Special offer for the Broadway lover!
Broadway lovers unite! Start February with a bang and see Canada’s first lady of musical theatre, Louise Pitre, in a show-stopping performance at The Fredericton Playhouse on Thursday, February 2 at 7:30pm.
In addition to headlining the Toronto, Broadway and US touring company casts of Mamma Mia!, for which she also earned a Tony nomination, Pitre is known for her signature performances as Fantine in Les Misérables (Toronto, Montreal and Paris) and the title character in Edith Piaf. She also earned rave reviews for leading roles in Annie Get Your Gun; Song & Dance; Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris; I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; The World Goes ‘Round; Blood Brothers; Tartuffe; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?; The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd; Applause; Rock ‘n’ Roll etc.; The Toxic Avenger; and A Year With Frog and Toad.
In September 2009, Pitre also made her Carnegie Hall debut singing the role of Ulrika in the concert version of the musical Kristina by ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, which she reprised at Royal Albert Hall in April 2010.
With a career that spans theatre, television and concert stages across North America and Europe, Louise Pitre is a musical experience not to be missed. And when you buy tickets to see Pitre, you automatically qualify for a 50% discount off the regular ticket price for the North American Touring Company of Fiddler On The Roof!
This Tony Award winning musical, starring John Preece as Tevye, runs February 8 and 9 at The Fredericton Playhouse. Filled with rousing, heartwarming numbers such as “Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” and “If I Were A Rich Man”, Fiddler On The Roof is a timeless classic.
To take advantage of this offer, please contact The Fredericton Playhouse box office in person or by phone at 458-8344 or 1-866-884-5800. For more information on Louise Pitre or Fiddler On The Roof, visit www.theplayhouse.ca.
Brit Floyd – The World’s Greatest Pink Floyd Show makes the big leap across the pond
The Fredericton Playhouse is pleased to present a brand new show on Wednesday, March 7th at 7:30pm, celebrating the musical legacy of Pink Floyd. Having performed to over 200,000 fans in Europe in 2011, Brit Floyd – The World’s Greatest Pink Floyd Show, will bring A Foot In The Door to Fredericton audiences for the very first time.
Created by Brit Floyd musical director Damian Darlington to celebrate the release of the brand new official Pink Floyd “Best Of” album A Foot In the Door, the performance will include all of Pink Floyd’s best work, in its entirety – track by track – as selected personally by the Pink Floyd band members themselves.
As an extra bonus, and back by popular demand, Brit Floyd’s new show will also include a full 23-minute show-stopping rendition of “Echoes”, taken from Pink Floyd’s classic 1971 album, Meddle.
The show also includes such hits as “Hey You”, “See Emily Play”, “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”, “Another Brick In The Wall pt2”, “Have A Cigar”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Time”, “The Great Gig In The Sky”, “Money”, “Comfortably Numb”, “High Hopes”, “Learning To Fly”, “The Fletcher Memorial Home”, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, “Brain Damage”, “Eclipse” and “Run Like Hell”.
In less than one year the new Brit Floyd phenomena has been embraced by Pink Floyd fans worldwide, and acclaimed for its note-for-note perfection, unique Floydian animation, and its state-of-the art sound and lights. A Brit Floyd show is truly the genuine reincarnation of the Pink Floyd live experience.
“Blindingly brilliant, jaw-droppingly authentic… at last Pink Floyd have the tribute show they deserve” -Portsmouth News
“Mesmerising, absolutely mesmerising. The most exciting tribute show ever!” -Ticketmaster
Tickets for Brit Floyd – The World’s Greatest Pink Floyd Show go on sale Saturday, January 14 at noon and are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
Artist website: www.britfloyd.com
Spellbinding Canadian soprano blends classical and popular music
Jambalaya—a surprising title indeed, but to surprise the audience is what this concert is all about. With her own personal style, her voice, her presence, and her choice of repertoire, Marie-Josée Lord delivers a stunning recital where classical and popular music are gently entwined. Gordon Lightfoot, Verdi, Lama, Bizet, Joni Mitchell and many other composers make up this special program that flows ever so naturally from this brilliant, award-winning Canadian soprano. Lord will share this and more at The Fredericton Playhouse on Friday, January 13 at 7:30pm.
