Playing Shylock
Season Sponsor
Saul Rubinek.
Photo:
Jeff Lorch
Underwritten by The William and Nona Heaslip Foundation
Canadian Stage has four homes spread across our great city. The Bluma Appel and the Berkeley Street Complex bookend the vibrant St. Lawrence Market Neighbourhood and run along what was once the shore of Lake Ontario. Our beautiful High Park Amphitheatre is nestled within the grassy mounds and forests of our city’s most beloved park. Our most recent addition, the Winter Garden Theatre, is located right in the bustling downtown core. Canadian Stage is grateful to be able to tell our stories on this bountiful land that we all share.
This sacred land has held story for thousands of years: stories that live in the fabric of who we are as a nation. Canadian Stage would like to acknowledge and thank the original caretakers and knowledge keepers of this territory: the Anishinaabe Nations (including the Mississaugas of the Credit), the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Wendat and Métis Nations. We give thanks to the Nations recorded and unrecorded, acknowledged and unacknowledged, who also share the responsibility for this territory. We honour the Dish With One Spoon Treaty and our responsibility to peaceably share and care for the resources that surround us. We are honoured to be in this meeting place called Tkaronto that many First Nations, Inuit and Métis people from across Turtle Island call home.
Playing Shylock
Cast
Saul Rubinek
Creative
Mark Leiren-Young Playwright
Olivia Wheeler* Sound Designer
Josh Vlodarchyk Head Technician, Lighting
Martin Kinch Director
Shawn Kerwin* Set & Costume Designer
Steven Hawkins Lighting Designer Neha Ross Stage Manager
Rachel Ditor Script Consultant
Crew
Ben Junor House Technician, Audio
Geoff Hughes Tailor
Canadian Stage is a member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres and engages professional Artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association under the terms of the jointly negotiated Canadian Theatre Agreement. Stage Employees are represented by IATSE Local 58 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. *Indicated designers on this production are represented by the Associated Designers of Canada, IATSE Local SC659
Playing Shylock is produced by arrangement with Kensingtion Literary Representation, 34 St. Andrew Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1K6, kensingtonlit@rogers.com. Mark Leiren-Young is a member of Playwrights Guild of Canada. Playing Shylock is a new work derived from Merk Leiren-Young’s play Shylock, (first produced by Savage God in Vancouver, in 1996). This extensively revised and updated version was commissioned by Starvox Entertainment, CEO Corey Ross, in 2021.
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The Merchant of Venice Synopsis:
Antonio (the merchant of Venice) needs money to help his friend Bassanio court Portia (the very rich heiress). In order to facilitate Antonio's business venture, the antisemitic merchant asks the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, for a loan. Shylock agrees to the loan with one condition: the collateral is a pound of Antonio's flesh. When Antonio's businesses fail, he cannot repay the loan, and Shylock demands that the merchant fulfill the contract. Portia, now married to Bassanio, disguises herself as a judge and saves Antonio. In the end, Shylock never receives his collateral, and the others celebrate.
Sir John Gilbert - Shylock After the Trial, describing Act II, Scene vii of William Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice which is not after the trail (steel engraving)
Martha Burns
Mac Fyfe
Hailey Gillis
Paul Gross
Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
January 2025
Underwritten by
Elaine Kierans & Shawn McReynolds and by Trina McQueen, O.C.
Bluma Appel Season Underwriter John & Nancy Embry
Photos by Lorne Bridgman
Saul Rubinek
Saul Rubinek was born in a refugee camp in Germany after World War II, where his father ran a Yiddish repertory theater company. He was 9 months old when he arrived with his parents as immigrants to Canada. Saul spoke Yiddish and French before he spoke English, but when he was 7 he began acting in English on stage. In 1968-69 Saul was the youngest member of the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival company when it had its first Canadian coartistic directors, John Hirsch and Jean Gascon. He was a co-founder and actor/writer/ director 1972 -83 Toronto Free Theatre (now Canadian Stage Berkeley Street Theaters).
