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2010-2011 SEASON

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CONTENTS

Who we are 3

Season calendar 4

Biographies 5

Donations & Sponsorship 6

Imago’s leadership 7

“…From her first line the mood was set and my love for boutique theatre company Imago...”

Evren Boisjoli, The Plant (October 8, 2009)

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Who we are New plays, local talent

Imago Théâtre was founded in 1987 by Andrés Hausmann. Since Clare Schapiro became its Artistic Director in 2000, Imago productions have earned three Masques nominations, three Montreal English Critics’ Circle Awards and the French Critics’ Award for Best English Production in 2008.

New works for Montreal audiences. We blend Anglophone texts and Québécois aesthetics while championing the talent of Montreal’s finest artists.

A striking light on our shared humanity. Our productions entertain while exploring social and cultural complexities.

Excellence and renewal. We empower an eclectic mix of voices—Anglophone and Francophone—and insist on a flexible process and timeline necessary to advance the art form.

“The most aesthetically

refined English language company

in Montreal.”

Le Devoir, May 2008

Investing in a shared future. We have taken root in Montreal’s artistic community by leading the Group of 5 Arts Centre and by increasing access to theatre to people of all socio-economic classes.

Beyond our borders. We collaborate with artists from abroad to promote Montreal theatre internationally, to keep challenging our artists and our growing local audience.

Supporters

Ticket and advertising sales do not cover all our operational and production costs. We rely on the generosity and ongoing support of all three levels of government, corporations, foundations and individual donors to create world class theatre as well as confidently plan for our future seasons.

Imago Théâtre is a member of PACT, PWM, QDF and ELAN.

Governance

Artistic and General Director Clare Schapiro

Marketing and Development Patrick Charron

Group of 5 Coordinator Élise Ménard Approximately 25 artists are contracted per production.

Imago Théâtre Board of Directors Andrée Lalumière President, Artist

Rosalind Boyd, V.P. Senior Researcher, McGill University

Trudy White, V.P. Director of Product Marketing, Epcor

Michel Tousignant Treasurer Professor, UQAM

Barbara Scales Secretary Artist Agent, Latitude 45

Martin Couture, Director Financial Consultant

Claude Demers, Director Management Consultant

Salomé Élibert, Director Associate Nordic Attitude Design

Mathieu Desruisseaux, Director Business Development Manager, Nurun

François Gottlieb, Legal Counsel

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Nov 18 -Dec 4, 2010 Champ de Mars: A Story of War, English premiere of Pierre-Michel Tremblay’s Au CHAMP DU MARS, at the Monument-National.

Oct 25 – Nov 12, 2011 Premiere of ANA, a co-production with Scottish theatre Stellar Quines, at Espace Go.

Winter 2012 ANA tours select venues in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Artistic Directors IMAGO THEATRE:

Clare Schapiro has been involved in Montreal’s theatre scene for over 30 years. She founded Créations etc., a performing arts company for young people and co-founded Theatre 1774 (now Infinitheatre) to explore Montreal’s linguistic identity. As Imago’s Artistic Director, Clare has produced and developed new Canadian plays, mentored emerging artists, served on professional theatre committees and led several outreach projects.

STELLAR QUINES: Muriel Romanes is a renowned actor and director from Edinburgh, where she directs the Stellar Quines Theatre Company. She premiered Three Thousand Troubled Threads by Chiew Siah Tei and co-directed The Unconquered, which was presented in New York in 2008. At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009 she directed The Girls of Slender Means to great acclaim.

*Used with permission for promotional purposes

By Pierre-Michel Tremblay

Translated by Paula Wing

Directed by Micheline Chevrier

Back from Kandahar, a young soldier wrestles with survivor guilt. A filmmaker lacks inspiration. A psychiatrist suffers from compassion fatigue. And a clarinet teacher joins a pacifist group called War Against War.

Tremblay’s play is a satirical comedy about personal battles and survival, about connection and reality, and about the search for meaning in a confused and confusing world.

It was originally produced as AU CHAMP DE MARS at Théâtre de La Licorne in early 2010.

Imago’s premiere reunites the creative duo that led to Coma Unplugged’s resounding success in 2007.

In Director Micheline Chevrier’s words, the play reflects on “humanity’s greatest paradox: our propensity for conflict and our need for peace.”

ANA –A Co-production with Scotland’s

Stellar Quines Theatre

By Pierre-Yves Lemieux & Clare Duffy

Directed by Serge Denoncourt

One in five people suffer from depression - and women twice as often as men. This is what artists from Quebec and Scotland explore in this multilingual collaboration, which began three years ago.

The play is a modern retelling of the myth of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess who descended into the Underworld. Her journey through dark perils and into the light parallels women’s suffering through the ages.

Imago and Stellar Quines will co-produce ANA in association with Espace Go (Montreal) who will host its premiere. The production will then tour to Scotland in 2012.

www.stellarquines.com

SEASON CALENDAR

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Biographies

Playwrights

Pierre - Michel Tremblay co-authored the popular Quebec TV series Un gars, une fille and Le Studio 12. He teaches for the École nationale de l’humour. His previous plays are Le jeu du pendu, Quelques humains and Coma unplugged, which won the 2007 Masque for best Montreal Production.

