In a media release, Theatre Wire has announced a season of twelve shows featuring Fringe Festival favourites and local theatre makers.
A project of Vancouver Fringe Theatre Society, who produce the annual Vancouver Fringe Festival, the Theatre Wire season was created to promote the work of independent theatre makers, many of whom got their start at the Fringe.
“The shows in Theatre Wire’s 2019/20 season provide a window into the minds of smart, creative artists in our society who have a special way of interpreting our realities,” says Vancouver Fringe Theatre Society executive director Laura Efron in the media release.
Opening the season are a trio of shows as part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival’s Pick Plus. The three handpicked Fringe shows will take place immediately following this year’s festival, alongside the most popular shows from the 2019 festival in the Public Market Pick of the Fringe. The three shows include Rocko and Nakota: Tales From the Land (Sep 18), Flute Loops (Sep 19), and The Ballad of Frank Allen (Sep 19).
In October, Vancouver’s Naked Goddess Productions will present Dancing Lessons (Oct 2-12) in which a geophysics professor with Asperger’s syndrome approaches a Broadway dancer to teach him how to dance for an awards dinner.
Following runs in 2017 and 2018, Bombay Black (Nov 1-3) returns with Canadian playwright Anosh Irani’s story of an exotic dancer and her embittered mother whose lives are turned upside down with the arrival of a blind stranger.
Next up is the Aenigma Theatre production of The Turn of the Screw (Nov 6-10). Adapted from Henry James’ horror novella, this stage thriller tells the tale of a young governess in Victorian England who finds herself haunted inside an isolated country manor.
A busy month, November also sees the return of the Jessie Award-winning Fringe veteran TJ Dawe with Roller Coaster (Nov 13-15). In this monologue, Dawe explores a range of topics including why we go to war, who our real gods are, the bizarre phenomenon of Donald Trump’s presidency, and the end of the world.
In March, Paul Strickland performs in his one-man show Ain’t True & Uncle False (Mar 26-28). This best of the fest winner, is described as “Mark Twain meets Tim Burton”.
The same month, the Cookies ‘n Cream Collective presents Evan Placey’s provocative drama Consensual (Mar 26-Apr 11) about the relationship between a secondary school teacher and one of her 15-year old students.
April will see the return of Monster Theatre’s Theatre Under the Gun (Apr 21) in which six Vancouver theatre companies have just 48 hours to create a new original work.
Also in April comes the Dream of Passion Productions presentation of A Kid Like Jake (Apr 22-May 2) in which parents struggle with their four-year old son’s gender identity.
Closing out the season is the local premiere of Persephone’s Cave (May 1-10) from Vancouver’s Midtwenties Theatre Society. Set in present day Vancouver, it tells the story of two outcast adolescents who choose to escape the world by locking themselves away in the projector room of an old cinema.
Single tickets and packages to the Theatre Wire 2019-2020 season are now available online at theatrewire.com.