Finborough Theatre Closes GENEROUS 1/30

EUROPEAN PREMIERE by Michael Healey, Directed by Eleanor Rhode. Designed by Kim Alwyn-Blotting and Aimee Sajjan-Servaes.

Cast: Karen Archer. Richard Beanland. Rick Bland. Scott Christie. Jane Perry. Meghan Popiel. John Sheerman. Corey Turner.

The London debut of multi-award-winning playwright Michael Healey, one of Canada's leading dramatists.

Following six sell-out performances at the Finborough Theatre in August 2009, the European premiere of Generous - winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award (Canada's leading theatre awards) for Best New Play 2007 - opens at the Finborough Theatre on Tuesday, 5 January 2010 (Press Night: Thursday, 7 January 2010), part of the [ new year, new plays season 2010 ], celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Finborough Theatre.

What happens when someone is overwhelmed with the desire to help?

A minority government is on the verge of collapse; a ruthless oil executive tells the truth to a reporter; an effusive young law clerk engages in an excruciating post-coital chat with an aging judge; and a spectacular battle wages over a bucket of fried chicken. Through four interconnected stories, Michael Healey questions the idea of the selfless act. Politically-charged, sharply-written and hilarious, Generous is a tour-de-force from one of Canada's most successful playwrights.

"Generous lives up to its title. It's generous in the social and emotional ground it covers, in the quality and quantity of barbed laughter it provokes, in both the sharpness and compassion of its insights into relationships, and in the spirit that animates all these.' National Post

Playwright Michael Healey trained as an actor at Toronto's Ryerson Theatre School. He began writing for the stage in the early nineties and his first play, Kicked, was produced at the Fringe of Toronto Festival in 1996. He subsequently toured the play across Canada and internationally, and in 1998 it won Canada's leading theatre award - the Dora Mavor Moore Award -for Best New Play. The Drawer Boy , his first full-length play, premiered in Toronto in 1999 and also won the Dora Award for Best New Play, as well as the Chalmers Canadian Playwriting Award, and the Governor General's Literary Award. It has been produced across North America and internationally, and has been translated into German, French and Japanese. It has also been produced in various theatres around the UK, most recently at the Tron in Glasgow. His other plays include The Road To Hell (co-authored with Kate Lynch), Plan B (which again won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Play in 2002), Rune Alridge (nominated for the Governor General's Award in 2004), and The Innocent Eye Test (Manitoba Theatre Centre and Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre 2006).

Director Eleanor Rhode is a former Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre and is now Senior Reader. She trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and the National Theatre Studio. At the Finborough Theatre, she directed the first sell-out run of Generous by Michael Healey, and the staged reading of The December Man for Vibrant! - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights. Other directing credits include The Error of Their Ways (Cockpit Theatre), A Number (Camden People's Theatre), This Lime Tree Bower (Edinburgh Festival) and Photos of You Sleeping (Hampstead Theatre). As Associate Director, she has worked on Lie of The Land (Arcola Theatre). As Assistant Director, she has worked on Trying, S-27 (Finborough Theatre), Lie of the Land (Pleasance Edinburgh), African Gothic (White Bear Theatre) and Terrorism (Oval House Theatre).

Karen Archer's many credits include Mourning Becomes Electra (National Theatre), The Memory of Water (English Theatre Vienna), Ghosts (Library Theatre, Manchester) and Nicholas Nickleby (Royal Shakespeare Company National Tour and US Tour). Richard Beanland's credits include Eyes (New End Theatre) and Sold (Octagon Theatre, Bolton). Rick Bland's credits include Strike (Finborough Theatre and BAC), Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (Reduced Shakespeare Company), Jerry Springer the Opera (BAC), Press Conference (Theatre 503), Thick (National Tour and New York Fringe, winner of the Best Actor Award NYC Fringe 2005). Scott Christie's credits include Romeo and Juliet, Richard III (Antic Disposition), George Orwell's 1984, School Disco and Other Stories, A Bit of How's Your Father, The Devil's Own Goldfish Scam, Lock Out (Soho Theatre), The Hollow, Someone Waiting, House Guest, Murder on the Nile, And Then There Were None, Alibi, Habeus Corpus (Newpalm Productions). Jane Perry's many credits include Thick (National Tour and Croydon Warehouse), Misalliance, Blood Relations, Laura, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Time and The Conways (Shaw Festival, Ontario). Film includes How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and The Score. Television includes Spooks, The X-Files, Provinceworld, Dead Man's Gun, Millenium, The Addams Family, Night Visions. Meghan Popiel's credits include Trying (Finborough Theatre), and the film 28 Weeks Later. John Sheerman's credits include For King and Country (National Tour), Indian Ink (Salisbury Playhouse), King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Amy Evans' Strike (Courtyard Theatre, Covent Garden), Lifelines (Pleasance Theatre, London), The Problem (Alma Tavern, Bristol), The Principle of Motion (Underbelly, Edinburgh). Television includes Hollyoaks, Megaflood and The Proposal. Corey Turner's many Canadian credits include Leading Ladies, Powers and Glori a (Theatre Northwest), The Drawer Boy (Theatreone), Death of a Salesmen, Discovering Elvis (Neptune Theatre), Caesar and Cleopatra, Detective Story, In The Zone (Shaw Festival, Ontario). Television includes Snakes and Ladders, Going Home and The Dive from Clausen's Pier.