The Coal Mine Theatre Launches New Season with THE ALIENS

Coal Mine Theatre launches its highly anticipated 17/18 season with the Canadian premiere of THE ALIENS, the award-winning play by Pulitzer Prize Award-winning playwright Annie Baker, opening Wednesday, September 20, 2017.

Behind a Vermont coffee shop is where misfits Jasper and KJ find asylum from the achingly lonely world around them. Here they are geniuses. Here they are the next best novelist and a spiritual healer. Here they meet seventeen-year-old café employee Evan, who is pulled into to their world of magic mushrooms, philosophical musings, and would-be rock bands. THE ALIENS is a cruel and compassionate examination of a lost generation in modern-day America.

Annie Baker is a multi-award-winning American playwright who received the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Flick. Sharing the Obie Award for Best New American Play in 2010 with another Baker script, Circle Mirror Transformation, THE ALIENS, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for women playwrights, premiered Off-Broadway in April 2009 and the West End in September of the same year. "We're lucky to be living in the era of Annie Baker," The New Yorker.

Making his Coal Mine directorial debut is Mitchell Cushman, multi-award-winning artist and founding Artistic Director of Outside The March. Winner of the Siminovitch Prize for Protégé Director in 2013, Mitchell recently directed Lessons in Temperament for Soulpepper in New York City. He has received multiple awards for his theatre work including the Ken McDougall Award, Toronto Theatre Critics' award for Best Director, and two Dora Awards for Outstanding Production (Vitals, Mr. Marmalade).

The all-Canadian cast of THE ALIENS features film and stage actor/musician Noah Reid (Creditors/Coal Mine, Schitt's Creek/CBC) as the temperamental writer Jasper; Will Greenblatt (The Strangers/ DopoLavoro Teatrale, Little Mosque on the Prairie/CBC) as the mild-mannered thinker KJ; and
Maxwell Haynes (Minority Report/FOX, The Killing/Netflix) as the awkward and impressionable high school student Evan.

Coal Mine Theatre presents fearlessly challenging plays, produced, directed, designed and performed at the highest possible level. With less than 100 seats available per performance, Coal Mine is inspired by the intimacy and excitement of the off-off-Broadway experience. The Coal Mine's fourth season under Chief Engineers Diana Bentley and Ted Dykstra continues with Poison by Lot Vekemans, translated by Rina Vergano; Rumours by Fleetwood Mac: A COAL MINE CONCERT; and Category E by Belinda Cornish.

Coal Mine Theatre presents
The Canadian Premiere of

THE ALIENS
Written by Annie Baker • Directed by Mitchell Cushman
Starring Will Greenblatt, Maxwell Haynes, Noah Reid
Set and Costume Design by Anahita Dehbonehie
Lighting Design by Nick Blais
Sound Design by Sam Sholdice
September 17 - October 8, 2017
Opening Night: Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Coal Mine Theatre, 1454 Danforth Avenue, Toronto
Tuesday-Saturday @ 7:30 • Sunday Matinee @ 2pm
(Sunday preview @ 7:30pm)
All Tickets $42.50 + hst (previews $25 + hst)
Season Pass $140 + hst • On Sale until September 17 only!
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/TheCoalMine
For more info visit coalminetheatre.com

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