Category Archives: All Years

The Deadly Game (January 21-30, 2016)

  By admin | March 23, 2015 - 12:46 am | ,
Comments Off on The Deadly Game (January 21-30, 2016)

Adapted by James Yaffe from the novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

Three retired lawyers in a remote village in the Swiss Alps amuse themselves by going through the legal ceremony of prosecuting strangers who drop in. One evening, a stranded American travelling salesman is their guest, having run his car into a snowdrift during a fierce blizzard. Although the men’s ‘deadly game’ seems foolish to him, he agrees to participate to humour his hosts. Since he has never been guilty of a crime in his life, he is unable to suggest anything they can try him for. After some amiable social conversation, the retired prosecutor discovers a plausible case and accuses the salesman of having murdered his boss. At first, this appears to be a wild improvisation, but the playwright gradually makes something real out of phantoms… “… genuinely engrossing … the tension builds with the slow, steady, intricate movement of a courtroom drama” wrote Leah D. Frank of The New York Times. Be sure not to miss this cat and mouse thriller!

The Dover Road (November 26 – December 5, 2015)

  By admin | March 23, 2015 - 12:43 am | ,
Comments Off on The Dover Road (November 26 – December 5, 2015)

By A. A. Milne.

Leonard and Anne are eloping along the lovers’ road to Dover, intending to embark for Calais and go to Paris, Leonard having abandoned his wife Eustasia in order to do so. Unfortunately, their car breaks down and they seek refuge in ‘a sort of hotel’ nearby, which turns out to be a residence, owned by a rich and somewhat eccentric gentleman, Mr. Latimer. It seems that Latimer intends to keep the couple prisoner for a week so that they can see if a marriage between them will work. The next day, Anne begins to notice things about Leonard that she ignored before. Unknown to them, however, another couple in the house are about to leave after seven days — Leonard’s wife Eustasia and her runaway lover Nicholas… When this comedy was last seen in Toronto in 2007, Mark Andrew Lawrence described it as “…a little gem of a play… this charming relic from Broadway’s golden age.”

Gaslight (October 1-10, 2015)

  By admin | March 23, 2015 - 12:40 am | ,
Comments Off on Gaslight (October 1-10, 2015)

By Patrick Hamilton. Adapted by David Jacklin.

The season opens with Patrick Hamilton’s famous nail-biting Victorian thriller Gaslight. Hailed by the critic of The New Yorker Magazine as “a masterpiece of suspense,” Gaslight is set in fog-bound London in 1880 in the home of Jack Manningham and his wife Bella. It is late afternoon, a time which Hamilton notes as being the time “before the feeble dawn of gaslight and tea.” As the play opens Bella is clearly on edge, and the stern reproaches from her overbearing husband make matters worse. What most perturbs Bella is Jack’s unexplained absences from the house: he will not tell her where he is going, and this increases her anxiety. As the drama unfolds, it becomes clear that Jack is intent on convincing Bella that she is going insane. Why is he doing this, and will he succeed?

Love Letters (June 11-20, 2015)

  By admin | May 13, 2014 - 11:23 pm | ,
Comments Off on Love Letters (June 11-20, 2015)

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Love Letters centres on two characters who sit side by side at tables and read the notes, letters and cards – in which over nearly 50 years, they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats – that have passed between them throughout their separated lives.

“LOVE LETTERS is an extraordinary piece. You cannot stage a play more simply than this, and yet it’s about everything in life. First love, loss of opportunities, loss of life, loss of love…It’s a beautiful play, and all you do is speak it.” ~ Brian Dennehy, 2014

Four different couples will be on stage over nine performances, as follows:

  • Lorraine Kimsa and Michael James Burgess: Thursday June 11 at 8:00 PM and Saturday June 20 (mat).
  • Judy Gans and Roger Kell: Friday June 12 and Wednesday June 17 at 8:00 PM and Saturday June 20 at 8:00 PM.
  • Dani Holden and Michael Chodos: Saturday June 13 and Thursday June 18 at 8:00 PM.
  • Heather Goodall and Alan Washbrook: Sunday June 14 (mat) and Friday June 19 at 8:00 PM.

Special 2-for-1 offer for repeat bookings!

