RISK IS NECESSARY with Necessary Angel Theatre Company’s 2002/2003 SEASON
Season Subscriptions now on sale for a limited time

Toronto’s award winning and risk-taking theatre company has unveiled plans for its 2002/03 season and announced details of a new season subscription package, which is now on sale for a limited time (details at www.necessaryangel.com). This season’s stellar line-up includes a Toronto premiere, a world premiere and the return of the hugely popular, award-winning environmental play that put Necessary Angel Theatre Company on the international theatrical map.

With founding Artistic Director Richard Rose taking over the reins at Tarragon Theatre last month, Necessary Angel will shortly announce a successor. Rose will still direct all of the 2002/2003 season.

SWOLLEN TONGUES TORONTO PREMIERE!

By Kathleen Oliver, directed by Richard Rose
Starring Ben Carlson, Karen Hines, Melody Johnson, Nancy Palk
Previews from October 19, opens October 24 and runs to November 10, 2002
at Factory Studio Theatre
Sponsored by Bank of Montreal

A contemporary twist on Restoration comedy. Written entirely in rhyming couplets, Swollen Tongues is a flurry of disguises, tricks and revelations that prove that poetry can unlock the door to love (and lust) in unexpected ways. Kathleen Oliver’s first play, Swollen Tongues won the 1997 Canadian National Playwriting Competition, and was first produced in Vancouver in 1998. The play was produced in London England in 2000 and toured the UK in April-May 2002 where Time Out called it “delightful … embroiling Shakespearean gender-bending, Molière-esque rapier thrusts of comic verse and a ‘Cyrano’-style faith in the powers of wooing by proxy...”

LAST ROMANTICS WORLD PREMIERE!

By Michael Lewis MacLennan, directed by Richard Rose
Starring Jonathan Crombie, Oliver Dennis, Barbara Gordon, Michael Hanrahan,
Kate Hennig, Steven McCarthy, Vickie Papavs and Julian Richings
Previews from Feb. 24, opens Feb. 27 and runs to Mar. 22, 2003
at Berkeley Street Theatre (Downstairs)

Ranging from the drawing rooms of fin-de-siècle London with Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, to the Canada of Mackenzie King, Last Romantics creates a vivid portrait of artists left behind by the dawn of the modern age. Based on the lives of artists and art collectors Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon, this fictionalized portrayal compresses time and place to tell a poignant love story. A co-production with the National Arts Centre (English Theatre).

TAMARA
Presented by Moses Znaimer and City TV
Produced by Necessary Angel and
Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage

By John Krizanc, directed by Richard Rose
Starring Victor Ertmanis, Fabrizio Filippo, Maggie Huculak, Roger McKeen,
Richard McMillan and TBA
Runs April 1 to 13, 2003
at Graydon Hall Manor (www.graydonhall.com), 185 Graydon Hall Drive, Toronto

Twenty-two years after its sensational Toronto launch, and for the first time since, Necessary Angel returns with the landmark theatrical event known as Tamara. Tamara is a play that you experience by following the actors as they move from room to room in a grand Italian Castle, circa 1927. A sensation in New York, Los Angeles and around the world, Tamara returns as part of Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage Theatre Festival. Wine sponsored by Inniskillin Wines. Lavish desserts by Dufflet Pastries.

ABOUT NECESSARY ANGEL THEATRE COMPANY:
For over twenty years, Necessary Angel Theatre Company has presented some of the most innovative and visionary theatre in the country. Since its founding in 1978, the company has established its own collaborative style of developing new Canadian plays featuring a stellar ensemble of some of Canada's finest actors, designers, writers and directors who work collaboratively over an extended period of time to produce new plays that challenge, provoke and inspire.

Necessary Angel Theatre Company gratefully acknowledges the support of our many partners and supporters including the Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Bank of Montreal (Production Sponsor), du Maurier Arts (Production Sponsor), Butterfield & Robinson (New Play Development Sponsor), Globe & Mail (Major Media Sponsor), Xtra Magazine (Media Sponsor) George Cedric Metcalfe Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, Maritime Life Assurance (Major Educational Development Partner), Zero 1 Media Arts (Marketing & Design Sponsor), Meade Graphics (Print Sponsor), J.P. Bickell Foundation, Sun Life, The Caring Foundation, INCO Ltd., and CFT Corporation.

For more information about Necessary Angel or its 2002/03 Season, call 416.703.0406 for our Season Brochure, or visit the new website www.necessaryangel.com