Announcement: Sheep No Wool Theatre Company presents The Edward Bond Festival

From Press Release

“If you engage people on a vital, important level, they will respond.”

Toronto ON…With this in mind, Sheep No Wool Theatre Company has created a four part festival based on the works, theories and vision of playwright Edward Bond. Unlike so many other Festivals, this event will happen only once from June 12 – 20, 2012, featuring the playwright himself for this singular 50th anniversary celebration and investigation of his work and ideas.

Playwright, theatre director, poet, theorist and screenwriter Edward Bond is broadly considered one of the most important and controversial post-war dramatists. He is the author of some fifty plays, among them Lear, The Sea, Bingo, and Saved which was instrumental in the abolition of theatre censorship in the UK. Many of his plays have attained the status of radical classics and he is quoted as saying “In the end I think theatre has only one subject: justice.”

The focus of the Edward Bond Festival is two-fold: to investigate the evolution of Bond’s vision of drama and society through his body of work, and to explore Bond’s ‘post-Stanislavsky’ dramaturgy and practices for staging his works – all with the guidance of Mr. Bond himself.

“Sheep No Wool is thrilled to collaborate with Edward Bond, Tarragon Theatre, Ryerson University, and over fifty Canadian theatre artists on this festival,” said Alan Dilworth, Artistic Director.  “We are proud to present eleven encounters with Bond’s work and ideas in theatres across Toronto, at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake.”

The Edward Bond Festival is a four part festival: a Symposium, an Interactive Workshop of Bond’s play Have I None featuring the collaboration of Bond himself, a Reading Series, and the Epic Student Showcase: a remounting of Bond’s play The Bundle with the graduating class of Ryerson Theatre School. The festival will culminate with Wrecking Ball #13, Toronto’s political theatre cabaret.

The Festival is hosted at venues throughout downtown Toronto, including Tarragon Theatre, Ryerson University, Berkeley Street Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, The Theatre Centre and Young Peoples Theatre.  Along with readings, showcases and more, the festival’s signature events will be the workshop presentation of Have I None on June 16, and The Symposium on June 17th featuring Edward Bond in discussion with British director Chris Cooper. The festival will feature numerous  professional development opportunities for theatre artists to interact with Bond’s work and the playwright himself. Please visit the website for more information on professional development opportunities.

Most events are PWYC.

Visit edwardbondfestival.wordpress.com for complete times, dates and locations.

Edward Bond Festival
produced by Sheep No Wool Theatre Company
June 12 -20, 2012
Various Locations in Toronto
 edwardbondfestival.wordpress.com