Points of View

Mabel Hubbard Bell was a strong, self-assured woman – bright, passionate, and a complete original. Despite a near-fatal case of childhood scarlet fever that cost her the ability to hear, she learned to talk and lip-read in multiple languages. At 19, she married a young inventor named Alexander Graham Bell and became the most significant influence in his life.

Silence is Mabel’s story, offering the unique perspective of a woman whose remarkable life was overshadowed by her famous husband. Deftly directed by former NAC English Theatre Artistic Director Peter Hinton, Silence recounts how Mabel communicated with the man who invented the most powerful communication tool ever conceived.

Based on the novel by Ottawa’s beloved Brian Doyle, Up to Low is the magical and mystical tale of a young boy’s journey to manhood. Twelve-year-old Tommy is on the road with his father and volatile family friend Frank, heading back to the cabin they haven’t visited since Tommy’s mother died. But Tommy also remembers Bridget, whose eyes are the deep green of the Gatineau Hills. Filled with deserted farms, smoky taverns and midnight rows upriver, Up to Low captures 1950s Ottawa Valley in a way that is both familiar and brand new.

By

Adapted for the stage and directed by

Centred around the cataclysmic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami Carried Away on the Crest of a Wave illustrates how world events link us all together. From two brothers in Malaysia trying to save their house from sinking, a Canadian radio-show host angered by disaster-relief efforts, a grieving Japanese father, to a lonely woman in Utah baking a pie, the play explores humanity in times of disaster.

Winner of the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and directed by Siminovitch Prize laureate Kim Collier, carried away on the crest of a wave shows that despite our differences, we are all connected through serendipity, loss and love.

The stellar cast includes John Ng from CBC TV’s Kim’s Convenience, Zaib Shaikh, star of CBC TV’s Little Mosque on the Prairie, Adrienne Wong, a frequent director at the GCTC, Kayvon Khoshkam from NAC's productions of Twelfth Night and The December Man (L’homme de décembre) and Jenny Young from the NAC’s productions of Innocence Lost: A Play about Steven Truscott and The Penelopiad.

It’s mid-rehearsal, and two actors playing Lauren and Larry deliver their lines. All is well until the real Larry wanders onstage. When the real Lauren – who, it seems, is also the playwright – leaps up from the audience, chaos ensues. Throw in some rogue spectators, a corrupt senator, lion dancers, ghostly ancestors, and a few firecrackers, and you have King of the Yees, an unapologetic and hilarious take on Chinese culture and tradition in North America. From stage to backstage to audience and back on stage again, this play within a play bulldozes the fourth wall in an epic joyride through Chinatown.

A Gateway Theatre (Richmond, BC) production

Evgeni Onegin is a charismatic and bored bad boy who makes ruinous choices at every turn, leaving devastation in his wake. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s serial poem about unrequited love in 19th century Russia, this sweeping and romantic story for the ages gets a hip and acclaimed new theatrical treatment. With inventive choreography and a sharp, 21st century sensibility, Onegin is as fresh today as it was nearly two centuries ago. From the creators of Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata, including a raucous and uplifting score by creators Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone, this is the very definition of passion. Lubov!

Produced by The Musical Stage Company (Toronto, ON) in collaboration with NAC English Theatre.

Evgeni Onegin is a charismatic and bored bad boy who makes ruinous choices at every turn, leaving devastation in his wake. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s serial poem about unrequited love in 19th century Russia, this sweeping and romantic story for the ages gets a hip and acclaimed new theatrical treatment. With inventive choreography and a sharp, 21st century sensibility, Onegin is as fresh today as it was nearly two centuries ago. From the creators of Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata, including a raucous and uplifting score by creators Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone, this is the very definition of passion. Lubov!

Produced by The Musical Stage Company (Toronto, ON) in collaboration with NAC English Theatre

Incendiary Canadian playwright Brad Fraser (Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love) makes his long-awaited return to the NAC with Kill Me Now, a gritty black comedy leavened with profound humanity. Widower Jake Sturdy cares for his severely disabled teenage son Joey until unexpected news leads to an astonishing role reversal. Devastatingly funny and defiantly unsentimental, Kill Me Now finds hard truths and irreverent laughter in every limb, joint and thought in the hopelessly fragile human body.

“Funny and brutal and honest. But it is also moving, deeply emotional, and ultimately harrowing.”