Canadian Stage TD Dream in High Park Presents ROMEO AND JULIET

The Canadian Stage TD Dream in High Park presents Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare's timeless tale of star-crossed lovers and feuding families directed by Dora Award-winner Vikki Anderson (The Doll House, Coyote Ugly). The production runs June 25 to September 5, 2010 (media night: June 29) at the High Park amphitheatre. Performances run Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m. Gate opens at 6 p.m. Admission is PWYC at the gate (suggested minimum donation $20) and free for children 14 and under. Family Day Sundays feature free, all-ages, pre-show activities. For Dream information, contact 416-367-1652 or canadianstage.com/dream.

Entering its 28th season, the Canadian Stage TD Dream in High Park is the oldest annual outdoor theatre event in Canada. Since its inception in 1983, an estimated 1.3 million people have enjoyed the tradition of theatre under the stars.

Family Day Sundays, the popular, free, all-ages program for children, parents and families return featuring fun-filled activities including backstage tours, an opportunity to meet the cast, Shakespearean games, workshops exploring the language of the Bard and more. Held at the High Park amphitheatre on Sundays, the program runs July 4 to September 5, from 5 - 6:30 p.m., weather permitting. Registration is required. Registration requests will be accepted June through September. Contact 416-367-1652 or family@canadianstage.com for more information.

Romeo and Juliet is one of William Shakespeare's most popular plays and indisputably the world's best-known love story. In this adaptation, the tragic tale of the young lovers destroyed by their feuding families is re-told by a group of travelling performers delayed at the Verona train station. Weary and irritable, tempers flare and tension ignites a spirited confrontation. In an attempt to restore calm, some members of the group challenge the others to a game. Play titles are thrown into a hat and one is drawn: Romeo and Juliet. They all agree to perform the play making do with the colourful palette of costumes they are carrying in their suitcases. Under the starry Italian sky, they transform the train station into the medieval city of Verona and the story of the Montagues and Capulets comes to life.

Vikki Anderson is an award-winning theatre director, designer and producer. She is the founder and artistic director of Toronto's DVxT Theatre Company which has received 14 Dora nominations and 9 Dora AwardS. Anderson's directorial credits include the world première of Adam Pettle's Mosley and Me at Canadian Stage (2003), Happy Days starring Martha Burns for Soulpepper Theatre Company (2003), St. Christopher at Theatre Passe Muraille (2005), the multi-award-winning productions of The Doll House (7 Dora Awards including Outstanding Production, Direction, Female Performance, Male Performance, Set Design, Costume Design and Sound Design, 2001) and Coyote Ugly (2 Dora Awards for Outstanding Female Performance and Sound Design, 1998), and most recently The Last Five Years at The Grand Theatre (2010) and The Turn of the Screw at the Campbell House Museum (2009). She was also Assistant Director for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet in 2008.

Anderson is the successful candidate of Canadian Stage's Directors Development Initiative, selected from over 80 applicants across the country to direct the 2010 Canadian Stage TD Dream in High Park. Part of the Company's ongoing commitment to support the professional development of artists, the Directors Development Initiative was launched in 2009 to promote the development of directors in their early and mid-careers. Successful applicants have the opportunity to direct a large-scale production before a large audience.

"We are thrilled to support director Vikki Anderson as she progresses to the large stage. She brings a fresh interpretation to this much-loved story," states Artistic & General Director Matthew Jocelyn. "Her vision for a meta-theatrical Romeo and Juliet stood out as the ideal production to engage and delight the thousands of families, stalwarts and first time theatre-goers who attend the Dream each year."

Nationally and internationally acclaimed, The Canadian Stage Company is Canada's leading not-for-profit contemporary theatre company. Founded in 1987 with the merger of CentreStage and Toronto Free Theatre, the Company is dedicated to programming international contemporary theatre and to developing and producing landmark Canadian works, which have been awarded some of the country's most prestigious literary and performing arts honours, including the Governor General's, Chalmers and Dora Mavor Moore Awards. The Company presents the richest variety of Canadian and international plays and musicals - from provocative work at the Berkeley Street Theatre to productions with popular appeal at the Bluma Appel Theatre and a summer of Shakespeare at the TD Dream in High Park. Canadian Stage has a long-standing commitment to education and enhancement programs for the public, nurturing theatre professionals, and developing new Canadian plays, while producing thought-provoking theatre and high quality entertainment in Toronto, one of North America's largest theatre centres. For more information, refer to canadianstage.com.

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