Lord made her professional debut in the fall of 2003, singing Liù in Puccini’s Turandot at the Opéra de Québec. In February 2004, Montreal music lovers were enraptured by her rendition of Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème at the Opéra de Montréal, where she then sang the title role of Puccini’s Suor Angelica in September 2006, confirming her formidable acting talent and deep musical sensitivity.
Recently Lord has been heard as Marie-Jeanne in the world premiere of the operatic version of the celebrated musical Starmania (Plamondon/Berger) at the Opéra de Québec in May 2008, and the Opéra de Montréal in March 2009. And in the early fall of 2009, she brilliantly sang the role of Nedda (I Paggliacci) at the Opéra de Montréal.
A winner of many renowned scholarships and competitions, Marie-Josée Lord impresses critics and audiences alike by the depth of her talent and her charming and charismatic personality. Her first album, recorded with the Orchestre Métropolitain, has been a great success with over 25,000 copies sold to date.
“…A voice of wonderful depth and pliability casting a radiant glow. Her presence is spellbinding… a very classy singer with a bright future.” – Ilse Zadrozny, Montreal Gazette
Tickets for Marie-Josée Lord’s Jambalaya are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
Holiday fun for the kids with Beauty & The Beast!
The Fredericton Playhouse Spotlight Kidstage Series is pleased to launch its 2011-2012 line up over the holidays with Beauty & The Beast on Thursday, December 29 at 2pm and 6:30pm. A popular and well-loved fairy tale turns into a highly interactive and hilarious work of art under the creative hands of The Nearly World-Famous DuffleBag Theatre company! Recommended for ages 5 and up, this is children’s theatre with a big twist as children and adults in the audience are invited to participate in the comedy and action of creating something fresh and new out of something old and familiar. And the beauty of it all rests in the message of the tale… let not your beastly pride blind you to your faults and stop you from showing compassion and love!
Entertaining and insightful, our second Kidstage Series presentation brings the Iroquois Creation Story to life in A Story Before Time on Sunday, February 5 at 2pm. Recommended for ages 6 and up, you will watch animal characters swim across the stage and trees grow from silk. This incredibly powerful cultural story is explained through the movement and actions of the dancers and through the narration of the storyteller. Visually stunning, musically rich, and theatrically compelling for young audiences, A Story Before Time explores the metaphors, symbols, dreams, and beliefs of a people.
Electroluminescent crayon-like creatures light up the final presentation in our Kidstage Series on Thursday, March 8 at 11am and 2pm, in the heart-rendering tale of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling and Aesop’s fable The Tortoise and The Hare. Lightwire theatre, with its dazzling visuals, poignant choreography, and creative use of music ranging from classical to jazz to pop, literally brings these beloved tales into a new and brilliant light.
Tickets for Dufflebag Theatre’s Beauty & The Beast and all of our Kidstage Series presentations are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
Make the holidays PERFECT with Christmas@theplayhouse!
Christmas @theplayhouse is proud to present Picture Perfect Christmas, the latest edition of Fredericton’s favourite holiday show. With a host of colourful characters, vibrant musical numbers, and a talented ensemble of Fredericton-based performers and musicians, audiences will be taken on a journey of discovery where the true meaning of Christmas is found and celebrated.
Running December 15-18 at The Fredericton Playhouse, Picture Perfect Christmas follows two people who strive for perfection, each in their own way. Filled with joy, laughter, redemption, and lots of music, it’s the perfect way to get your family into the Christmas spirit.
Directed by Tania Breen, and featuring original musical arrangements by award-winning composer/musician Michael Doherty, this production has something for everyone. “We’re so thrilled to be working with another incredibly talented group of performers this year, new and old,” says Breen, “Their commitment and talent has definitely fuelled our creative energy in writing this show, and Michael Doherty’s new musical pieces support the story beautifully.”
Continues Breen, “The arc of our story revolves around the value of letting go of perfection, and being able to find beauty in the simplest of things. The energy and enthusiasm among the cast has been fantastic, so we’re really pleased to see it all come together.”
Cast members have been hard at work in preparation for what has become a holiday tradition among local audiences. Christmas @theplayhouse has enjoyed a long tenure in the capital city as one of Fredericton’s favourite Christmas shows. This year marks the 10th edition of this holiday staple, and the creative team behind the production have been hard at work.
