Watching the movement of the different poles of the Ottawa theatre community is an interesting thing. On the one side there are the National Arts Centre theatre programs, newly remastered to take up a place of national importance. On the other there are those local theatre companies trying to fill their seats and pay their bills in a city that is often criminally neglectful of theatre.

Closing a summer season that brought fresh, interesting shows to the downtown core, the Arts Court presents Kilt on September 1. Billed as a silly, raunchy farce, it comes to us from Ottawa’s gay theatre company Toto Too. On Sept. 4, the Company of Fools performs their clown-style Shakespeare mashup at Ottawa’s Lumière Festival.

Third Wall Theatre begins their fall season on Sept. 14 with the acclaimed play Blackbird. This play should be a welcome treat for those who like their theatre harrowing and dark. Also starting Sept. 14 is The List at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. This show has a Sam Sheppard-ish feel to its description: “A woman is alone. She begins to tell her story. Her neighbour is dead.” Sounds cool.

Finally, also starting Sept. 14 at the Ottawa Little Theatre is Crossing Delancey, a romantic comedy whose description reads like a Nora Ephron movie. They follow that with oddball comedy Honeymoon at Graveside Manor on Oct. 19.

The Gladstone sticks to its chosen guns with another season of the lighter elements of theatre. They begin on Sept. 16 with A Flea in Her Ear. Terrific local director John Kelly directs this classic French farce. They follow that on Nov. 17 with I, an absurdist comedy about a multiplying playwright, and then Dec. 9 with a stage adaptation of It’s a Wonderful Life.

The Fourth Stage is a tiny performance space tucked into the Elgin Street side of the hulking beetle-building that is the NAC. On Sept. 25 it plays host to Grievous Angel: The Legend of Gram Parsons, a “theatrical concert” that tells the intense life and bizarre death of this infamous American musical legend.

The National Arts Centre’s first production (Oct. 19) is a big volley: Romeo & Juliet. But not just any production of the famous lip-smackin, idiot emo-teens – this one will be in full period garb on a thrust stage. With a director as clever and driven as Peter Hinton, expect something blazing to be done with such a powerful, traditional setup.

Then on Nov. 9 the NAC and Great Canadian Theatre Company present their co-production Vimy by GG-award winning author Vern Thiessen and starring the NAC resident acting company (in their second year!) at the GCTC theatre on Wellington Street.

As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – Sept 02, 2010
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=20396