Yearly Archives: 2014

The Chemainus Theatre is proud to announce, due to remarkable demand, Les Misérables has been held over for two extra weeks – until September 20! Seen by more than 65 million people in 42 countries and in 22 languages around the globe, it is still breaking box-office records everywhere. Don’t miss your chance to see the show that everyone is talking about!

Book Your Tickets Now!

For any who have yet to see LES MISERABLE in Chemainus, it is one you don’t want to miss.

Brenda, Facebook

Terrific Professional Summer Theatre…Excellent production of Les Miserables…

Freddie754, TripAdvisor

We saw Les Miserables and it was incredible!

mhbaird, TripAdvisor

This was a fantastic evening…

Ross M, TripAdvisor

It surpassed any expectations. What a wonderful job they have done, even bringing tears to my eyes…

Kathy F, TripAdvisor

Do yourself a favour and go see Les Mis in this intimate venue. Loved it!

Opinion16, TripAdvisor

Wonderful production. Loved it. So lucky to have it close to home. The set, costumes, music and actors are wonderful. I highly recommend it.

IslandGirl5265, TripAdvisor

Terrific cast, excellent small band, and excellent acoustics…

minimuffinlover, TripAdvisor

We were amazed at the production!!!! The quality and professionalism were world class. Unbelievable, we enjoyed every minute of the show. The musicians, the singing, the actors, the set…. everything was top notch.

Deborah & George, Blog Comment

Lynne, Facebook Comment

“The whole production is unbelievably good, breathtaking!!! I couldn’t single out one part or actor/actress! I came home from the show and on the same evening bought another ticket … I’m going to watch the show again in August!”

“I saw this in London – in my opinion your production was the best! Every minute was excellent! The voices were awesome – I could hear every word. Thank you for a wonderful experience!”

“Amazing production! As a volunteer usher at the Theatre, I hear people raving about the show as they leave, comparing it to other productions seen internationally. Fabulous work, CFT !!”

As residents of Chemainus my wife and I have had many opportunities to enjoy performances at the Theatre Festival there.

We constantly marvel at the professionalism and quality of everything that they do.

No surprise, then, that we treated ourselves to tickets to their most recent venture – Les Misérables.

Having seen the musical performed in London by the original cast, and, more recently, having watched the 2012 Tom Hooper movie, we went with a great deal of curiosity as to how such a lavish show could be adapted to our smaller local environment. Much curiosity, but frankly no great expectations.

Boy, were we surprised! Peter Jorgensen’s direction is inspired. The performance was superb, from the set design to the singing to the costumes to the acting. It is hard to single out any specific talent, it all worked so well together. All in all, the most memorable performance of all the excellent ones at the Chemainus Theatre festival. An A+++!

We are writing this letter to encourage anyone who may not have already booked their tickets to do so with haste. You will have a wonderful time and, like us, will be humming the melodies for weeks to come.

Peter and Margaret

As good as the large stage performance! I did not know what to expect as it is a small Theatre. It surpassed any expectations. What a wonderful job they have done, even bringing tears to my eyes.

Kathy F, Trip Advisor

We saw Les Miserables and it was incredible! We also had the buffet, which was also excellent….

mhbaird, Trip Advisor

Terrific Professional Summer Theatre! Excellent production of Les Miserables. Consistently good theatre…

Freddie754, Trip Advisor

I am a Les Mis fan, and attended this with great anticipation and curiosity as to how this small theatre company would approach the stage and setting options as well hoping that my favourite songs would be met with the vocal strength required to sing them. In my opinion, everything about this production was perfect. The staging, the singing, the actors, really everything was just excellent. Lunch at the theatre is a wonderful experience, the customer service is at every corner is great. Leave time to walk around Chemainus, great shopping too. Note that this production is a long one, just over 3 hours.

yesiamtrish2, Trip Advisor

You’re about to meet two of the most exciting and influential intellects of the 20th century! Mark St. Germain encountered the possibility that C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud might have met in a book called The Question of God by Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr.. The 2002 book distills 37 years of spirited discussions with Nicholi’s students in the wildly popular seminar he had offered every year since 1967. (PBS adapted the book in a 2-part documentary mini-series in 2004).

