All The World's a Stage in Canada - New Writing - Drama - British Council

	All The World's A Stage in Toronto, Canada


	1-27 April 2003

Royal Court Theatre at All the World's a Stage 2003. Photographer: Mitchell Carr Heughan.

A biennial tradition at The Harbourgront Centre since 1984, All the World's a Stage brings together the best international theatre to Toronto in a 3-week city-wide festival every other April.

Royal Court Theatre at All the World's a Stage. Photographer: Mitchell Carr Heughan.

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Du Maurier World Stage 2003

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Adventurous and imaginative contemporary UK theatre is important in Toronto. The city is the third-largest English-speaking theatre centre in the world, after New York and London, boasts over 200 professional theatre and dance companies, and stages over 10,000 live performances in a given year. On average, over 7 million people attend theatre in Toronto each year, half of which are visitors to the city.

British Council Canada partnered with the Harbourfront Centre in 2002 for their du Maurier World Stage Preview and again in 2003 for the full du Maurier World Stage theatre festival.

Traverse Theatre Company with Outlying Islands. Photographer: Euan Myles.

The Harbourfront Centre is one of Canada's leading and most broadly-based contemporary arts venues. It is a primary window through which the very best in new performing arts work from the UK - plus writing and the visual arts - reaches Canadian audiences and hence a key partner for the British Council. The artistic direction at the Harbourfront works closely with British Council Canada and with Arts Division colleagues to frame programming and agree levels of engagement.

In just 28 days the Festival showcases an unprecedented number of award-winning contemporary theatre productions from South Africa, Europe, and the United States. The 2002 Preview was a new event and consisted of a select five productions made up of both international and Canadian productions.

Theimaginarybody Theatre Company with 100. Photographer: Nevil Mountford.

The productions supported by the British Council in 2003 included Traverse Theatre's Outlying Islands, and Theimaginarybody Theatre Company's runaway hit from the Edinburgh Festival, 100. The 2002 Preview saw the North American Premiere of the Royal Court Theatre Company's Nightsongs by Jon Fosse and Face to the Wall by Martin Crimp, both directed by Katie Mitchell, who also stayed on to conduct acting and directing workshops.

The most celebrated production at the 2002 Preview was certainly Theatre Babel's staging of the Euripides classic Medea. Starring Maureen Beattie and directed by Graham McLaren, this production had garnered awards not only for its remarkable presentation at the Edinburgh Festival but also for its imaginative adaptation by award-winning playwright Liz Lochhead. The accolades continued to roll-in in Toronto where it was awarded a Dora Mavor Moore, recognising outstanding achievements in Toronto theatre, for Outstanding Touring Production of 2002 and was rated by Now Magazine as one of the city's top 10 theatre productions of 2002.