STRATFORD 2017

Guys and Dolls

embedded virtual reality technolo-
gies with video content from clips of
England.
“The kids also are given treasure
maps at the start of the production, and
they use them to help the pirates find
the treasure. If they’re lucky, they get
some treasure to take home with them.”
Cushman, who has traveled to
Orchard Lake for seders in the home
of relatives, has ties to Jewish cultural
expressions through theater. For the
Harold Green Jewish Theatre, he direct-
ed New Jerusalem, a play about the phi-
losopher Spinoza.
“My theater company is developing
an adaptation of a graphic novel, The
Golem’s Mighty Swing,” Cushman says.
“It’s about anti-Semitism and discrimi-
nation in the 1920s.
“The production is about a Jewish
baseball team, and we’re adapting it to
be done with all kinds of hand puppets.

We’re exploring puppets of all sizes, and
we’re demonstrating the different kinds
of athletic movements baseball players
go through in a game.”
Cushman’s creativity has been expe-
rienced outside of Canada with distinc-
tive productions.
“A one-woman show I directed, I’m
Doing This for You, has traveled all over
the world,” he explains. “It recently
was in Japan and Finland. It’s about
someone throwing a surprise birthday
party/standup comedy show for an ex-
boyfriend, trying to win him back.”
The writer, in a long-term relation-
ship with a woman met during univer-
sity years, thinks as an audience mem-
ber when he works.
“I like experiencing an unexpected
path so I’m always trying to think how
to bring the unexpected to whatever I
do,” he says. “When I directed Possible
Worlds, I staged the whole thing in two

inches of water.
“My first big project at Outside the
March was set in a kindergarten class-
room, and performers and audiences
inhabited this classroom together;
people sat in little chairs and drank
from juice boxes.”
To add to the element of the unex-
pected, Cushman reaches out to actors
as productions take shape.
“I work very collaboratively with
actors,” says Cushman, on commission
for a future Stratford season with an
adaptation of The Canterbury Tales.
“I’m looking to see what each individual
actor can bring to the role.
“People do their best work when
they’re able to bring their own
humanity and life experiences to
what they’re doing, so I see my job as
getting to know the people and figur-
ing out how to harness everyone’s
special potential.” •

“I see my job as getting
to know people and
figuring out how to
harness everyone’s
special potential,”
Cushman says.

Mitchell Cushman

This year’s Stratford Festival has begun its
new group of productions and spotlights a
number of Jewish cast and creative team
members:
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s classic
love story, stars Sara Farb in the title role
through Oct. 21. Farb, who has taken on
many parts at Stratford, also will be seen
as Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, in The
Virgin Trial.
Kate Hennig’s The Virgin Trial, staged
through Sept. 23, depicts young Princess
Elizabeth navigating political and sexual
intrigue in the Tudor Court while facing
threats to her freedom and her life. Laura
Condlln plays Ashley and also is in Bakkhai.
Anne Carson has adapted Euripides’
play Bakkhai in dramatizing the actions
of a creature coming to earth in human
form and establishing a cult of women.
EB Smith, who plays the Herdsman, also
plays Orsino in Twelfth Night and appears in
Tartuffe. This production continues through
Sept. 23.
The Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night,
performed through Oct. 21, uses disguise
as a path to humor with a twin posing as a
man for a ruse of confusion.
Tartuffe, Moliere’s tale of a con artist,
explores power and hypocrisy with Sarah
Kitz as assistant director. Katherine Arcus
is the assistant stage manager for the play
seen through Oct. 13, and she also is work-
ing on The School for Scandal.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School
for Scandal has an uncle in disguise to find
out the truth about his relatives and others.
It runs through Oct. 21.
With lighting designs by Itai Erdal, The
Komagata Maru Incident, by Sharon Pollock,
recalls a 1914 episode that has East Indian
immigrants denied entry into Canada. It will
be presented through Sept. 24.
Erdal lighting also enhances The
Breathing Hole by Colleen Murphy, a mysti-
cal presentation following a polar bear
through various centuries, starting in 1534
and moving through climate change. It can
be seen until Sept. 22.
The Changeling, with Sean Miller as the
apprentice stage manager, showcases a
woman hiring a hit man to kill her fiancé
and getting trapped in deceit and lust. The
play, by Thomas Middleton and William
Rowley, is scheduled through Sept. 23.
In Timon of Athens, by Shakespeare, a
generous man copes with disillusion when
he needs reciprocal actions. It is staged
through Sept. 22.
Romance across the classes sings its
way through the Gilbert and Sullivan oper-
etta HMS Pinafore, running until Oct. 21.
The Madwoman of Chaillot, by Jean
Giraudoux and translated by David Edney,
pits culture against greed as oil is found
under the streets of Paris. It is scheduled
through Sept. 24.
Guys and Dolls, the enduring Frank
Loesser musical, has gamblers betting on
an unlikely romance and will be staged
through Oct. 29. •

jn

May 11 • 2017

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