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THE BRIDGE THEATRE COMPANY
For Immediate Release
January 25, 2011
THE BRIDGE THEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES ITS SEVENTH SEASON
New York City Arts Organization To Present Exclusively Canadian Work
Plays By Matthew MacKenzie, Daniel Karasik, and Nicolas Billon Will Be Showcased
For the first time since its founding in 2004, The Bridge Theatre Company will fill its season with
exclusively Canadian material. The company has long been the home of Canadian theatre in New York City developing and premiering new work by notable Canadian playwrights, including Ken Cameron, David Carley, Marcia
Johnson and, more recently, Michael Rubenfeld and Kate Hewlett - and has also worked closely with emerging
American playwrights, including David Caudle and Jennifer Lane. The exclusively Canadian content of their
upcoming season represents a permanent shift in the Bridge’s mandate to concentrate all the company’s energy on
establishing a permanent Canadian presence on the New York stage.
The seventh season will present new plays from across Canada by three of the country’s brightest young
playwrights - Edmonton’s Matt MacKenzie, Toronto’s Daniel Karasik and Montreal’s Nicolas Billon.
Workshops of MacKenzie’s SIA and Karasik’s The Innocents will be presented in April and May, respectively, at the
company’s resident New York City space, Shetler Studios, followed by a summer production in downtown Manhattan
of Nicolas Billon’s award-winning Greenland, directed by Ravi Jain.
The season will open April 1st with SIA, MacKenzie’s powerfully engaging hostage drama set in the Liberian refugee
camp of Buduburam. Directed by Jenn Thompson, SIA will feature New York actors Peterson Townsend, Susan
Heyward, and Hunter Canning.
In May, the company will present Karasik’s sharply written dark comedy The Innocents. The workshop marks the
24 year old playwright’s return to New York, following a 2009 hotINK Festival run of his award-winning play In Full
Light.
August will bring the highly anticipated return of Nicolas Billon’s Greenland, following its February 2010 workshop
with the Bridge. The gripping story of a family’s alienation won the Outstanding Production and Audience Choice
Awards at the 2009 SummerWorks festival. The US premiere will reunite Billon and Jain with Claire Calnan and
Andrew Musselman from the Toronto production, and Eryn Murman (Broadway’s Spring Awakening) from the NY
workshop.
For press inquiries, please contact Ron Lasko at Spin Cycle PR
at 212.505.1700 or by email at [email protected].
244 West 54th Street, 12th Floor New York, NY 10019 - www.thebridgetheatrecompany.com
THE BRIDGE THEATRE COMPANY
SIA, by Matthew MacKenzie: The fast and furious story of a former child soldier who takes a
Canadian university student hostage in a Liberian refugee camp in West Africa; a challenging look into
the complex relationship between North America and Africa. Winner of the 2010 Alberta Playwriting
Competition, when the play premiered at the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival, it received five stars from
Eye Weekly and was named Outstanding New Play by NOW Magazine. Broadway veteran Jenn
Thompson (Tony Award-winning productions of Ah, Wilderness!, The Heiress, and Annie) will direct the
workshop that will also feature Jajube Mandiela of Degrassi: The Next Generation in the title role she
originated at the Toronto Fringe. Performances will run April 1st & 2nd at 8pm at Penthouse 1 in Shetler
Studios, where the Bridge is the resident theatre company.
The Innocents, by Daniel Karasik: Stanley Birnbaum, fresh-faced wunderkind lawyer, has a
bewildering new client: a smart young man from the suburbs, all the world open to him, who’s
confessed to a brutal, senseless murder. Developed through the Tarragon Theatre's 2008 Playwrights
Unit and presented as part of the 2010 SummerWorks Festival, award-winning playwright Daniel
Karasik’s latest work is a sexy and darkly funny exploration of youth, ambition, and desire. The
Innocents will receive its New York premiere as a workshop with the Bridge in late May at the Bridge
Theatre in Shetler Studios.
Greenland, by Nicolas Billon: Receding ice levels off the coast of Greenland have revealed that an
area thought to be part of the mainland is actually a separate island. This revelation mirrors a growing
rift between the island's discoverer and his increasingly distant family, set adrift after a catastrophic
loss. Winner of the Outstanding Production and Audience Choice awards at the 2009 SummerWorks
festival. The Bridge is proud to present Nicolas Billon’s critically acclaimed play as a full production in
August, following a New York workshop in February 2010. The summer run will reunite Mr. Billon and
director Ravi Jain with Claire Calnan and Andrew Musselman, two of the original SummerWorks cast
members. Spring Awakening’s Eryn Murman will round out the cast. Dates and venue TBD.
Founded in 2004, The Bridge Theatre Company is a New York City-based organization that produces,
workshops and champions new Canadian work. Dedicated to cross-border development between Canada
and the US, the company examines the relationship between these two contemporary theatrical cultures
through the work of emerging playwrights, actors and directors. Through a growing network of artists
on both sides of the border and partnership with like-minded Canadian organizations, the Bridge hopes
to discover and develop new plays that may examine everything from the bridges between two nations
to the bridges between two people.
As founding members and co-Artistic Producers of the Bridge since 2005, Esther Barlow and Dustin
Olson have produced and developed 10 productions, 15 workshops and countless readings of new work
by Canadian playwrights, including Ken Cameron, David Carley, Trevor Ferguson, Kate Hewlett, Marcia
Johnson, T.J Dawe, Oonagh Duncan, Michael Rubenfeld, David West Read, Nicolas Billon and Matthew
MacKenzie.
The Bridge was honored to preview its seventh season at the inaugural Preview of the Arts Festival, at
Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in November of 2010. The three day festival also featured contributions
from Adam Rapp, John Patrick Shanley, Joe Iconis, American Place Theater and Museum of the Moving
Image.
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244 West 54th Street, 12th Floor New York, NY 10019 - www.thebridgetheatrecompany.com