The play you’ll see today premiered in 2009 at Mark St. Germain’s home theatre The Barrington Stage Company, and ran several months in New York where it won the Best Play Award from the Off Broadway Alliance. When my teaching colleagues Randy Ritz and Michael Peng proposed that I direct and design a production for them, I happily accepted after reading this remarkable script. At the Edmonton International Fringe Festival last summer, we enjoyed a sold-out run, were held over, and were nominated for three Sterling Awards. We are so pleased that Artistic Director Mark DuMez invited us to launch Chemainus Festival Theatre’s Studio Stage with this revival of our encounter with these two great characters!

Daniel vanHeyst

Meet the creative team behind our upcoming show Freud’s Last Session…

Mark St. Germain Playwright Mark has written the plays Camping with Henry and Tom(Outer Critics Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award), Out of Gas on Lovers’ Leap and Forgiving Typhoid Mary (Time Magazine’s Year’s Ten Best), Ears on a Beetle and The God Committee, all published by Samuel French and Dramatist Play Service. With Randy Courts, he wrote the musicals The Gifts of the Magi, Johnny Pye and the Foolkiller (winner of an AT&T New Plays for the Nineties Award), and Jack’s Holiday at Playwrights Horizons. Mark’s musical, Stand by Your Man: The Tammy Wynette Story was created for Nashville’s Ryman Theater. Television credits include Writer and Creative Consultant for The Cosby Show. He co-wrote the screenplay for Carroll Ballard’s Warner Brothers film, Duma. Mark directed and co-produced the upcoming documentary, My Dog: An Unconditional Love Story, featuring, Richard Gere, Glenn Close and Edward Albee among many others. St. Germain is an alumnus of New Dramatists, where he was given the Joe A. Callaway Award, a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writer’s Guild East and a Board Member of the Barrington Stage Company. He was awarded the New Voices In American Theatre award at the William Inge Theatre Festival.

Daniel vanHeyst Director/Production Designer Daniel is Professor of Drama at The King’s University College, where he heads the drama, visual art, and communications programs. Since 1981, he has designed hundreds of professional, educational, and community theatre productions, including 14 seasons of The Canadian Badlands Passion Play. A past president of Theatre Alberta and resident designer at Theatre Network for 10 seasons, Daniel keeps active in Edmonton’s theatre community, particularly through recent shows with Kompany Family Theatre.

Michael Peng C.S. Lewis Since 1994, Michael has worked professionally in theatre as an actor, director, designer, teacher, and producer – in Alberta, Ontario, the U.S., and Europe. In 2008, he received his MFA in Theatre Directing at the University of Alberta and is Co-Artistic director of the critically acclaimed, award-winning Edmonton company, wishbone theatre. In Alberta, Michael’s busy freelance career has seen him performing with The Citadel Theatre, Northern Light Theatre, Theatre Calgary, wishbone, Freewill Shakespeare Festival, Kill Your Television, Studio Theatre, and Surreal SoReal Theatre, among others. Recent Fringe hits include lauded wishbone productions of Bashir Lazhar, by Evelyne de la Chenelière (2009), SHIMMER, by John O’Keefe (2010), and Parlour Song, by Jez Butterworth (2012). Upcoming projects include performances in Sartre’s Shorts with Surreal SoReal and a new translation of Chekov’s The Three Sisters.

Randy Ritz Sigmund Freud As an actor, Randy has performed in Dallas, Berlin, Beijing and Thorsby, AB. He has directed over forty drama productions—many of them national in scope. Randy is also an author and curriculum writer for Standard Publishing, has produced two independent feature films including a supernatural thriller called “Unfinished Business” and he is a passionate educator and story coach. For thirty years has served as chair of the Drama Department at Concordia University College.

Join Us for a Lively Debate!

Did an afternoon meeting with the avowed atheist Sigmund Freud inspire Christian apologist C. S. Lewis to create his most personal – and most enduring – defense of God…? In this marvellous, witty “what if..?” scenario, a dying Freud summons Lewis (then an ambitious young Oxford professor) to his London study – for reasons that gradually become clear. As a result, on the day in 1939 that England declares war on Germany (beginning World War II), the two men trade body blows and punch lines about what they each love and fear: war, death, God, sex, suffering… and their fathers (NOT their mothers…!!).

Freud confronts the notion of belief in his fi nal days, Lewis begins battling theological problems that will plague him for a lifetime, and we become witnesses to the kind of passionate, mindful, moving exchange that has forever spurred the human imagination.

