 MEDIA RELEASE |
MEDIA RELEASE |
For Immediate Release
July 4, 2001
The Odyssey offers high adventure in the Rockies for the whole family
Following the tremendous success of The Hobbit last summer, the Theatre Arts department at The Banff Centre is producing The Odyssey, a new play by John Murrell based on Homer’s epic adventure story. The play will be performed with a spectacular mountain backdrop in the Donald Cameron Hall Amphitheatre at The Banff Centre. It runs from July 19 through August 5.
"In this version of The Odyssey, there is much to delight the eye and the ear," says playwright John Murrell. Forget what you "know" about Homer’s epic. Murrell’s play, full of music, monsters and magic, is an action-packed spectacle energetically staged by director Kim Selody. "The great adventures and the great poetry of The Odyssey have survived for thousands of years," says Murrell, "because the story is universal and the characters are enormously human."
The Odyssey is co-commissioned with the Manitoba Theatre for Young People (MTYP).
"The artistic team of Kim Selody, director; Linda Leon, set and costume
designer; and Cathy Nosaty, composer…has collaborated on works big and small
for over a dozen years" says MTYP artistic director, Leslee Silverman.
"It’s a wonderful artistic alliance," she says. "Add a writer
with John Murrell’s abilities to the mix and the task of developing a new work
becomes a joy of the first order."
Performance dates:
July 19th, 7 pm
July 20th & 21st, 2 pm
July 22nd, 2 & 7 pm
July 24th, 25th, 26th, & 27th, 7
pm
July 28th & 29th, 2 & 7 pm
July 31st, August 1st, 2nd, & 3rd,
7 pm
August 4th & 5th, 2 & 7 pm
For ticket information call the Banff Centre Box Office at 762.6301 or 1.800.413.8368 or visit the Box Office web site at www.banffcentre.ca/events/. For information, biographies, or photos please call the media contact listed below.
Selected Biographies
John Murrell, Playwright
John Murrell is one of the
most highly regarded and frequently produced and published of all Canadian
playwrights. He began his work as a dramatist by writing plays for his students,
when he was a public school teacher in Alberta in the 1960’s and early 70’s.
He soon went on, first to national, and then to international stature as a
playwright whose concerns are profoundly humanitarian and whose style is highly
polished but also emotionally accessible. His first original work to be
performed widely across Canada was Memoir, about the last days of Sarah
Bernhardt. It has been performed in every major Canadian city, as well as at The
Stratford Festival, and it continues to be produced frequently throughout North
and South America and Europe. Murrell’s next major success was Waiting For
The Parade, which rapidly became a staple of the Canadian dramatic
repertoire. Because of its intimate and moving portraits of five Canadian women
in wartime, it is constantly revived across Canada, especially on Remembrance
Day. Parade was also filmed and is frequently telecast by the CBC. Other
notable plays include Farther West, New World, Democracy, and The
Faraway Nearby. He was the first Canadian playwright to have his work
produced at both The Shaw Festival and The Stratford Festival. Murrell has won
numerous awards, both for his accomplishments as an author and for his services
to education and the mentorship of emerging Canadian performing artists. As a
translator, he has also given Canadian audiences access to numerous
foreign-language classics in lively and precise new dramatic versions, which fit
the cadences of Canadian speech without violating the integrity of the original
play. John Murrell is the artistic director/executive producer of Theatre Arts
at The Banff Centre.
Kim Selody, Director
Kim has worked as an actor, writer, and director across Canada, in the U.S., and in Europe for over 20 years. Memorable writing and performing projects include: Synthetic Energy and Fools Angel with Axis Theatre, The Last Drop with Carousel Players; directing and performing in The Story Of The Little Gentleman and Comet In Moominland for Manitoba Theatre for Young People. Kim has also directed for Green Thumb Theatre, Playwrights Theatre Centre, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Carousel Theatre, Dynamo Theatre in Montreal, The Arts Club Theatre, The Globe Theatre in Regina, as well as at several Universities and Colleges in Canada. For five years, Kim served as the artistic director of the Playwrights Theatre Centre in Vancouver and is currently the artistic director of Carousel Players in Ontario. His recent adaptation of The Hobbit has been produced in eight of Canada’s ten provinces.
Leslee Silverman, Artistic Director, Manitoba Theatre for Young People
Leslee Silverman has been Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s (MTYP) artistic director since 1982. She is recognized as a national leader in Canadian theatre for young audiences, and her work has played on Canadian stages such as The National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Young People’s Theatre in Toronto, and the Citadel in Edmonton. On the occasion of the 125th Anniversary of Confederation, Leslee received a Governor General’s Commemorative Medal in recognition of her contribution to the community. In Manitoba, Leslee has initiated the only permanent mainstage season of theatre for children and provincial school touring and the only theatre season in Canada just for teens. Leslee was instrumental in the creation of the new CanWest Global Performing Arts Centre at The Forks in Winnipeg, a facility devoted entirely to young people, the first theatre to be built in Canada in the new millennium, and one of the only theatres of its kind in the county.