IN RESIDENCY WITH THEATRE SMASH As part of their first year in residency at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Theatre Smash stages the North American premiere of Philipp Löhle's globetrotting social comedy Das Ding (The Thing). This ambitious and provocative script spans an interconnected world that binds the fates of the African Siwa, Chinese business people, Romanian pig-breeders and two young newlyweds through the searing observations of an eponymous talking cotton fibre called "the thing". The Berkeley Street Partnership at Canadian Stage is a multiyear residency opportunity for Toronto’s leading independent theatre companies. Canadian Stage carefully curates selected companies to ensure that audiences experience some of our most vibrant contemporary performance work, while giving companies access to all levels of artistic and administrative resources.
Ashlie Corcoran, Stacey Norton and Birgit Schreyer Duarte photo: James Heaslip
Das Ding (The Thing) premiered on May 14, 2011 at Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg in cooperation with the Ruhr Festival Recklinghausen. It took less than a year for the buzz of this German work to spike our interest. Through the support of the Goethe-Institut and with permission from playwright Philipp Löhle, Theatre Smash connected with Birgit Schreyer Duarte, Canadian Stage dramaturg, to begin the first English translation – and Canadian adaptation – of the work. In January 2013, the play received a Script Smash workshop focusing on translation and design. In 2015, we held another workshop focusing on the casting breakdown and representation. Since Theatre Smash was founded in 2005 we have aimed to develop and produce contemporary theatre with a global twist. Our work on German language plays (The Ugly One, The Bus, Norway. Today) showed us that both our artists and audiences have an attraction to these highly theatrical and deeply intellectual scripts. Being in residence at Canadian Stage means that we are given greater access to resources and the opportunities to find riveting contemporary international plays, commission translations of these scripts and bring them to full productions. We are honoured and excited to be part of Canadian Stage’s season! - Ashlie Corcoran Director, Artistic Producer, Theatre Smash
On stage at the Berkeley Upstairs Theatre Apr 12 – May 1 Next, Theatre Smash presents KISS by Guillermo Calderón in co-production with ARC and in partnership with Canadian Stage, Mar 28-Apr 16, 2017 as part of the 16.17 season. 7