LION IN THE STREETS

From the Producer . . . .

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the audiences for Theatre Erindale's 1994-95 season. This year, for the first time, we are mounting a full season of four plays, as we add two productions featuring our graduating fourth-year students.

Also for the first time, we are introducing a subscription series, with substantial savings and special privileges for subscribers.

Whether you participate as a Member who subscribes to all four plays, or as a Patron, who makes an additional tax-deductible donation to Theatre Erindale, your involvement is very important to us. You are helping to build a community of supporters for the young artists of the Theatre and Drama Studies Programme and making an investment in the cultural life of both Erindale College and Mississauga as a whole.

To all our audience members, once again, welcome, and thank you for your support.

From the Artistic Director . . . .

It's a wonderful privilege to be able to welcome audiences to our first full season as a production company. Our aim is to provide reasonably priced live theatre that's different from anything else available west of Toronto. This year we've dug right in and committed ourselves to a group of four plays that is both extremely challenging and superbly entertaining. It's a season that combines the cream of the Canadian crop with ribald highlights from the classical past.

First in line is the darkest show of the four. We're very excited to be able to offer you the international sensation from the cutting edge of recent Canadian theatre, Judith Thompson's Lion in the Streets -- especially as directed by our distinguished guest, Katherine Kaszas. In contrast, our other fall selection is already a Canadian classic, but it's coming to Theatre Erindale in an edition made especially for us by one of its original creators, Terry Tweed. I'm referring to 1837: The Farmer's Revolt, by Rick Salutin and Theatre Passe Muraille. In the winter, we'll progress from satire to comedy and from Canada to Europe, and travel back three hundred years to find you some of the best fun ever to grace a stage. In February comes Molière's Scapin, a commedia dell'arte farce directed by Mimi Mekler (who last year brought you the fascinating Pericles, Prince of Tyre). Last in the regular season, in March, you'll see a lavishly costumed revival of Sir John Vanbrugh's The Relapse, a classic Restoration comedy directed by yours truly (whose work you saw in The Farm Show). And finally, as I write, we are considering proposals for an experiment in independent all-student production at the end of March.

We'd love to have you with us for all of these shows. We think there's some real excitement in store. During the run of Lion in the Streets, Memberships can still be purchased in the Box Office. Or simply join our mailing list by signing the Guest Book in the lobby, and we'll keep you posted on everything we're doing.

Thank you for being here. Come back soon.

From the Director . . . .

"We have seen the enemy and they are us."

Theatre Erindale

presents

LION IN THE STREETS

by Judith Thompson

Directed by Katherine Kaszas

Lighting Design & Scenic Consultation by James W. Smagata

Sound Design by Inez Khan

Costumes by the Cast

Fight direction by Daniel Levinson

The Cast:

(in alphabetical order)

David Buchanan - Timmy, Isobel's Father, Rodney

Norah Cleary - Lily, Jill, Christine

Stephanie Langstaff - Isobel

Britt Lennox - Rachel, Laura, Ellen

Kathleen Lumsden - Sue, Joanne

John Metcalf - Scalato, Father Hayes, Ben

Gary Penzler - The Man, Bill, Edward

Andrea Scott - Nelly, Rhonda

Ann Shisko - Scarlett, Sherry

Jason Storie - Martin, Ron, David

Alex Zarowny - George, Maria, Michael

Stage Manager: Karl McNelly

Assistant Stage Manager: Darlene Pursel

Deputy Stage Manager: Jennifer Morris

Assistant to the Director: Gary Penzler

Fight Captain: Alex Zarowny

Author's Agent: Great North Artists Management 350 Dupont St., Toronto, Ontario M5R 1V9. Lion in the Streets was first produced by Tarragon Theatre (Toronto) in April 1990.

