Touchstone Theatre Presents the World Premiere Of LIGHTS

Touchstone Theatre will welcome audiences back to live theatre with Lights by Adam Grant Warren, its first production since the 2020 Covid-19 shutdown, and the thematic flagship for their forthcoming season "Let There Be Lights" which heralds a brave return to the stage after a challenging eighteen months.

Directed by Touchstone Artistic Director Roy Surette and set against the backdrop of a pandemic Christmas, Lights follows the story of Evan Chaulk (Adam Grant Warren), a schoolteacher and wheelchair user who returns to his family home in Newfoundland for Christmas to discover his mother Nancy (Susinn McFarlen), a strong-willed retired teacher is adapting to life with Alzheimer's Disease. Unsettling, daring, and funny - Lights is a portrait of a tight-night family facing profound life changes and discovering what remains when a lifetime of memories begins to fade away.

As Touchstone Theatre's first of three World Premieres this season, the three-time Covid postponed production is more than ready to meet its audience:

Roy Surette, Touchstone Artistic Director: "We are delighted to finally stage Adam's gorgeous and powerful new play. Though set during a Christmas visit home to Newfoundland, it's not your typical holiday fare. It's a rich and intimate look at family dynamics, adapting to change, and finding strength in unusual places."

Lights was developed through Touchstone's Flying Start Program, an incubator supporting the next generation of theatre artists through the commissioning of new Canadian works by early career playwrights. Along with dramaturgical support, the program culminates in a full-scale production as part of Touchstone's Mainstage series. Flying Start is supported by RBC Emerging Artists program and is produced In Association with Firehall Arts Centre.

Lights features Jessie award-winning Adam Grant Warren (Kill Me Now, Touchstone Theatre), Susinn McFarlen (The Taming of the Shew, Bard on the Beach), and Leslie Dos Remedios (Thanks for Giving, Arts Club Theatre).

Adam Grant Warren: Originally from Newfoundland, Adam began his writing career as a radio columnist for the CBC Morning Show. In that time, he also became Newfoundland's youngest winner of both the Arts and Letters Award for Fiction and the George Story Medal of Excellence in the Arts. On the heels of that success, Adam moved west to study at Vancouver Film School. His films have screened as official selections at California's Newport Beach Film Festival, the National Screen Institute's Online All-Star Reel, and the Vancouver International Film Festival - where his film Float took home the honours for Best Canadian Short in 2012. In 2016, Conocerlos (Get to Know Them) earned him his first BC Film Leo Award Nomination for Best Screenwriting.

Adam is a performer with Vancouver's All Bodies Dance Project. He has appeared in stage productions of Frank Theatre's All In, Real Wheels Theatre's CREEPS, and Touchstone's Kill Me Now - the latter two earning him Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards. Following development as part of the National Writers' Colony at Vancouver's Playwrights' Theatre Centre, his solo show, Last Train In, premiered at Victoria's UNOFest, and went on to critical acclaim at Vancouver's 2017 rEvolver Theatre Festival.

Learn more at https://firehallartscentre.ca/get-tickets/.