January 30, 2006 - Necessary Angel Theatre Company is proud to announce the appointment of acclaimed director, Chris Abraham, as the company’s inaugural Associate Artist. Chris will be collaborating with Artistic Director, Daniel Brooks, on various projects throughout the spring of 2006 and into the 2006/07 season.
Chris’ initial activity with Necessary Angel will be co-directing the upcoming workshop production of The Eco Show, by Daniel Brooks. Exploring the ecology of the world, the ecology of a family, and the physical ecology of one man’s blood, the workshop production will culminate in public presentations at the Theatre Centre, April 7-9th, 2006. Development on the project will continue in the fall of ’06, with the likelihood of a full production in Necessary Angel’s 2006/07 season.
In the fall of 2006, Chris Abraham will be directing Necessary Angel’s new production of the critically acclaimed Insomnia, by Daniel Brooks (with Guillermo Vedecchia). First developed in 1997 at the Theatre Centre, presented in 1998 and revived for the Festival de Théâtre des Amériques in 1999, the play has remained one of the most critically lauded triumphs in recent Canadian Theatre history.
As an Associate Artist, Chris will also be devoting significant energy to his original collaboration piece with playwright, Anton Piatigorsky. Loosely based on Anton’s novel-in-progress Stageworthy, the untitled project is a cubist fantasy exploring friendship, autobiography, self-consciousness, revenge and the nature of collaboration, itself. The project is a co-production between Necessary Angel and Chris’ own production company, Go Chicken Go.
Chris Abraham is the artistic director for Go Chicken Go and was the co-founder and Associate Artistic Director of Bill Glassco’s Montreal Young Company. In 2002 Chris received the prestigious Elinore and Lou Siminovitch Protégé Award, for directors. Chris’s first film, based on the award-winning play, I, Claudia, was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to great acclaim, and was named “One of the Top Ten Canadian films of 2004” by the Festival Group and was nominated for a Banff Rockie. Chris went on to receive a Gemini award for Outstanding Direction. Chris is also on the faculty of the National Theatre School of Canada, where he teaches in the directing program.
Some of Chris’s favourite directing credits include: Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes (Centaur Theatre);I, Claudia & Russell Hill (Tarragon Theatre); Hedda Gabbler, The Glass Menagerie, Saltwater Moon (Saidye Bronfman); As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet & The Tempest (Resurgence Theatre Company); The Shape of Things (MTC); BOXHEAD (Go Chicken Go); After the Dance and The Possibilities (The Montreal Young Company); The Offering, Easy Lenny Lazmon and the Great Western Ascension and The Kaballistic Psychoanalysis of Adam R. Tzaddik (Moriah Productions/Go Chicken Go) by Anton Piatigorsky; Lenz, Kaspar and Offending the Audience (Go Chicken Go).
Chris Abraham’s appointment has been made possible through the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
