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Public Service Announcement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Until October 19, 2014

Final weekend to catch theatre no. 6’s PROUD

“Sharp, lively and engaging and not to be missed”- Liz Nicholls, Edmonton Journal

(Edmonton, AB.) This is the final week to catch theatre no.6’s “scathingly satirical” production,  PROUD, by award-winning Canadian playwright Michael Healey at La Cité Francophone (8627 – 91 Street). Tickets are available TIX on the Square (9930-102 Avenue, Sir Winston Churchill Square; by phone 780.420.1757 or online www.tixonthesquare.ca)

Directed by Ian Leung, PROUD features Brian Dooley, Melissa Thingelstad, David Horak and Richard Lee Hsi. Production set and costume design is by Brian Bast, lighting design by Guido Tondino and Victoria Zimski, and research dramaturgy by Kim McCaw.

It’s just after the 2011 Canadian federal election.  The Conservatives have won a whopping majority – even in Quebec.  With free rein to reform Canada after his own vision, all that could possibly stand in the Prime Minister’s way are a breakdown in party discipline and the press.

“PROUD undoubtedly stands apart from the rest of contemporary Canadian theatre for its unblinking confrontation of Canada’s current political climate” – Mel Priestley, VUE Weekly

PROUD runs until Sunday October 19^th at 7:30 pm with a matinee performance on Sunday at 2 pm. The production contains strong language and mature content.

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Media Contact:
Darka Tarnawsky, Bottom Line Productions Inc.
darka@bottomlinepro.com; P: 780.988.8914, ext 1

View this Press Release in downloadable .pdf format

September 5, 2014

Media Contact:
Darka Tarnawsky, Bottom Line Productions Inc.
darka@bottomlinepro.com; P: 780.988.8914, ext 1

“Deftly written and often laugh-out-loud funny, Healey’s script keeps surprising us, taking unexpected turns both in its narrative and character development.” – NOW Magazine

(Edmonton, AB.) theatre no.6 presents award-winning Canadian playwright Michael Healey’s “scathingly satirical” play, PROUD, at La Cité Francophone (8627 – 91 Street) October 2-19, 2014. Tickets are on sale now at TIX on the Square (9930-102 Avenue, Sir Winston Churchill Square; by phone 780.420.1757 or online www.tixonthesquare.ca)

Directed by Ian Leung, PROUD features Brian Dooley, Melissa Thingelstad, David Horak and Richard Lee Hsi. Production set and costume design is by Brian Bast, lighting design by Guido Tondino and Victoria Zimski, and research dramaturgy by Kim McCaw.

It’s just after the 2011 Canadian federal election. The Conservatives have won a whopping majority – even in Quebec. With free rein to reform Canada after his own vision, all that could possibly stand in the Prime Minister’s way are a breakdown in party discipline and the press.

Enter Jisbella Lyth, the new Conservative member for Cormier-Lac-Poule. Outspoken. Inexperienced. Completely lacking in political judgement…

On the other hand, maybe party discipline is overrated. Maybe a rebellious caucus member is the perfect distraction for the media. And maybe, just maybe, the PM can reshape Canada while turning Jisbella into a real politician.

theatre no. 6 was created in 2008 as an identity for the independent production of work for the stage that re-examines Canada’s status quo and seeks to reveal the country’s cultural blind spots. theatre no. 6 also mounts theatrical creations that pose social, political, philosophical, aesthetic, and scientific questions that prompt us to see the world, the universe, and everything in new and different ways. (www.tn6.ca)

PROUD runs October 2 – 19, 2014 at La Cité Francophone. Tickets ($8.75 to $25.00) are on sale now at TIX on the Square (9930-102 Avenue, Sir Winston Churchill Square; by phone 780.420.1757 or online www.tixonthesquare.ca). The production contains strong language and mature content.

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Edmonton – theatre no. 6 is mounting a revised version of Wallace Shawn’s (My Dinner with Andre, Aunt Dan and Lemon, The Designated Mourner) contemporary classic one-person play The Fever, at Azimuth Theatre’s Living Room Playhousefrom April 24 – May 4 (previewing April 23).

The production will feature Sterling Award winning performer Melissa Thingelstadunder the direction of theatre no.6 Artistic Producer, Ian Leung.

The Fever is an intimate and unsettling meditation on global and local inequity.  In it, an unnamed tourist relives a harrowing and hallucinatory night of revelation experienced while sick in a hotel room in a war-torn developing country.

In a Paris Review interview published in 2012, Shawn revealed that The Fevercontained things he “meant to say” and for this reason he was initially reluctant to perform it anywhere but in the living rooms of friends and acquaintances where it was less likely to be dismissed as mere theatre.  When he finally did take it to the stage in 1991, it won the Obie Award for Best New American Play.

The Fever has been presented twice before in Edmonton: by Phoenix Theatre in 1993 with Clare Coulter as the tourist, and in 2005 by Shadow Theatre, starringJohn Sproule.

Wallace Shawn is well known as an actor.  He was Andre Gregory’s dinner partner in My Dinner with Andre, played the criminal mastermind “Vizzini” in The Princess Bride and gave voice to “Rex” the dinosaur in the Toy Story movies.  However, as a writer his work has been influential on the American stage.  The famed U.K. playwright David Hare considers him “at once the U.S.’s most profound and most overlooked playwright.”

ABOUT THEATRE NO. 6

theatre no. 6 is an identity for independent productions, spearheaded by artistic producer Ian Leung, that entertain while encouraging audiences to rethink their views of the world, and particularly of Canada. It’s official mandate is to produce theatre that “re-examines Canada’s status quo and seeks to reveal the country’s cultural blind spots,” and “that poses social, political, philosophical, aesthetic, and scientific questions that prompt us to see the world, the universe, and everything in new and different ways.”

