NECESSARY ANGEL TRAVELS
DOWN UNDER AND BEYOND

Toronto, September 6, 2007 – Necessary Angel Theatre Company is thrilled to announce that its long-awaited engagement at Australia's prestigious Melbourne International Arts Festival is only a month away. The Company is beginning its season by springing onto the international stage, opening the festival (October 11-15, 2007) with its unanimously praised and highly celebrated play, Half Life. Winner of the 2005 Governor General's Award for Drama, and with a creative team including triple Siminovitch Prize winners John Mighton (playwright), Daniel Brooks (director) and Dany Lyne (designer), Half Life is one of the biggest success stories to come out of the English Canadian theatre industry in recent memory. Necessary Angel is honoured to be a part of the festival; it is a marvelous opportunity to present and promote Canadian theatre and culture abroad.

After returning from Australia, Half Life will have engagements at Montreal’s Centaur Theatre (January 29-February 24, 2008) and Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre (March 8-30, 2008). This will mark Half Life’s third straight year of touring across Canada. At the end of this season, Half Life will have visited eight major Canadian cities (with two engagements in both Montreal and Toronto) and three international destinations, with a total estimated audience of 85,000 people.

The 2007/08 season will also see the premiere of Necessary Angel’s newest work, HARDSELL. From the creators of Bigger Than Jesus comes a multimedia exploration of the commodification of everything. Created by Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks, and designed by Ben Chaisson and Beth Kates, HARDSELL will have it its first public presentations November 15-December 1, 2007 at Winnipeg’s Manitoba Theatre Centre, before returning to Toronto for a very limited workshop engagement January 18 &19 at Theatre Passe Muraille. A co-production with Magnetic North Theatre Festival, HARDSELL will then premiere in Vancouver at the festival in June 2008.

Necessary Angel’s most recent success, The Eco Show, which premiered at Montreal’s Festival TransAmériques to great acclaim in June 2007, will return April 30-May 3, 2008 to Montreal with performances at Usine C. The show, by Daniel Brooks and directed by Chris Abraham, will then travel to Toronto for a full run at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre May 8-25, 2008. Described as an elegy for humanity, The Eco Show was praised by the Montreal Gazette as “a near-perfect piece of contemporary theatre”.

Necessary Angel’s smash hit Bigger Than Jesus, by Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks, just completed a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, with Glasgow’s The Herald calling the show “outrageous, intelligent, satirical, reverent and irreverent.” Bigger Than Jesus continues to tour nationally and internationally. For all the show dates and locations this season please visit www.biggerthanj.com.

The backbone of Necessary Angel has always been the extensive new play development process it dedicates to all its productions. The company currently has several projects in the works, including new pieces by John Mighton and Daniel MacIvor. Stay tuned for more details…

For updates on activities throughout the season please visit www.necessaryangel.com.