Click here for more info and show dates

Alain Boublil

Alain Boublil’s first musical, La Revolution Française in 1973, marked his transition from songwriting to musical theatre and the start of his collaboration with Claude-Michel Schöenberg with the hit album that became the first ever staged French musical. His idea of writing a musical version of Les Misérables brought them together again in 1978.

The acclaimed show was written over a two-year period and recorded as an album before its opening at the Palais de Sports in Paris in September 1980. In 1983 Mr. Boublil met Cameron Mackintosh which led to his first London production Abbacadabra (a musical fairy-tale set to ABBA music) and to working with Claude-Michel and directors and writers on the English language adaptation of Les Misérables.

The show has subsequently opened in 19 countries and 14 languages. Among the many awards Mr. Boublil has received were two Tony Awards in 1987 for Best Score and Best Book for the NY production and a 1988 Grammy for the Best Original Broadway Cast Recording which he co-produced with Claude-Michel Schöenberg. Miss Saigon opened on September 20, 1989 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London and on April 11, 1991 in NY. The show has also played in Tokyo and Toronto with future production scheduled for Sydney, Australia and Stuttgart, Germany. Mr. Boublil will maintain a close association with all the international productions of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon while working with Claude-Michel on the screenplays for motion picture versions of both musicals.

Claude-Michel Schöenberg

Claude-Michel Schönberg is a successful record producer and songwriter who began his collaboration with Alain Boublil in 1973, writing the very first French musical, La Revolution Française. Mr. Schönberg played the role of Louis XVI in that production and also co-produced the double-gold record album of the show. In 1974, he recorded an album, singing his own compositions and lyrics, which included the number one hit single Le Premier Pas. In 1980, after two years’ work on the score, Mr. Schönberg and Mr. Boublil’s musical Les Misérables opened in Paris, where it was seen by more than 1.5 million people. In 1983, Mr. Schönberg produced an opera album in Paris with Julia Migenes Johnson and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. Following work on the London production of Les Misérables (the 3rd longest running musical in British theatre history), Mr. Schönberg co-produced the double-platinum London cast album and became involved in casting all the major overseas productions of the show, including the American, Japanese and Australian companies. He won two coveted Tony Awards, for Best Score and Book, for the Broadway production of Les Misérables and a Grammy Award for the Best Original Cast Recording, which he co-produced with Alain Boublil.

He also worked closely on the symphonic recording of the show. His score for Miss Saigon, again written in collaboration with Alain Boublil, repeated the international success story of Les Misérables. Produced by Cameron Mackintosh and again bringing together many members of the creative team behind Les Misérables, Miss Saigon opened with huge success at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London in September 1989, in NY in April 1991, in Tokyo in May 1992 and in Chicago (the first national U.S. tour) in November 1992.

Herbert Kretzmer

Herbert Kretzmer, born in South Africa, came to London in 1954, and has since pursued twin careers as a newspaperman and songwriter. He was a feature writer at the Daily Sketch and a profile writer at the Sunday Dispatch. He joined the Daily Express in 1960 and later became its drama critic, a post he held for 18 years. Since 1979 he has been writing TV criticism for the Daily Mail and has won, in this capacity, two national press awards. As a lyric writer he wrote weekly songs for BBC-TV’s That Was The Week That Was.

He won an Ivor Novello Award for the Peter Sellers/Sophia Loren comedy song Goodness Gracious Me. Other award-winning lyrics include two written for Charles Aznavour: Yesterday When I Was Young and the chart-topping She. Mr. Kretzmer wrote book and lyrics for the West End’s Our Man Crichton, which starred Kenneth More and Millicent Martin, and lyrics for the Theatre Royal Drury Lane’s The Four Musketeers. He also supplied lyrics for the Anthony Newly film Can Heironymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness? Tony Award, 1987, Best Score, Les Misérables.

MTI

Music Theatre International (MTI) is one of the world’s leading theatrical licensing agencies, granting schools as well as amateur and professional theatres from around the world the rights to perform the largest selection of great musicals from Broadway and beyond. MTI works directly with the composers, lyricists and book writers of these shows to provide official scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to over 60,000 theatrical organizations in the US and in over 60 countries worldwide.