Pierre-Yves Lemieux has been with Théâtre de l’Opsis since its inception in 1984. He adapted numerous plays, from Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury to Les Rois du ciel. Among his projects in tow is a play about the life and work of Charles Darwin.

Clare Duffy co-founded Unlimited Theatre in 1997, with whom she still writes and performs. One of her plays was recently recorded for BBC Radio 4, while her play Black Tonic toured the UK throughout 2009.

Directors

Serge Denoncourt is a true man of the theatre. He co-founded Montreal’s Théâtre de l'Opsis, breathed new life into the Théâtre du Trident in Quebec City, and has over 80 productions to his credit including staged operas and variety shows. He recently directed Cirque du Soleil’s CRISS ANGEL’s Believe, Michel Tremblay’s Fragments de mensonges inutiles, and the Beau Dommage musical Le Blues de la métropole.

Micheline Chevrier has directed plays across Canada for 30 years. She was Artistic Director of GCTC in Ottawa from 1995 to 2000 and has also directed and taught at the National Theatre School, Concordia University, Dalhousie University and University of Alberta. Micheline was Interim Co-Director of the National Theatre School’s Production Program for 2007-2008. She has received multiple awards for her direction in Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto.

Translator

Paula Wing is a nationally renowned playwright, actor, teacher and translator. Her play Pobby and Dingan was workshopped at Washington's Kennedy Centre and produced in Toronto. The National Arts Centre commissioned her Vox Lumina.

Designers

Martin Labrecque has worked as a lighting designer for some of Quebec’s best directors, on projects ranging from Cirque du Soleil’s Québec 2008 to Pierre Lapointe's Mutantès. He was awarded four Masques.

Ginette Noiseux leads Montreal’s Espace Go and is also an established costume designer who teaches at the National Theatre School. She has worked with top companies in Quebec, Belgium and France as well as with Canada’s National Arts Centre.

Eo Sharp has been an award winning set and costume designer for the past twenty years. Eo has also designed several productions for the National Arts Centre and the Stratford Festival.

Peter Cerone has designed and engineered sound for theatre and installations since 1980. He has designed extensively for Robert Wilson and Peter Greenaway. He also collaborates with many Canadian artists.

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Donations & Sponsorship

Donations Why give to Imago Théâtre? Your contribution helps Imago to:

cultivate and strengthen English-

language theatre in Montreal

create a platform for new socially relevant plays

support local artistic expression

facilitate the expression of Anglophone-Quebecois identity

nurture new theatre audiences via our Student Outreach initiatives

provide quality theatre to people of all socio-economic classes via our Ticket Sponsorship programs

All donations will receive a tax receipt

Charitable Registration Number:

118966548RR0001

THANK YOU

Sponsorship

Sponsoring an Imago production enables your business to support great theatre and reach a diverse Montreal audience from the city’s centre and neighbouring boroughs.

As a corporate sponsor of Imago Théâtre’s productions, we assure your

business name and logo on:

Imago Théâtre’s website

Special mentions throughout our social media networks

All pre-event advertisements

Monument-National or Espace Go lobby signage during the performance weeks

Marquee exposure

Theatre Programs

Opening Night event VIP special mention and signage

In addition, it is a pleasure to offer you complimentary tickets to a performance of

your choice!

THANK YOU

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From pilot project...

Imago’s director, Clare Schapiro, returned to the theatre scene in 2000 largely to help create an arts centre - a home really - for Montreal’s professional English language theatre community, which has risen and declined in waves over the last 30 years.

A pilot project called OFF Interarts was born the following year, out of a partnership between Imago, Dulcinea Langfelder & Co. and The Montreal Young Company. Housed where Broue was created in 1979 (before it sold 3 million tickets over 2,800 shows), OFF Interarts provides affordable studio space to the local arts community for installations, readings, book launches, workshops, rehearsals, film shoots, meetings, and exhibitions.

Following OFF Interarts’ success, Imago asked former Quebec Drama Federation executive director Élise Ménard to help form a collective of English language theatre companies and look for a larger residency they could share.

Four companies joined Imago: Dulcinea Langfelder & Co., Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, Porte-Parole and Talisman Theatre. The group is temporarily called the Group of 5.

Imago leads this initiative and hopes to receive support from governments, from individual donors and especially from Montreal’s business community so that the purchase of a building and theatre take place in 2012.

...to a residency for five plus companies?

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WHERE WE WORK

Imago Théâtre 5143, boul. St-Laurent

Montréal (QC) H2T 1R9 www.imagotheatre.ca

T.: 514.274.3222 F.: 514.274.2498

CONTACT US Clare Schapiro Artistic & General Director clare@imagotheatre.ca

Patrick Charron Marketing & Development patrick@imagotheatre.ca

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