Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

VICTORIA, BC: Home Free! (with Jason Clift & Maryanne Renzetti) is an evocative dark comedy filled with fun, adventures and surprises. Worlds collide when a brother & sister, living as a married couple, are faced with a problem they’re unable to navigate via the make-believe reality they’ve created for themselves. This haunting story is one of the earliest works of celebrated American playwright Lanford Wilson.

Playwright Lanford Wilson was the author of 17 full-length and 30 short plays. Often compared to Tennessee Williams, his plays often explore themes of alienation, loneliness, and crumbling illusions. He’s received numerous awards including the Vernon Rice Award for Rimers of Eldritch (1965), the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and Obies for Hot L Baltimore (1973), and The Mound Builders (1975). He has won multiple New York Drama Critic's Circle Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1980).

“A poignant fairy-tale quality pervades this story of a brother and his incestuously pregnant sister and helps the play achieve an astonishingly tender tension between sickness and sweetness”- Time

Director Brian Cochrane hails from Saskatoon, where he started the Skinny Walrus theatre company in 2004. Since moving to Vancouver in 2009 he has directed the Canadian Premiere of Love/Stories and assistant directed House/Home (Pi Theatre). Brian recently won a Jessie Richardson Award for his work in The Bomb-itty of Errors, and he just finished assistant directing King John at Bard on the Beach.

In Home Free! Lawrence and Joanna, a brother and sister, have cut themselves off from the world “outside,” living in a cluttered playroom which they share with two imaginary companions, “Edna” and “Claypone”. They have created an atmosphere of almost suffocating intimacy and remove, where play becomes the business of life and reality an alien force to be kept at bay.

Staircase XI Theatre was formed by UBC BFA Acting grads Becky Shrimpton and Maryanne Renzetti in 2009 while training in Oxford, England with the goal of presenting bold, exciting, and challenging theatre. Their past shows include Stewart Lemoine’s Evelyn Strange (2011), and Will Eno’s Oh the Humanity! (2010 Vancouver Fringe Festival) (Short Listed for the Georgia Straight Critic’s Choice Award).

The creative team for Home Free! includes Erin Crowley (Technical Director/Stage Management) and Anthony Liam Kearns (Stage Management).

Entertainment/Theatre: Staircase XI Theatre presents Home Free! by Lanford Wilson, director Brian Cochrane | Venue: Fairfield Hall, 1303 Fairfield Rd @ Moss St. | Map: http://goo.gl/maps/34FK| Tickets: $11 | Box Office: http://www.victoriafringe.com/tickets/ |Run: August 25-3:30pm, August 26-7:30pm, August 27-9:15pm, August 28-7:15pm, August 29-9:15pm, August 30-5:30pm| More: www.staircasexi.com or https://www.facebook.com/events/495992827083181/