Hart House Theatre Partners with Canadian Rep on TIDELINE

Opening September 16, Hart House Theatre is pleased to partner with Canadian Rep and and ENSEMBLE: Canadian Youth Theatre to present an epic tale by one of Canada's finest playwrights. Directed by Toronto theatre legend Ken Gass and starring a cast of trained, emergent performers that will be the next stars of the Canadian stage, Tideline promises to showcase young, Canadian voices with the high production value that Hart House Theatre audiences enjoy.

When you've grown up an ocean away from your birthplace, what do you ultimately call home? Winner of the Governor General's Award and France's Prix Molière, Wajdi Mouawad's Tideline is a wildly theatrical play about the displacement of self. After the sudden, unexpected death of a father he hardly knew, Wilfrid is forced to confront a host of family secrets, including the foundation of his own existence. A dream-like journey through a war-torn landscape inhabited by some equally lost and peculiar survivors, Tideline is a darkly humorous fable for our times.

Tideline (Littoral) is the first of Wajdi Mouawad's remarkable tetralogy of plays that also includes the widely celebrated Scorched (Incendies), as well as Forests (Forêts) and Heavens (Ciels).

Ken Gass, when asked for his thoughts on this play and Canadian Rep's newest endeavour, ENSEMBLE, he had this to say:

"Wajdi Mouawad's Tideline is a large story told on a bold poetic theatrical canvas - a powerful emotional and aesthetic experience. This is also a play about young people, the lost generation and their place in the world. It's a story about now. We all know war is bad, as one of the rebels proclaims, but how to defy those who destroyed the visions of youth. How to heal, to bury the dead and find closure.

Tideline is irreverent, rich in language, often funny and, above all, imaginative. There's a sense of immediacy, because it's unfolding right in front of you.

Canadian Rep Theatre is thrilled to collaborate with Hart House Theatre through its latest initiative, ENSEMBLE Canadian Youth Theatre/Théâtre Jeunesse Canadien. In many ways, ENSEMBLE reflects the larger ambitions of Canadian Rep itself, an opportunity to explore diverse approaches to the extraordinary body of contemporary Canadian dramatic works with a committed ensemble of talented performers."

Tasked with creating the other-worldly canvas for Wilfred's journey is the incredible design team of Jung-Hye Kim (set and costume), André du Toit (lighting) and Wayne Kelso (sound).

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