
Have a chat over delicious brunch-style foods with the Dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design, Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt. Brunch will be served from 12:00pm-2:00pm in the Junior Common Room (012) of Winters College on Thursday, November 15th 2018.
50 years since its founding, Theatre @ York opens the 2018-2019 season with the premiere of rochdale, a new play by David Yee under the direction of Nina Lee Aquino, featuring the fourth-year acting ensemble.
Opened in 1968, Rochdale College was an experiment in student-run alternative education and co-operative living. The project ultimately failed when it could not cover its financing and neighbours complained that it had become a haven for drugs and crime.
“We are delighted to open our season with a new Canadian play that embraces the same spirit of experimentation and social advocacy that guided the founding of the Department of Theatre at York 50 years ago,” commented department chair Marlis Schweitzer. David Yee and Nina Lee Aquino have collaborated on a play that not only gives voice to the youth, energy, and passion of the 1960s but also resonates with students today. We are incredibly fortunate to have such Canadian innovators kick off this season, as we reflect on the past 50 years and look ahead to the future.”
David Yee is a Canadian actor, playwright and the artistic director of fu-Gen Theatre Company. His play carried away on the crest of a wave won the 2015 Governor General Award.
Nina Lee Aquino is an award-winning director and dramaturge, and the Artistic Director of Factory Theatre. She is committed to the development of new works, and to the manifestation of interculturalism in theatre.
Performance Schedule:
7:30 p.m. on November 17, 19-23
1:00 p.m. on November 21 & 23
2 p.m. on November 24
Tickets $7- 20
Online Box Office or call 416-736-5888
Theatre @ York presents Middletown by Will Eno, featuring the acting students in the MFA program and directed by the esteemed Jackie Maxwell.
Lives of the inhabitants of Middletown transect in an emotional journey that takes them from the local library to outer space and beyond. The moving and funny play emerges as a meditation on loneliness, birth, death, and the anxieties of our contemporary lives.
Performance Schedule:
Thursday, January 24 7:30pm Opening
Friday, January 25 2pm & 7:30pm
Saturday, January 26, 2pm
Come to the Absinthe Pub & Coffee Shop and get to know your Head of Winters College, John Mayberry, over some tasty nachos – on us! Enjoy an evening of nachos, trivia and good conversations.
We’re bringing Central Perk to you! Enjoy a tasty beverage, something sweet and a few performances at this semester’s first Winters Café.
Winters Café is a cozy environment where you can chill out and listen to a variety of performers: musicians, comedians, playwrights, poets – you name it! Board games and good fun is also encouraged.
Interested in performing? Sign up here!
Theatre @ York presents Orlando by Sarah Ruhl, directed by MFA candidate Lindsay Bell and The Balcony by Jean Genet, directed by MFA candidate Margaret Legere. The two shows will be performed in repertory and feature the MFA and fourth-year actors.
Orlando is a dramatic adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s feminist classic by contemporary playwright Sarah Ruhl. It investigates the adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeting the key figures of English literary history.
The Balcony uses the setting of an unnamed city and a distant background of a revolution and counterrevolution to explore strains of power in a society. The play compelling examines the delicate equilibrium of reality and illusion.
Performance Schedule:
Orlando
Sunday, March 24 at 7:30pm (Preview)
Tuesday, March 26 at 7:30pm (Opening)
Wednesday, March 27 at 1:00pm
Friday, March 29 at 7:30pm
Saturday, March 30 at 1:00pm
The Balcony
Monday, March 25 at 7:30pm (Preview)
Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30pm (Opening)
Thursday, March 28 at 7:30pm
Friday, March 29 at 1:00pm
Saturday, March 30 at 7:30pm
Tickets $7- 20
Buy online or call 416-736-5888
IPHIGENIA 2.0
Presented by MFA Directing Candidates, Mandy Roveda and Philip Geller, featuring the 3rd year acting conservatory, Iphigenia 2.0 by Charles Mee is a modern reimagining of the Greek tragedy, Iphigenia in Aulis. Stuck in between a hastily prepared, royal wedding and an army on the verge of war, Iphigenia weathers a storm of deception before finally taking her destiny into her own hands. This show tests the strength of loyalty and duty to family, friends, and country in an unsparing environment.
SHOW TIMES:
October 31 – 7:00 PM
November 1 – 2:00 PM | 7:00 PM
November 2 – 7:00 PM
LOCATION:
CFT 139: Centre for Film and Theatre
Admission is free. Signup sheet is posted outside the studio door.
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a beloved feminist revisioning of two of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, Othello and Romeo & Juliet. Written by Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald, the play explores the hypothetical question: what if Shakespeare’s tragedies were actually intended to be comedies? To learn the answer to this question, please join us November 16-23 in the Joseph G. Green Theatre to find out.
Performance Schedule:
Sat, Nov. 16 (preview 1) @ 7:30 pm
Sun. Nov. 17 (preview 2) @ 7:30 pm
Tues. Nov. 19 (Opening) @ 7:30 pm
Wed. Nov. 20 @ 1:00 pm
Wed. Nov. 20 (Relaxed Performance) @ 7:30 pm –Plan your visit
Thurs. Nov. 21@ 7:30 pm
Fri. Nov. 22 @ 1:00 pm
Fri. Nov. 22 @ 7:30pm
Sat. Nov. 23 @ 2:00 pm
Tickets $7- 20
Online Box Office or call 416-736-5888