Sarah Gadon Makes Her Stage Debut In YERMA At Coal Mine Theatre

Following a long delay due to a fire that broke out in their Danforth home in September of 2022, the COAL MINE THEATRE is finally ready to get season eight underway in February 2023, with Simon Stone's YERMA.

The hotly anticipated inaugural production in their new venue at 2076 Danforth Avenue will be directed by COAL MINE co-founder Diana Bentley and star acclaimed film and television actress Sarah Gadon (Michael Mann's Ferrari, Carly Stone's North of Normal, Mary Harron's Alias Grace). YERMA will begin preview performances on February 5, 2023 and run to February 26. (Media night: February 9)

Celebrating many firsts, this Canadian Premiere production of YERMA marks the first time that prodigious Australian writer/director Stone has licensed one of his adaptations to another director; the production will be the COAL MINE directorial debut for co-founder Bentley, and the stage debut for Gadon.

A reimagining of Frederico Lorca's tragic tale of a young woman driven to the unthinkable by the desire to have a child, Gadon stars alongside a luminous ensemble including Martha Burns (Victory/Shaw Festival, Slings and Arrows/Showcase), Daren A. Herbert (The Music Man/Stratford, Pretty Hard Cases/CBC), Louise Lambert(Detroit/Coal Mine, Mass Effect: Andromeda/Bioware), Michelle Mohammed (Mahabharata/Why Not Theatre, The Handmaid's Tale/Hulu) and Johnathan Sousa (Othello/Stratford, Frankie Drake Mysteries/Shaftesbury Films) - all amounting to an unmissable theatrical event.

"I was both terrified and mesmerized when I first saw Simon Stone's YERMA," comments Gadon. "I knew that if I were to embark on such an intense psychological exploration it would have to be in a trusted environment with like-minded creatives and that was The Coal Mine Theatre and Diana Bentley."

"We didn't plan this initially of course, but to have the Canadian premiere of YERMA be the very first production in our new space at 2076 Danforth makes us a bit giddy," says Ted Dykstra Co-Chief Engineer, The Coal Mine Theatre."There couldn't be a more perfect production to open the new Coal Mine Theatre than this internationally sought-after play. And our audience, who helped us rebuild, deserve nothing less."

First produced at The Young Vic in 2016 starring Billie Piper, Stone's inaugural production - which relocates the story from 1930's rural Spain to contemporary London - went on to become one of the UK's most acclaimed and awarded productions of the decade with Piper winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance by an Actress and the production winning the Olivier for Best Revival. In a five-star review, The Guardian called Billie Piper's performance "earth-quaking," and the Evening Standard (another five stars) said it was a "radical reimagining" and "raw, ferocious, [and] spellbinding." The production was remounted in 2018, playing a sold out run at The Park Avenue Armory to more unanimous praise. The COAL MINE production will be the first in the world since.

The new COAL MINE THEATRE will boast an increased seating capacity of up to 120 seats, brand new chairs, and a more spacious, relaxed seating configuration - offering greater comfort to patrons while maintaining the up-close-and-personal performance intimacy that has become the COAL MINE's hallmark. The company's new home will also offer improved audience amenities including upgrades to the lobby, bar, and audience washrooms. The venue is also situated directly across from Woodbine subway station.

Tickets for the 22.23 season in the new venue are available at coalminetheatre.com, along with information about programming and the ongoing fundraising campaign supporting their recovery from the September 2022 fire.

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