Stratford Festival, Ontario, CA - Apr 16-Nov 3, 2019

andrewcraig
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Stratford Festival, Ontario, CA - Apr 16-Nov 3, 2019

Post by andrewcraig »

Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino is pleased to announce the playbill for the 2019 season. Featuring 12 productions, it's built around a theme of Breaking Boundaries, which will also be explored through more than 150 thought-provoking and entertaining events at the Forum.
The mainstage musical is a perfect encapsulation of the season's theme. Billy Elliot the Musical - winner of 10 Tony Awards and four Oliviers - is about the barriers families can build and, ultimately, the support they can offer, as one boy struggles with a talent his father and brother see as unacceptable because it challenges their view of masculinity. Donna Feore will direct and choreograph this blockbuster musical with book and lyrics Lee Hall and Elton John.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/B ... n-20180817
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CJ-Rochester
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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by CJ-Rochester »

This is excellent news! Stratford is a well regarded professional theatre in Ontario and stages high quality productions.
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LiamM
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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by LiamM »

Stratford Festival announces casting for 2019 season

Nolen Dubuc, a young powerhouse performer from B.C., is heading across the country to join the company as the lead in Billy Elliot the Musical....

Dan Chameroy, who played Miss Trunchbull in the North American tour of Matilda The Musical and is currently thrilling audiences as Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, returns to play Dad.

Audience favourite Blythe Wilson, who played Mrs. Banks in the Broadway production of Mary Poppins, in addition to Miss Adelaide in 2017’s Guys and Dolls and Eulalie MacKecknie Shinn in this year’s The Music Man, will play Mrs. Wilkinson, Billy’s teacher.
Source: Stratford Festival announces casting for 2019 season

The casting announcement mentions only one Billy. Unlike most theaters, at the Stratford Festival, they have many shows in production at a time across four stages. Each show runs about twice a week for the April to October season. So this is not one Billy doing the work normally done by four.

Of course, this doesn't cover the possibility of injury. Instead of gambling that they won't have any injuries, also listed in the casting announcement are local dancers brothers Emerson and Oliver Gamble, the latter of whom is currently playing Young Martius in Stratford's Coriolanus. I suspect at least one of them are being trained up as standby Billy.
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CJ-Rochester
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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by CJ-Rochester »

Thanks for the info, Liam. Here's a video of Nolen dancing at SYNERGY DANCE COMPETITION 2018 earlier this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_FJIM7x2y0
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CJ-Rochester
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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by CJ-Rochester »

Here's a profile of Nolen from his talent agency, da Costa Talent. This was nice to see:
...discovered his love of dance and theatre at the age of 4 when his parents took him to see Billy Elliot. He was spellbound and knew that one day, he too would be on that stage.
http://www.dacostatalent.com/nolen-dubuc

He also has an IMDB page.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10049312/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by LiamM »

Dates are now available for the Stratford Festival production of Billy Elliot the Musical. First preview is April 16, 2019 and opening is May 28. The show will run until Nov. 3.
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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by Eltonjohn »

CJ-Rochester wrote:This is excellent news! Stratford is a well regarded professional theatre in Ontario and stages high quality productions.
More than ‘well regarded’, this theatre has influenced classical theatre worldwide.
https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-h ... /stratford

Justin Bieber is a native of Stratford.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchene ... -1.4860689
BETM: "the most expensive school play ever."
Lee Hall
in Playbill October 2008
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tzwicky
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I anticipate a trip to the frozen north

Post by tzwicky »

My previous trip into Canada was many years ago, pre-9/11. That was like a lifetime ago it seems.

So this seems like an ideal launching point to travel north again, to see many BETMs in Stratford, drop in and impose a bit for Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa, see the big city of Toronto for several days and enjoy WorldPride there and end up in Montreal or maybe even Quebec.

And of course like with all Americans leery of 2020 elections, I'd be scoping out a place to escape to if our long, national nightmare is somehow not over by then.

So that would be late June to the middle of July or thereabouts.

I hope that Bieber exhibit is still running in Stratford!!!!!!

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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by kport »

The cast and crew of the Stratford Festival's 2019 production of Billy Elliot the Musical met for their first rehearsal of the season Friday morning.

https://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/e ... the-season
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Re: Stratford 2019 .Ontario Canada to stage Billy Elliot dateTBA

Post by kport »

Stratford Festival marks its first rehearsal of the season with Billy Elliot the Musical
From the looks of its 44-member cast, the scale model of its set and its costume designs, Donna Feore’s production of Billy Elliot the Musical is sure to be a spectacle worthy of the Festival Theatre stage.
https://lfpress.com/entertainment/theat ... he-musical
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