Tim Yerxa, Executive Director of The Fredericton Playhouse, explains that “what makes this production so popular is not only the incredible music and spectacle, but the home-grown talent it showcases– that community connection.”
Christmas @theplayhouse: Picture Perfect Christmas runs December 15-17 at 7:30pm, and December 17 and 18 at 2pm. Tickets are on sale now at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
Celebrate Christmas with a priceless piece of Irish culture
Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas recreates the joy and innocence of a night before Christmas in a farmhouse in the remote parish of Teampall an Ghleanntain in the west of Ireland. On November 26 at 7:30pm, watch as the neighbours gather around the fire to grace the long wintry night with the laughter of their stories, the joy of their music, and the dances they always said they were much too old for.
This year, Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas features Marcus Donnelly from Co. Galway, one of the most exhilarating, truly creative Irish dancers performing today. Internationally acclaimed master of the steel-string guitar William Coulter joins in, along with vocalist and multi-instrumentalist (and world-champion level Irish dancer) Marianne Knight from Co. Mayo, and Brian Bigley (also a world-champion level Irish dancer) on uilleann pipes, whistles and flute.
“…it’s such a joy to experience Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas, a unique blend of master story-telling, traditional music and dance that captures the heart and soul of Ireland in an evening of nostalgic holiday memories as only the Irish can share.” – The Times-Standard
Tickets for Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
Comic couple Jenny Parsons and Steve Morel will keep you in stitches
The Fredericton Playhouse will be bursting with laughter on Friday, November 25 when one of Canada’s favourite comedy duos hits the stage with an arsenal of over two decades of their greatest hits. The Funny Ones is the latest live comedy offering from Jenny Parsons and Steve Morel, two professional comedians who have become proficient in the art of being silly together in life and in love.
The Funny Ones is about their real-life relationship; about being a husband and wife while doing comedy for a living, and the comedians who have inspired them along the way: Lucy & Ricky, Burns & Allen, and even Palin & Bush. It’s like stand-up with songs, but WAY cooler.
When Jenny and Steve moved to the countryside four years ago, they met the “raw milk farmer”, the “mushroom guy” and the “couple who grew the garlic.” As professional comedians, and who were new to the area, they soon became known as “the funny ones.” And so a title for their latest touring show was born. The Funny Ones is an umbrella , a catch-all… a farm combine, if you will. It harvests the best bits from over the two decades that Jenny and Steve have been creating crops of silliness together.
The combination of Steve’s musical concoctions and Jenny’s comic fearlessness make for an evening you aren’t soon to forget. What’s more, Jenny performs magic tricks throughout the show that would make most trained magicians sweat! Together, they perform sketches such as Abbott and Costello’s Who’s on First routine, but through the eyes of characters Hannibal and Clarice of Silence of the Lambs fame. They title this soon-to-be-classic piece Who Did You Eat First?
The Hamilton View calls their performance “…slick, hysterically funny and not to be missed. Parsons plays the washboard and the cheese grater. Morel plays the guitar and the ukulele. Together, they make your sides hurt from laughing.”
“An utterly captivating and charming performance,” says The Ottawa Citizen, “You will want to follow them home and move in with them.”
Tickets for The Funny Ones are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
Experience an exceptional evening of music with the National Arts Centre Orchestra
On November 22 at 7:30pm, The Fredericton Playhouse will be filled with the incredible sound of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. Created in 1969, the Orchestra has performed worldwide, including 118 concerts in cities across Canada. This month, the tradition of engaging communities continues with the orchestra’s eighth visit to the Atlantic region.
Past participants in the NAC’s Summer Music Institute’s Young Artists Program, conductor Julian Kuerti returns with debuting pianist Jan Lisiecki in Mozart’s sublime Piano Concerto No. 20, a work that even Beethoven admired and often performed. Kuerti also leads a world premiere by NAC Award-winning composer John Estacio as well as Brahms’s glorious First Symphony, a work on which the composer toiled for decades. At its premiere, Brahms’s masterpiece was hailed by critics as “Beethoven’s Tenth” and is now celebrated as a jewel of the orchestral repertoire.
Members of the NAC’s Institute for Orchestral Studies, a string quintet of young artists preparing for professional careers, will also perform alongside NAC Orchestra musicians that evening. Join us for an awe-inspiring performance by an exceptional ensemble of classical musicians who continue to draw accolades both abroad and at home.
