| Bardless summer >> Shakespeare in the Park looks iffy, but plays will abound in the city this season by AMY BARRATT
While summer seasons get hopping as usual over the next few weeks at the Piggery (North Hatley), Théâtre Lac Brome, and Village Theatre in Hudson, the landscape in Montreal has a most unfamiliar look, as much because of what’s missing as what’s happening. Elysian River Theatre has announced that there will be no Shakespeare on the Mountain this summer. The company is not dead, but AD Lowell Gasoi says it is on “indefinite hiatus” due to financial problems (they didn’t get any grant money). To send them a word of encouragement, or even pledge a few bucks to help get free Shakespeare on Mount Royal back on its feet, contact info@elysianriver.com. There is no word yet whether Repercussion Theatre’s SOS Campaign has raised enough money to allow them to remount their Twelfth Night: Festival of Fools in local parks this summer. So there may well be no Bard within the city limits this summer. On the up side, the folks at infinitheatre are staying put for the summer, and delivering original productions of two new plays. At the Monument-National, beginning June 28, they’re doing Long, Long, Short, Long, by novelist Trevor Ferguson. (click HERE for review). Infini commissioned this play. Another Ferguson play, Beach House, Burnt Sienna, will premiere in September at Village Theatre West in Hudson, in an infinitheatre co-production directed by Guy Sprung. Musical mania
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Summer
is usually the time when theatre, along with its well-healed patrons,
moves out to cottage country. Those of us left behind in the city are
often hard-pressed to find live entertainment (with the notable exception
of the Fringe festival, covered elsewhere in this issue).
On
the French side, Denise Filiatrault, who hasn’t had a miss yet
at Juste pour rire, directs the classic musical Irma la Douce, starring
Serge Postigo and Karine Vanasse. At Théâtre du Nouveau
Monde, from July 2 until people stop buying tickets or the TNM season
begins, whichever comes first.