Coal Mine Theatre to Present COST OF LIVING

A rich and complicated portrait of people with disabilities (and the stereotypes that accompany them), COAL MINE THEATRE is has announced its upcoming presentation of Martyna Majok's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama COST OF LIVING, directed by Ted Dykstra. Making its much-anticipated Toronto Premiere, the play features rich performances by established and emerging talents Christine Bruno, Jessica Grossi, Tony Nappo, and Sean Towgood. Presented at COAL MINE THEATRE, April 5 - May 3, 2020 (Opening night April 8, 2020).

An honest, original work that invites audiences to examine diverse perceptions of privilege and human connection through two pairs of mismatched individuals, COST OF LIVING centres on a former trucker and his recently paralyzed ex-wife, and an arrogant young man with cerebral palsy and his new caregiver. Poetic as well as witty, the production lays bare the drive that brings people together and the harsh realities of living with physical disabilities. It encourages society to deconstruct the meaning of abled and disabled, whole and un-whole. And, in shattering the stereotypes around disability, it explores how bodies, abled and disabled, really just need each other.

COST OF LIVING made its premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2016 and has become one of the most acclaimed and awarded plays in recent years. In 2018 it was awarded Pulitzer Prize winner for drama, which vaunted it as "an honest, original work that invites audiences to examine diverse perceptions of privilege and human connection", while other recognitions include three Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding Play; four Outer Critics Circle Awards nominations; as well as both a Drama Desk Award and a Drama League Award nomination.

Martyna Majok (Playwright) is a Polish-born playwright based in the United States. Her other plays include Sanctuary City (New York Theatre Workshop), Queens (LCT3/Lincoln Center, La Jolla Playhouse), and Ironbound (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Round House, WP Theatre/Rattlestick, Geffen Playhouse, and other theatres in America and abroad). Awards include The Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Play, ATCA Francesca Primus Prize, The Dramatists Guild's Lanford Wilson Award, The Lilly Awards' Stacey Mindich Prize, The Greenfield Prize (first female recipient in drama), Champions of Change Award from the NYC Mayor's Office, and the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwright Award,.

Ted Dykstra (Director) founded COAL MINE THEATRE with Diana Bentley. He is also a founding member of Soulpepper and has directed plays all over Canada. For Coal Mine he has directed The Father, Rumours: A Coal Mine Concert, Superior Donuts and The River. Awards include 5 Doras, a Merritt, a Sterling, a Gemini and a Chalmers. Dykstra wrote the musical Evangeline, adapted and performed The Kreutzer Sonata for Art Of Time and Soulpepper and co-wrote and performed 2 Pianos, 4 Hands all over the world.

The play's impressive cast features a number of Canada's brightest talents, including Christine Bruno, an actor, teaching artist, director and disability inclusion consultant based in New York City, whose selected theatre credits include The Glass Menagerie; world premieres of Bekah Brunstetter's Public Servant (Off-Broadway), The Maids (adaptation by Jose Rivera); and musicals The Ugly Girl and Raspberry (UK tours), and whose film and tv work has included God Friended Me, Law & Order, Best Summer Ever (SXSW); Jessica Grossi, whose theatre credits include A Thousand Splendid Suns (The Grand Theatre) and Delete After Death (The Theatre Centre), as well as screen credits in the films The Last Porno Show and I am in the World as Free and Slender as a Deer on a Plain; Tony Nappo, whose stage credits include Soulpepper, Tarragon, Canadian Stage, Crows, Factory, Centaur, Outside The March, Next Stage, Buddies in Bad Times, Shakespeare by the Sea, Luminato, Off Mirvish, The Theatre Center, alongside screen performances in Bad Blood, Schitt's Creek, Baroness Von Sketch, Kim's Convenience, and finally; Sean Towgood, a Humber College Radio Broadcasting graduate whose credits include Wounded Soldiers (4th Line Theatre-Ontario tour) and My Life on the Short Bus, a self-created solo piece (Soulo Theatre Festival). The Coal Mine is thrilled that all four actors will be making their Coal Mine debuts in Cost of Living.

Featuring Set Design by Adam Belanger, Lighting by Wes Babcock, Costume Design by Lindsay Dagger-Junkin, Stage Management by Sandi Becker and Sound Design by Benjamin McCarthy, Original Composition by Ted Dykstra and Intimacy Direction by Siobhan Richardson.

COST OF LIVING:

When: April 5 - May 3, at 7:30pm (Mondays dark), Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2pm

Opening Night: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 at 7:30pm

Closing Day: Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 2pm

Previews: Sunday, April 5 and Tuesday, April 7, 2020, 7:30pm

Where: Coal Mine Theatre, 1454 Danforth Avenue, Toronto, Ontario

Price: Regular ticket price $47.50 - $55.50 (plus HST), Arts Worker and previews $25 (plus HST). Rush ticket as available (cash only, at the door, 45 minutes before performance starts, subject to availability). To purchase tickets, please visit a??coalminetheatre.com/tickets

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