Saul has continued to work in theater as an actor, director and writer, in Canada, the US, and in Europe, He directed and performed the Canadian premiere of Marc Neikrug’s Through Roses, a play for actor and eight-piece chamber ensemble. In collaboration with Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music, Saul has performed the piece in Toronto, Ottawa, New York, and in London with the English Chamber Orchestra. Saul most recently performed at LA’s Mark Taper Forum in Ethan Coen’s new play A Play Is A Poem, directed by Neil Pepe.
Saul’s work in film spans 4 decades, including Joel & Ethan Coen’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning Unforgiven, Tony Scott’s and Tarantino’s True Romance, and over 60 other feature films. His most recent film is SHTTL, filmed in Ukraine in 2021 entirely in Yiddish. The film premiered in both the London AFI Film Festival and the Rome Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Feature.
His television work likewise spans 4 decades, including series regular roles in Frasier, and Warehouse 13, as well as guest-starring roles in dozens of series, most recently Billions, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, For All Mankind, Grey’s Anatomy, and Blue Bloods. Most recently, Saul was a series regular in a new series for Amazon starring Al Pacino, Hunters
As a playwright, Saul’s first play, Terrible Advice, directed by Frank Oz, and starring Scott Bakula and Sharon Horgan, had its world premiere in London’s Menier Chocolate Factory Theater in the fall of 2011. The play was translated into German and premiered in Berlin in 2013. Saul’s new play All In The Telling – an adaptation of his book and documentary film — is an intensely personal exploration about how the telling of family history stories impacts three generations.
Saul has also directed two films produced by his wife and producing partner Elinor Reid: Jerry and Tom, starring Joe Mantegna and Sam Rockwell (Sundance 1998); and the award-winning independent film Cruel But Necessary. He also directed two movies for Paramount and Showtime: Bleacher Bums, a film adaptation of the play about the Chicago Cubs baseball fans, and Club Land starring Alan Alda (Emmy nominee).
Penguin Books published Saul’s non-fiction book So Many Miracles, an account of his parents’ survival growing up in Poland during World War II. He wrote and produced an award-winning documentary of the same tile for CBC and PBS, which chronicles his parents’ reunion with the people who saved their lives during the Holocaust.
Creative
Mark Leiren-Young
– Playwright
Mark Leiren-Young is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and author based in Victoria, BC. His play, Bar Mitzvah Boy, (which he’s adapting for screen) was long listed for the Leacock Medal for Humour - an award he received for his memoir Never Shoot a Stampede Queen His previous theatrical exploration of Shakespeare’s infamous Jew, Shylock, has been translated into several languages and produced throughout Canada, the US and Europe. He won the Writers Guild of Canada Award for Best Documentary for The Hundred-YearOld Whale and hosts Skaana, a podcast about ocean-related environmental issues. He’s currently adapting his best-selling book, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World as a feature film and writing a play about endangered species for Green Thumb Theatre. www.leiren-young.com
Martin Kinch – Director
Martin Kinch has spent fifty years developing and directing Canadian work, as Artistic Director of Toronto Free Theatre (which he co-founded), Theatre Calgary and as a CBC producer. Martin directed many plays for CanStage’s predecessors, Toronto Free Theatre and Toronto Arts Productions including the first production in The Berkeley Street Theatre. His own plays have been produced across the country. Since moving to Vancouver in 1994, he has worked as a Story Editor for a number of television series and independent films in Vancouver and Toronto and spent 10 years working with established and emerging playwrights as Literary Manager/Executive Director of Playwrights Theatre Centre. Martin Kinch teaches in the UBC School of Creative Writing.
