Briana Brown's Award-Winning Play ROBERT to Premiere at the 2018 Toronto Fringe

Fresh off her win of the 2018 Cayle Chernin Award for Theatre Production, Lark & Whimsy Theatre Collective announced today that Briana Brown's newest play Robert will receive its world premiere at this summer's Toronto Fringe Festival, July 4th-15th, 2018 at St. George the Martyr, 197 John Street, Toronto, ON. Tickets go on sale to the general public on June 7th, 2018 at www.fringetoronto.com.

Kat and James are waiting for their father to die. Not exactly estranged, but certainly not close, the two struggle to make conversation until James reveals a secret he's kept from Kat since childhood - a secret that turns their family roles upside down, and forces them both to confront what exactly "family" means. Robert is a witty and graceful new comedy that delivers laughs and heart while taking on difficult questions of identity, grief and loss. With a set of bagpipes.

From the Toronto Fringe artists who produced Bad Baby Presents: Rules Control The Fun (Torontoist Top 5 Pick of the Fringe, Mooney on Theatre Rave Review & Staff Pick, NOW Magazine Outstanding Performance: Janelle Hanna), Mockingbird (Next Stage Festival - Dora Nominated Outstanding Ensemble) and Almost, Again (Best of Fringe), Robert is written by Briana Brown, co-directed by Briana Brown & Rob Kempson, and features Janelle Hanna & Chris Baker. The production team consists of Kathleen Harrison (Stage Manager), Jacob Kay (Assistant Director) and Erin Vandenberg (Producer/Dramaturge).

Robert was originally conceived overnight in a castle as part of Driftwood Theatre's Trafalgar 24 event where it received Driftwood's Beyond the Castle Award. It was further developed through a playwriting residency with Driftwood supported by the Ontario Arts Council, and was shortlisted for the Stage West Pechet Family Comedy Award by the Playwright's Guild of Canada.

Performance Schedule:

• Wednesday July 4th - 8pm
• Thursday July 5th - 8pm
• Friday July 6th - 8pm
• Saturday July 7th - 5pm & 8pm
• Tuesday July 10 - 8pm
• Wednesday July 11th - 8pm
• Thursday July 12th - 8pm
• Friday July 13th - 8pm
• Saturday July 14th - 5pm & 8pm

Tickets are available to purchase in person at the festival box office for $13 ($11 plus $2 fee). At-the-door tickets will be sold at the show's venue starting one hour prior to show time for cash sales only, subject to availability. Visit fringetoronto.com for more information on tickets and festival passes.

Lark & Whimsy Theatre Collective, founded by Chris Baker and Erin Vandenberg, produces original Canadian plays that pair rich theatricality and language with challenging content, striving to create theatrical experiences that illuminate and engage. Our work has garnered critical attention from Mooney on Theatre (who hailed Erin Vandenberg's Salt as a "beautiful and harrowing portrayal of mental illness and abuse"), the Torontoist (who declared that Janelle Hanna's Bad Baby Presents: Rules Control the Fun "singlehandedly rescued the concept of meta-narrative" at last year's Toronto Fringe) and NOW Magazine, who named Janelle Hanna on their list of Outstanding Performances for her work as Bad Baby. Lark & Whimsy explores the frictions that arise between conflicting viewpoints and the "imponderable agony of just being here" as Gwendolyn MacEwan once called it, with an emphasis on the slightly absurd, the handcrafted and the delicate. We try to be funny sometimes too. Always, we work to try to understand more about ourselves and the time and place we live in.

Learn more at larkandwhimsytheatre.com.

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