Shaw Festival's ARCADIA to Open at Royal Alexandra Theatre Next Month

David Mirvish brings the The Shaw Festival's acclaimed sold-out hit production of Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA to Toronto. This multilayered masterpiece straddling time and space, order and chaos, is directed by Eda Holmes and begins a strictly limited engagement from November 4th to December 14th at the Royal Alexandra Theatre as the second show in the 2014-15 Mirvish Subscription Season.

Winner of an Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award for Best Play, ARCADIA has been called "the greatest play of its time" and is widely recognized as the crowning achievement of playwright Tom Stoppard, who is no slouch when it come sot writing theatrical masterpieces.

On a beautiful and elegant set (designed by Sue LePage and lit by Michelle Ramsay, with composer Allen Cole providing the appropriately ethereal music), ARCADIA is set in a grand country manor at two different times almost 300 years apart.

The question of "What is carnal embrace?" innocently posed by precocious teenager Thomasina Coverly (Kate Besworth) to her tutor Septimus Hodge (Gray Powell) at Sidley Park in 1809 begins ARCADIA's time and intellect bending ride through the past and present day. Their story is explored and hilariously reconfigured in the late 20th century by writer Hannah Jarvis (Diana Donnelly) and aggressive academic Bernard Nightingale (Patrick McManus), along with mathematical genius Valentine Coverly (Martin Happer). Their delving into the past unearths scandals and mysteries, with Lord Byron putting in a guest appearance. Passion for knowledge, for truth, for understanding, fuels both halves of the story, but what ultimately blooms and endures through time is love.

The cast of ARCADIA includes many of the Shaw Festival's finest actors: Michael Ball as Jellaby, Kate Besworth as Thomasina Coverly, Andrew Bunker as Ezra Chater, Diana Donnelly as Hannah Jarvis, Martin Happer as Valentine Coverly, Damon McLeod as Gus Coverly /Augustus Coverly, Patrick McManus as Bernard Nightingale, Gray Powell as Septimus Hodge, Ric Reid as Richard Noakes, Harveen Sandhu as Chloe Coverly, Sanjay Talwar as Captain Brice, RN, and Nicole Underhay as Lady Croom.