Crew

Props: Jennifer Brubacher, Katherine Clegg, Daniel Lapp, Sarah Schwartz, Alicia Land

Wardrobe: Hero Van Harten, Terry Costa, Angela McMillan, Jennifer Morris

Set/Lights: Mike Battell, Norbert Kliszczewski, Claire Porter, Brock Young

FOH/Publicity/ Program: Allison Hahnfeld, Waheed Aghashirin, Novie Edwards, Jacqueline Leung,

Jennifer Forrester

Assistant to the Production Manager: Andrea Malone*

Head Electrician & Lighting Operator: Morgan Myler

Audio Technician, Operator: Inez Khan

Program Execution -Margot Thomas

Poster Design -Adam Rigby & Jim Smagata

* Co-op Student from Loyola Catholic High School

The Cast

David Buchanan
Home Town: Mississauga, Ontario
High School: Westwood Secondary School
For Theatre Erindale: The Farm Show - Farm All, Auctioneer; Pericles: Simonedes, Boult, Quiet Guy in a black T-shirt.
Ambition: Ambitions? Oh, you mean like inhibitions, I got lots of those!!
Favourite Saying: "Sorry, I'm saving it till I'm married."

Norah Cleary

Home Town: London, Ont.

High School: South Secondary

For Theatre Erindale: Pericles, - Dionysa; The Farm Show - various people, livestock, poultry and kitten on a rock.

For Other Companies: Damn Yankees and Anne of Green Gables in High School; Macbeth, (U.W.O.); Revenge of the Killer Bimbos, (Speed City Theatre Group).

Ambition: To get married, become famous and lead an incredibly self-indulgent life.

Favourite Saying: "That's really great--and I'm not even kidding." and "I'm living in a powder keg and giving off sparks."

Stephanie Langstaff
Home Town: Pickering, Ont.
High School: Dunbarton High
For Theatre Erindale: The Farm Show, Pericles.
For Other Companies: Six Characters in Search of an Author
Ambition: To develop superpowers that will allow me to promote truth, justice and the benefits of good grooming habits.
Favourite Saying: "I know who you are, but what am I?"

Britt Lennox
Home Town: Ottawa, Ont.
High School: Glebe Collegiate Institute
For Theatre Erindale: Pericles - Fisher, Leonines; The Farm Show - assorted people, animals.
For Other Companies: MacBeth, Lolita, Anything Goes, Mother Gets Her Wings, Sex Sells, The Blink of an Eye.
Ambition: To go downtown.
Favourite Saying: "I'm going downtown."

Kathleen Lumsden
Home Town: Hamilton, Ont.
High Schools: Glendale and Hill Park Secondary
For Theatre Erindale: Pericles, Prince of Tyre - Thaysa; The Farm Show - various characters & animals.
For Other Companies: Macbeth - Head Witch (Erindale Drama Club); HAIR, (Theatre Aquarius Summer School).
Ambition: To be happy and do what's important.
Favourite Saying: "Things happen for a reason and if it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

John Metcalf
Home Town: Salisbury, New Brunswick
High School: J.M.A. Armstrong High
For Theatre Erindale: Pericles - Cleon; The Farm Show - hay bale guy and other various roles.
For Other Companies: Keep Your Halo Straight - Angel; Arsenic and Old Lace - Teddy. Many roles in too many student written and produced shows.
Ambition: To be the biggest, bestest, goodest, greatest version of my public persona intensified.
Favourite Saying: "The Queen is Dead." - The Smiths

Gary Penzler
Home Town: Bolton, Ont.
High School: Humberview Secondary
For Theatre Erindale: The Farm Show - Les Jervis; Pericles - Antiochus, Lysimachus
For Other Companies: Romeo and Juliet - Benvolio (Tempest Theatre Group); Twelfth Night - Orsino (Erindale Drama Club).
Ambition: To play a hero for a change.
Favourite Saying: "Watch for me on Broadway. I'll be the guy with the cup full of pencils."

Andrea Scott
Home Town: London, Ont.
High School: H.B. Beal Secondary
For Theatre Erindale: Pericles - Cerimon, whore; The Farm Show - chicken lady, swan, choir leader
For Other Companies: The Crucible - Tituba (H.B. Beal Theatre); Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat - chorus (H.B. Beal Theatre)
Ambition: To graduate and avoid any more firearm possession convictions.
Favourite Saying: "That's something . . ."

Jason Storie
Home Town: Elliot Lake (Jewel in the Wilderness)
High School: Elliot Lake Secondary
For Theatre Erindale: Pericles, Prince of Tyre - Pander and Hellicanus; The Farm Show - Charlie Wilson.
For Other Companies: Six Characters in Search of an Author - Leading young man; Something a Little Bit Different and a Lot of Fun - director.
Ambition: To enjoy what it is I choose to do with my life.
Favourite Saying: "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear."

