In a media release, Touchstone Theatre has announced a 2023-2024 season of four works, which will also mark artistic director Roy Surette’s final season with the company.
First joining the Vancouver theatre company as artistic director in 1984, Surette would eventually move on to other opportunities with Victoria’s The Belfry Theatre and Montreal’s Centaur Theatre before returning to Touchstone in 2017.
I am ending my tenure as an artistic director, not with a whimper but a bang. – Roy Surette
“I’m surely one of the most fortunate members of the Canadian theatre community,” says Surette in the release. “As an artistic director, I’ve had the privilege and challenge of shepherding, animating, and programming a season of plays and events for forty consecutive year. I am ending my tenure as an artistic director, not with a whimper but a bang. It’s a season of collaboration with beloved colleagues and long-time friends.”
The Vancouver theatre company’s 2023-2024 season gets underway in November with the Ruby Slippers Theatre co-production and world premiere of Hurricane Mona. From Vancouver playwright Pippa Mackie, this absurdist dark comedy tells the story of a middle-class family grappling with their lives at the literal centre of a climate emergency.
In January 2024, Touchstone teams up with the PuSh Festival and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs to co-present Christopher Morris’ The Runner, a philosophical thriller exploring human goodness in the face of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
February 2024 will see the world premiere of Father Tartuffe: An Indigenous Misadventure, Herbie Barnes’ adaptation of Molière’s classic set on the rez.
Finally, in May 2024, Touchstone presents the chamber musical When We Were Singing by Governor-General award-winning playwright Dorothy Dittrich, the tale following the ups and downs of four 30-something urbanites on the precipice of major life changes. In a fitting end to his work with Touchstone, Surette will direct the award-winning musical he originally helmed for the company in 1995.
For more information on Touchstone Theatre’s 2023-2024 season, visit touchstonetheatre.com.