Author Yann MartelTim Fraser/The Globe and Mail
In collaboration with Canada's National Arts Centre, Toronto's Factory Theatre will stage the world premiere of Beatrice and Virgil, Lindsay Cochrane's adaptation of Yann Martel's novel of the same name, it was announced Thursday.
Part of Factory's 2013-14 season, Cochrane's is "an innovative theatrical adaptation of Martel's controversial but critically acclaimed novel about horrific truths, buried in layers of history and unearthed through fact, art and imagination," Factory said in a press release. It runs Apr. 12 to May 11, 2014 in the Studio Theatre.
Daniel MacIvor's latest play, Bingo!, will climax the 2013-14 playbill. A romantic comedy about five old high school friends brought together for a high school reunion, it runs May 3 to June 1, 2014, in the Mainspace Theatre.
The season will open with a world premiere co-production (with Obsidian Theatre Company) – Beth Graham's The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble . The play, by the co-creator of Drowning Girls ) is said to be a "heartbreaking but humorous portrait of a family in crisis, (Mainspace, Nov. 2 to Dec. 1, 2013).
Another world premiere, Priscila Uppal's 6 Essential Questions – about a daughter reunited with the mother who abandoned her – runs Mar. 1 to 30, 2014 in the Mainspace. The play is a first by Uppal, a poet, novelist and 2012 Canadian Olympics poet laureate.