The Fever will be the company’s first production since its first, U: The Comedy of Global Warming, in 2009.  That multimedia play, written by Leung, aimed to raise awareness about some of the less well considered effects climate change is expected to have on Alberta.

Media Contact:
Melissa Thingelstad
melissa@tn6.ca

View this press release in downloadable .pdf format

March 12, 2014
For immediate release
Contact: Melissa Thingelstad
melissa@tn6.ca

STEPHEN HARPER FEATURES IN THEATRE NO.6’S 2014 PLAY LINE-UP.

Edmonton – Two productions from theatre no. 6 will provoke and entertain Edmontonians in 2014. Scheduled for this spring is Wallace Shawn’s (My Dinner with Andre, Aunt Dan and Lemon, The Designated Mourner) contemporary classic one-person play The Fever, starring Melissa Thingelstad.  This fall, award-winning playwright Michael Healey’s latest political comedy, Proud, will have its Alberta premiere with Prime Minister Stephen Harper as the leading man.  theatre no.6 artistic producer Ian Leung will direct both productions.

The Fever is an intimate and unsettling meditation on global inequality in which an unnamed character relives a harrowing and hallucinatory night of revelation experienced while sick in a hotel room in a war-torn developing country. Its subject matter and its argument were so close to Shawn’s heart at the time that he was reluctant to perform it anywhere but the living rooms of friends and acquaintances.

The play, which eventually won the 1991 Obie Award for Best New Play, has been produced twice before in Edmonton: in 1993, by Phoenix Theatre with actress Clare Coulter as the tourist; and in 2005 by Shadow Theatre with John Sproule in the role.  theatre no 6’s production will feature Sterling Award winner, Melissa Thingelstad performing Shawn’s 2012 revision of his original 1991 script.  It will run from April 24 – May 4, 2014 in the Living Room Playhouse.

Proud is the final play in a trilogy about Canadian societal values by the Award winning author of The Drawer Boy, Courageous (the second work in the trilogy) and Plan B.  The play aroused controversy when it became known that our current Prime Minister featured prominently in the cast of characters. It has since been produced to critical success, delighting audiences in Toronto, Ottawa and Victoria.  Critics have praised it for its hilarity, its scathing satire and for its surprisingly human portrait of the Prime Minister.

Edmonton’s production of this comedic hit – in which Harper attempts to groom a misfit female MP for bigger and better things runs October 3 – 19 at the l’Unithéâtre space at La Cite Francophone.

ABOUT THEATRE NO. 6 

theatre no. 6 is an identity for independent productions, spearheaded by artistic producer Ian Leung, that entertain while encouraging audiences to rethink their views of the world, and particularly of Canada. It’s official mandate is to produce theatre that “re-examines Canada’s status quo and seeks to reveal the country’s cultural blind spots,” and “that poses social, political, philosophical, aesthetic, and scientific questions that prompt us to see the world, the universe, and everything in new and different ways.”

The 2014 shows will be the first since the company’s inaugural production U: The Comedy of Global Warming in 2009.  That multimedia play, written by Leung, aimed to raise awareness about some of the less well considered effects climate change is expected to have on Alberta.

Photo Credit: Ryan Parker/pk photography

Media Contact:
Melissa Thingelstad
melissa@tn6.ca

View this press release in downloadable .pdf format

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Interview & Photo Opportunity

(Edmonton) Nov. 25 – The indie5 09/10 season opener U: The Comedy of Global Warming is a unique, independently produced, locally created multi-media play about Alberta and Climate Change. Premiering in Edmonton on December 11th, U: The Comedy of Global Warming runs concurrently with the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen.

The story of an oil tycoon and a climate change refugee entangled in a dangerously funny love triangle interweaves with video recorded interviews featuring real-life scientists from the University of Alberta, politicians from the federal, provincial and city legislatures, environmental activists and regular citizens – all talking about climate change. As the story hurtles toward a disastrous consequence, the documentary material grapples to resolve the defining issue of our age and save the day for everyone. U: The Comedy of Global Warming is a ribald, funny and engaging mixture of information, entertainment, criticism and hope that blends fiction and fact in search of truth and answers.

The play’s companion website, www.albertaville.ca will eventually provide access to extended versions of the twenty-two interviews conducted for the play, including conversations with University of Alberta scientists David Schindler, Andrew Derocher, Colleen Cassady St. Clair, Suzanne Bayley, Martin Sharp and Arturo Sanchez, activists from Greenpeace, the Pembina and Parkland Institutes and public legislators MP Linda Duncan, MLAs Laurie Blakeman, Kevin Taft and Rachel Notley and City Councillors Ben Henderson and Don Iveson.

U: The Comedy of Global Warming is written and directed by recent University of Alberta MFA directing program graduate Ian Leung and features the work of some of Edmonton’s most talented award-winning theatre and media artists. Generously funded by the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and supported by the University of Alberta Department of Drama and Faculty of Education, U: The Comedy of Global Warming runs from December 11-20, 2009 In the Media Room of the Fine Arts Building at the University of Alberta. Tickets are available at the door or through Tix on the Square (780.424.1757).

For more information on U: The Comedy of Global Warming please visit www.albertaville.ca.

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Interview Contact: 
Ian Leung 
Playwright, Director 
ileung@ualberta.ca 

Media Contact:
Megan Dart
Catch the Keys Productions
mdart@catchthekeys.ca