“… superbly crafted…  If one goes back to see the production with alternate couplings, one has the opportunity to appreciate the human capacity for soul intimacy expressed via Gurney’s fine writing…  I was thrilled and engaged by continual discovery.” ~ blogcritics.org

Harvey (May 14-23, 2015)

  By admin | May 13, 2014 - 11:01 pm | ,
Comments Off on Harvey (May 14-23, 2015)

By Mary Chase

Big-hearted Elwood P. Dowd makes friends wherever he goes, but his social-climbing sister, Veta, has a problem with his dear friend Harvey, an invisible, six-and-a-half-foot tall white rabbit. When she tries to have Elwood committed to an institution to save the family’s reputation, a comedy of errors ensues. Mary Chase’s 1944 Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy tells the tale of an unlikely friendship and the tug-of-war between the individual and society. James Stewart starred in the original Broadway production as well as the 1950 movie version. He also repeated his stage role in London in 1975. Revived yet again on Broadway as recently as 2012, this classic comedy is as entertaining as ever. Perhaps surprisingly, Stage Centre Productions has never presented this play before. “It’s impossible not to be drawn in by Harvey’s sweet and charming nature” wrote CBC critic Joff Schmidt in October 2013. We are confident that you will agree!

Pack of Lies (March 19-28, 2015)

  By admin | May 13, 2014 - 10:58 pm | ,
Comments Off on Pack of Lies (March 19-28, 2015)

By Hugh Whitemore

What would you do if you were asked to betray your best friends because the authorities believed them to be spies? Which is more important, loyalty to your friends or loyalty to your country? That’s the situation at the heart of this play, based on the true story of Peter and Helen Kroger who − at the height of the Cold War in England in 1961 − were found guilty of spying for the Russians and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. Pack of Lies focuses on the moral dilemmas that devastate ordinary people when requested by the authorities to spy on their friends. First staged in 1983, the play was successful in both London and New York, and was later filmed with Ellen Burstyn and Alan Bates. The New York City Tribune described Pack of Lies as “A highly suspenseful and continuously engrossing spy thriller.” It’s a riveting and highly entertaining play for the thinking person.

Perfect Wedding (January 15-24, 2015)

  By admin | May 13, 2014 - 10:57 pm | ,
Comments Off on Perfect Wedding (January 15-24, 2015)

By Robin Hawdon

A young bridegroom wakes on his wedding morning in his own bridal suite in a hotel not far from Toronto, with his bride-to-be about to arrive any moment, and finds a strange girl in bed beside him. What’s more, an extremely attractive girl whom, in the depths of his post stag-night hangover, he can’t remotely remember even having been introduced to. Worse, during the ensuing panic to get the stranger dressed and out of the way, the bride arrives, the girl is trapped in the bathroom, the best man pretends the hidden girl is his girlfriend, his real girlfriend has to be kept ignorant of the fact, and the hotel chamber maid gets mistaken for everybody’s girlfriend! By the time the bride’s parents and half the hotel staff get in on the act, the chaos reaches nuclear proportions! Perfect Wedding is that rare combination − a riotous comedy and a touching love story at the same time. “The play moves at the speed of light, with a riot a minute that leaves the audience crying with laughter…The perfect medicine for all those thinking about getting married,” said the Hull Daily Mail.

84 Charing Cross Road (November 20-29, 2014)

  By admin | May 13, 2014 - 10:54 pm | ,
Comments Off on 84 Charing Cross Road (November 20-29, 2014)

In 1949, when Helene Hanff was a struggling and unsuccessful author, she started to write to Marks and Co., a London bookshop, inquiring about editions of the obscure classics and English literature she loved. Her book, 84 Charing Cross Road, first published in 1970, chronicles her twenty years of correspondence with Frank Doel, the manager of the shop. As time passed, she became intimately involved in the lives of the shop’s staff, sending them food parcels during Britain’s postwar shortages and sharing with them details of her life in Manhattan. Due mainly to financial difficulties, she put off visiting her English friends until too late; Frank Doel died in December 1968, and the bookshop eventually closed. Hanff did finally visit Charing Cross Road and the empty but still standing shop in the summer of 1971, a trip recorded in her 1973 book The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. The 1983 play based on her letters was a great success in both London and on Broadway. Writing in the New York Daily News, Liz Smith said, “84 Charing Cross Road is a play I loved… This is really unusual theatre that will touch the heart.” We hope it will touch the hearts of our audiences, too.