Hart House Theatre to Present THE WEDDING SINGER, 1/10-25

Opening January 10, Hart House Theatre will present a hilarious musical comedy based on one of the most popular movies of the 1990s -The Wedding Singer. Directed by Theatre Aquarius' Artistic Associate Luke Brown and featuring a cast of the city's finest emerging talent, this multi Tony Award nominated show is long overdue for a downtown Toronto production.

The Wedding Singer, the musical based on the popular film starring Adam Sandler, is the story of Robbie Hart, a wedding singer whose own luck in love leaves him desolate, blind to the perfect woman standing right in front of him. Chock full of salutes to '80s pop culture, The Wedding Singer transports us to the New Jersey shore to find true love in a sea of tulle, layered cakes and first dances.

Luke Brown heads up the team after recently receiving accolades for his unique staging of Séance with Nicholas Wallace at Theatre Aquarius. Luke has also been affiliated with Neptune Theatre, the Charlottetown Festival and Talk is Free Theatre and is poised at the beginning of a fruitful directing career. Sitting on the piano bench and leading the charge as Musical Director is the very accomplished, two-time Dora Award Nominee, Anthony Bastianon. Anthony enjoys a variety of work as a musical director, composer, educator and pianist and has over 100 productions under his belt. Creating the sweet moves of the '80s and putting a spin on the first dance is choreographer Amanda Nagy - returing to Hart House Theatre after her stellar work on our 2012 production of Cabaret.

Creating the visual world of MR. Brown's The Wedding Singer is design teamBrandon Kleiman and Dominic Manca. Both of these designers have worked multiple times on our historic stage and bring a wealth of experience with them. Dominic is originally from Alberta, and since moving to Toronto he hasworked maily with the French community at both the Théâtre français de Toronto and TFO. Brandon designs for both the stage and film and is a design assistant at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Outside of the festival, he has assisted Designers Michael Gianfrancesco, Sean Mulcahy, Douglas Paraschuk, David Boechler, Julie Fox, and Robert Brill for Toronto, Winnipeg, New York and Los Angeles. Greg Dougherty joins this team as the Video Designer who will be creating the backdrops projected on the screens shown in the preliminary renderings.