Alex Zarowny
Home Town: Oakville, Ont.
High School: St. Ignatius of Loyola
For Theatre Erindale: Pericles, Prince of Tyre - Pericles; The Farm Show - Bruce Pallet and assorted characters
For Other Companies: Assumption of the Virgin - Sir Andrew (Poculi Ludique Societas, 12th Night Drama Club)
Ambition: To make a living for myself and to eventually be on TOP COPS.
Favourite Saying: "When you come to the fork in the road, take it."

Stage Management

Karl McNelly - Stage Manager
College: '93-'94 Sheridan College; '92 Ryerson Theatre School.
For Theatre Sheridan: A Day in Hollywood/Night in the Ukraine - A.S.M.; Orpheus in the Underworld - Lighting; You Can't Take it With You - Set.
For Other Companies: Good Bye Charlie, - Assoc. Lighting Designer (Oakville Stagecraft); Sears Regional Drama Festival (Northwestern Region) Sound Engineer, Paramount Canada's Wonderland - Lighting Tech.; Hot'l Baltimore - Set (Ryerson Theatre School).
Ambition: To make a million in theatre.
Favourite Saying: "I am only Stage Management."

Morgan Myler - Sound Operator.
Home Town: Vinemount, Ont.
For Theatre Sheridan: Hollywood Ukraine - Stagehand, Electrician; Orpheus in the Underworld - special effects, interfacing and construction; Can't Take It With You - Properties Builder; Birds - Properties Builder.
For Other Companies: Lion in the Streets, -head electrician and lighting operator (Theatre Erindale). Freelance in Sound Design and Operation for jazz and rock bands and orchestras.
Favourite Saying: "What are we going to do today, Brain?" "Same thing we do everyday Pinky: Try to take over the world!"

Inez Khan
Home Town: Mississauga, Ont.
College: Sheridan College
For Theatre Sheridan: A Day in Hollywood/ A Night in the Ukraine - Electrician; Orpheus in the Underworld - Wardrobe; You Can't Take It With You and The Birds - Props.
For Other Companies: Peter Pan, Lend Me a Tenor, Deathtrap and Oklahoma - wardrobe assistant (Huron County Playhouse).
Ambition: To work in the theatre industry in lighting, sound and wardrobe.

Direction and Design

Katherine Kaszas - Director BFA in Theatre, York University. Former Artistic Director of the Blyth Festival during one of its most successful eras (1984-1990); Interim Artistic Director of Factory Theatre (1992); and Associate Artistic Director of the Huron Country Playhouse (1978-79). She has mounted productions, specializing in new work, for Alberta Theatre Projects (Calgary), 25th Street Theatre (Saskatoon), Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg), CAM Theatre Lab (Thunderbay), Theatre New Brunswick (Fredericton), and the Tarragon Theatre. Favourite original productions include Mail Order Brides, Odd Fish, Bordertown Café (Rebar), The Girls in the Gang (Storey/Robie), and The Glorious Twelfth (Storey). As a youngster she assisted Clarke Rogers on a workshop original production of Judith Thompson's The Crackwalker.

Jim Smagata - Lighting Designer and Scenic Consultant, is also Erindale College's Theatre Manager. He has been an actor, singer, songwriter, technician, designer, Technical Manager (Grande Prairie Regional College), board operator, recording engineer, Stand-up Comedian, carpenter, filmmaker, model builder, Chief of Production Services (Centrepointe Theater, Nepean, On.), Director, photographer, scenic painter, Stagecraft instructor, prop maker, pyromaniac and floor sweeper. He is happy that he is now a resident of Mississauga and is able to be home in time (mostly) to visit with his beautiful wife and three sons.

Fraser K. Kerrigan - Asst. Lighting Designer.

Home Town: London, Ont.
For Theatre Sheridan: Hollywood/Ukraine-scenic painter; Orpheus in the Underworld - carpenter; You Can't Take It With You, Birds - props.
For Other Companies: Designer's Asst. at Victoria Hall. Worked at North York Performing Arts Centre with Solar Stage Productions; at the Harbourfront with Equity Showcase. Lighting designs for The Pajama Game, London.
Ambition: Not to Land.
Favourite Saying: "It's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing."