Shawn Kerwin – Set & Costume Designer
Shawn is a multiple Dora Award-winning designer who has worked for theatre and opera companies in Canada, the U. S. and England. Canadian Stage credits include: All’s Well that Ends Well, Heaven, Habitat and others. Other design credits include: The Goat, The Bakkhai, (Stratford Festival), The Lehman Trilogy, Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Class (Belfry Theatre) Come From Away (Gander, Nfld.), Between Breaths, Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Oil & Water (Artistic Fraud) float (Choral Canada, St. John’s), Sea Sick (Theatre Centre/international tour) A Tender Thing, Great Expectations, Our Town (Soulpepper). Shawn was a full-time faculty member in York University’s Department of Theatre, Dance and Performance for over 20 years, serving as Department Chair for 6 years.
Olivia Wheeler – Sound Designer
Olivia Wheeler is a mixed-race, Chinese Canadian sound designer and composer. Her artistic work spans across the country with companies such as the Stratford Festival, Why Not, Soulpepper, Alberta Theatre Projects and Theatre SKAM. Other Theatre Credits include: Sound Design for Cymbeline (Stratford), Infinite Life (Coal Mine), Mad Madge (Nightwood), The Fixing Girl (YPT), De Profundis (Soulpepper), Here Lies Henry, Armadillos (Factory Theatre), and Between a Wok and a Hot Pot (Cahoots). Upcoming designs include The Bidding War (Crow’s) and Alligator Pie (Soulpepper). Outside of her sound design practice, she is a playwright, puppet designer, and puppeteer with her play Quest for the Moon performed in BC and Ontario. More at: www.oliviagwheeler.com
Steven Hawkins – Lighting Designer
Steven Hawkins has designed extensively over a 40 year career, including 22 seasons at the Stratford Festival and numerous productions across Canada, the UK and the US. Canadian Stage credits include Tartuffe, Rough Crossing, What the Butler Saw, La Maison Suspendue, and Detaining Mr.Trotsky. Other credits include The Alchemist, Mary Stuart, The Grapes of Wrath, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well, Bartholomew Fair, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Death of a Salesman (Stratford Festival); The Crucible, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Exit the King (Soulpepper); The Price (Theatre Aquarius); Yankee Tavern, Cabaret, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Grand Theatre); The Prisoner of Tehran (Passe Muraille); Amadeus, Summer and Smoke (Theatre Calgary); Fences (NAC); The Cherry Orchard, Lion in the Streets (Tarragon). His work has also been seen at the Centaur Theatre, the Shaw Festival, the Grand Opera House in Belfast and the Old Vic in London.
Neha Ross – Stage Manager
Neha Ross is a Stage Manager currently working and residing in Tkaronto. Since graduating in 2008 from Theatre Tech at Sheridan Collage she has worked for various theatre companies across Canada. Neha’s love for the theatre and community has taken her across India, Canada and America with new Works. Selected credits: Mahabharata, Prince Hamlet, ICELAND, We Are Proud to Present … (Why Not Theatre), Perceptual Archaeology (The Fire and Rescue Team with Crows Theatre); Other Side of the Game (Cahoots Theatre & Obsidian Theatre); One Thing Leads to Another (Young Peoples Theatre); R + J (Stratford Festival), Animal Farm, Kim’s Convenience, (Soulpepper Theatre); The Taste of Empire, The Madness of the Square (Cahoots Theatre Projects); Lady in the Red Dress (fuGEN).
Rachel Ditor – Script Consultant
Rachel is a freelance dramaturg, director, and teacher. She was the dramaturg/literary manager at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver for 17 years, and served as the resident dramaturg at Touchstone Theatre, Rumble Theatre, and the Banff Playwrights Colony. She’s worked in play development with companies across the country since 1992 and was honoured by the Playwrights Guild of Canada with the Bra D’Or Award for her work supporting women playwrights, and their Honorary Membership Award for her work championing Canadian plays and playwrights. Rachel is currently a sessional instructor in the departments of Creative Writing and Theatre at the University of Victoria.
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Fall On Your Knees (2024). Photo by Dahlia Katz
Thank you for attending!
By Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan
By Elizabeth
Strout
| Adapted by Rona Munro
Playing Shylock
By Mark Leiren-Young
The
of
By Roland Schimmelpfennig | Translated by David Tushingham
By James ljames