Tickets for the National Arts Centre Orchestra are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
On November 16 at 7:30pm, The Fredericton Playhouse will host choreographer James Kudelka’s stunning work with renowned Canadian dance company Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC). Based in Montreal, Canada, CLC creates and produces collaborations in dance, music and the visual arts – performances that transcend boundaries through movement, dialogue and celebration, drawing on both conventional theatrical forms and innovative community-based approaches.
CLC has been the subject of seven films, was featured in television specials in Canada and Russia, and has been the subject of over 300 newspaper articles, including appearances on the front pages of Montréal’s Le Devoir, the Peterborough Examiner, and the Meaford Express… virtually unheard of for a dance company. Their reconstruction of James Kudelka’s masterwork, Fifteen Heterosexual Duets was also documented in a book initiated by Lemieux and published by Dance Collection Danse Press/es in 2006.
In this performance, you will soar to the heavens in an evening of dances featuring 11 of the country’s finest dancers, and consisting of the following three works: Fifteen Heterosexual Duets, Soudain l’hiver dernier, and In Paradisum. Let yourself be swept up in the driving, hypnotic masterpiece of emotional power and technical brilliance in an “outpouring of movement invention” (The New York Times).
As part of our Create, Learn and Play Series, patrons are also invited to attend an open dance rehearsal with Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie on Tuesday, November 15 from 4-5:30pm at The Fredericton Playhouse. Take a peek into the rehearsal of a repertory piece, and be privy to some behind-the-scenes secrets and the day to day work of professional dancers.
If you would rather be a participant than a spectator then why not participate in our Master Class Series as we offer aspiring dancers the opportunity to work with a few of CLC’s professional dancers at the Charlotte Street Arts Centre on Tuesday, November 15 from 6:30-8pm. The fee for the class is $20 ($10 for Spotlight members) and registration is required through The Fredericton Playhouse box office.
Tickets for Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
Rave reviews for upcoming Africville Stories
The Fredericton Playhouse is pleased to announce that phenomenally gifted singer/actress Jackie Richardson will be joining the Joe Sealy Quartet, along with special guest artist Paul Novotny, for Africville Stories (formerly entitled Joe Sealy’s Africville) on November 3 at 7:30pm. In this rare and special performance, Sealy will unveil an exciting new version of his celebrated Juno Award-winning Africville Suite, which will feature new songs and stories about the legendary Afro-Canadian community.
A dazzling performer, Richardson will punctuate the evening with her powerful and supple voice, and her warm and vibrant stage presence. Fredericton audiences will remember her from past performances at The Fredericton Playhouse and with the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival. Richardson’s music is an experience of soul – a profoundly personal synthesis of the remarkable gospel, blues, and jazz women she has embodied on stage and screen. Couple this with the vivid tapestry of Sealy’s newly re-imagined works, and the deep bass lines and strong rhythms of bassist Paul Novotny, and you’ve got a memorable experience in the making.
Rave reviews have already been pouring in after the launch concert of Africville Stories last week in Kitchener, Ontario. Robert Reid of The Record describes the “special treat” that was Jackie Richardson as narrator and vocalist, stating “Simply said, Richardson is one of this country’s musical treasures — a Canadian Ella Fitzgerald, if you will.”
“Both as a narrator and a vocalist, Richardson gives you goosebumps with a voice that rumbles at the bottom of the barrel one minute and then takes flight and soars the next.” Sealy is also praised by Reid as having “had the enthusiastic and appreciative crowd hanging on every note of music and narrative nuance.”
Don’t miss what The Record described as “a landscape sound painting — a blend of historical snapshot, anecdote (with such figures as Joe Lewis and Duke Ellington making cameos) and dramatic vignette.”
Patrons are also invited to join Joe Sealy and Jackie Richardson after the show on November 3 for the next installment of our In Conversation Series post-show talks at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Hosted by Russ Hunt – a professor in the Department of English at St. Thomas University – this forum gives fans the opportunity to talk with Sealy and Richardson about their work, inspiration, and accolades. Tickets for the post-show talk, available through the Fredericton Playhouse box office in limited number, are complimentary and include a free glass of wine.
Tickets for Africville Stories are available at the Fredericton Playhouse box office 1-866-884-5800, or online at www.theplayhouse.ca.