From the Lion's Mouth

The actors have included quotations that provide insights into Lion in the Streets as part of their work for the dramaturgy course which is paired with their fourth-year production work.

David Buchanan

...when you go to sleep you dream. They're your dreams, but it seems as if they're just happening to you. And that's what the ideal theatrical experience is for me.

Judith Thompson

Norah Cleary

"...people make themselves comfortable, by saying, "Oh, that play is not about me, it's about the underbelly." Judith Thompson

I am always very, very shocked when people are shocked.... Because I guess I'm very naive when I write. It just doesn't occur to me that these characters would offend anybody because they're people and I care about them. And you just don't care about people because they're nice or they're pretty... Judith Thompson

Stephanie Langstaff

Truth is simply what is... Grace is something you achieve. Through work. And grace is something you have to work and work at. It happens through penitence, through sight. Through seeing who you are and changing things. Judith Thompson

Britt Lennox

Her characters are animal, then rational, flickering between both. Financial Times

Baffling and exciting writer. Guardian

Kathleen Lumsden

It's not so much that I'm drawn to the dark side as that I'm interested in the invisible side of human beings. I think that's what theatre should do, is show us what is invisible and covered up with piles of everydayness and everday life. Eleanor Wachtel, BRICK

John Metcalf

Bleak, harrowing and frightening as they may be, the movement of Judith Thompson's plays is usually regenerative - from sin toward grace, from the tornado of suffocation to the restoration of breath.

Everything is human. Our dreams, our words, our actions, our orgasms, our shit - everything defines us. Urjo Kareda

Gary Penzler

I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.

I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Caaba in Mecca, but He was not there either.

I questioned the scholars and philosophers but He was beyond their understanding.

I then looked into my heart and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found Jelaluddin Rumi

Andrea Scott

I want you all to take your life I want you all to have your life.

Judith Thompson

Ann Shisko

The overall 'relay' structure of the play resists closure containment and easy comprehension as a character from each scene is carried forward to the next, catalyst to a new action. Richard Knowles

Jason Storie

Many of Thompson's characters inhabit the space that both separates and fuses illusion and reality. It is the exploration of this magical zone that is at the centre of Judith Thompson's theatricalism. Julie Adam

Alex Zarowny

Judith Thompson, regarding her removal of excess "show and tell" from her scripts - "If people had problems before, they'll be really confused now."

Ed Harris, Exodus to Jazz. Song: Spartacus

Peter Gabriel. Song: Gethsemane

Steward Copeland. Song: Flowershop Quintet

Rolling Stones. Song: Dead Flowers

No Speak Sampler: Song: Flags of Convenience

No Speak Sampler: Song: Fire & Mercy

Yothu Yindi, Homeland Movement. Song: Enamadala

Carlos Santana. Song: Black Magic Woman.

Yothu Yindi, Homeland Movement. Song: Mambul mambul

Yothu Yindi, Homeland Movement. Song: Barrwula Part 1

Yothu Yindi, Homeland Movement. Song: Barrwula Part 2

Yothu Yindi, Homeland Movement. Song: Djapana

Yothu Yindi, Homeland Movement. Song: Gudurku

FOR THEATRE ERINDALE

Board of Directors: Catherine Rubincam, Don Graves

Producer: Nancy Copeland

Artistic Director: Patrick Young

Production Manager and Technical Director: James W. Smagata

Business Manager: Clara Stewart

Public Relations: Holly Benson, Maryann Wells

Front-of-House Supervisor: James W. Smagata

Office Staff: Eleanor Murphy

President's Circle

Mediacom

Ciba Geigy Canada Ltd.

Ericsson Communications Inc.

Astra Pharma Inc.

Patrons of Theatre Erindale

Roger Beck

Victoria Cover

Don Curtis

Allan Jones

Catherine Rubincam

Dagmar Schoenrank

Thank You

John Lott, Burns TV, John Roby, Terry Costa,

Nancy Gava, Paul Dunlop, Judith Fraser, Debra McKay

Steve Jaunzems, Michael Farnsworth, Stratford Festival,

Tarragon Theatre, 3L Sound and Lighting,

Erindale Special Services, Sentinel Traffic Signals Inc,

Erindale Grounds Department