Canadian Theatre Icon George F. Walker Presents AND SO IT GOES

Prominent Canadian playwright George F. Walker (Order of Canada, Governor General's Lifetime Achievement Award, five-time Dora Award winner) brings his many years of experience to Toronto's indie theatre scene to direct his acclaimed 2010 dark comedy And So It Goes for fledgling Kyanite Theatre.

And So It Goes revolves around the stigma of mental illness and its effects on family and community. And So It Goes previews May 8 and runs May 9-26 at Pia Bauman Scotiabank Studio Theatre in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood. Tickets can be purchased online at andsoitgoes.brownpapertickets.com.

And So It Goes tells the fictional story of a Toronto family dealing with past and present traumas and the techniques they use to cope. We encounter Ned and Gwen, their schizophrenic daughter Karen, and their therapist (Kurt Vonnegut as a mental apparition) as Karen's condition and its repercussions unravel their lives.

In 2010, Walker returned to theatre after a 10-year hiatus from playwriting to write and direct And So It Goes at Factory Theatre.

Since then, along with continuing to write new plays, he has been teaching workshops regularly in Toronto with the goal of instilling confidence in young performers or, in his words, "help actors navigate through the bulls..t by appreciating their own strengths."

"Walker is spearheading the way for established artists to contribute to the underground scene," says And So It Goes Assistant Director Martha Moldaver. "It's inspiring to work with a renowned artist who is incredibly passionate about very real, human stories; ones that we can all relate to on some level or another. This play is important because it sheds light on the mental health system in Canada, as well as how mental health can affect family dynamics and relationships. It discusses something that affects so many of us."

The cast features Tyshia Drake (Romeo & Juliet, London's Troubadour Theatre Collective; Never Swim Alone, Don't Look Down Theatre Company); Deborah Drakeford (Human Animals, ARC;The Penelopiad, London's Grand Theatre; Shirley Valentine, Thousand Islands Playhouse); Scott McCulloch (Loot, Bygone Theatre; The Play About The Baby, Seven Siblings Theatre) and Dan Willmott (Proof, Theatre UnBlocked; film credits include The Umbrella Academy, Fargo, Mean Girls).

Set and costume design is by Kelly Wolf, lighting design by Chin Palipane, sound design byJeremy Hutton and stage management by Melanie Hall. The producers are Kyanite Theatre's Tyshia Drake and Martha Moldaver.

George F. Walker has been one of Canada's most prolific and popular playwrights since his career in theatre began in the early 1970s. Since that time he has written more than 30 plays and has created screenplays for several award-winning Canadian television series. Part Kafka, part Lewis Carroll, Walker's distinctive, gritty, fast-paced tragicomedies illuminate and satirize the selfishness, greed, and aggression of contemporary urban culture.

Among his best known plays are Filthy Rich (1979); Criminals in Love (1984); Nothing Sacred(1988); Suburban Motel (1997, a series of six plays set in the same motel room); And So It Goes(2010); Dead Metaphor (2013) and After Class: Parents Night and The Bigger Issue (2016, a series of plays that takes a scathing, bold and hilarious look at public school). Many of Walker`s plays have been presented across Canada and the United States and in more than 700 productions internationally. During a ten-year absence from theatre, he mainly wrote for television including the series This is Wonderland, and Living in Your Car.

Tickets are on sale now and available online at andsoitgoes.brownpapertickets.com