Angelwalk Announces 2012/13 Season

Angelwalk Theatre, Toronto's leading producer of Off-Broadway musical theatre, announced its exciting 2012/2013 subscription season. Launching the season will be the Canadian Premiere of Ordinary Days, a co-production with Winnipeg Studio Theatre. The second production in the subscription series is the hit Off-Broadway musical, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, a co-production with KooGle Theatre Company. New this season, Angelwalk Theatre will also be producing three one-night performances to showcase some of Canada's top musical theatre artists: Dianne and Me (featuring Elena Juatco), from Justin to Kelly (with Justin Bott and Kelly Holiff), and Villains & Vixens (starring Jayme Armstrong, Jay Davis, Kevin Dennis, George Masswohl, Adrienne Merrell, and Astrid Van Wieren). All productions will be presented at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, where Angelwalk Theatre is a company in residence. Also new for Angelwalk Theatre's fourth season, is the addition of its inaugural Artist Advisory.

Ordinary Days is an exciting and touching new musical by Adam Gwon about four young 20-30 year olds whose lives intersect as they search for fulfillment, love and happiness. When Deb loses her most precious possession - the notes to her graduate thesis - she unwittingly starts a chain of events that turns the ordinary days of four New Yorkers into something extraordinary. Ordinary Days made its world-premiere at the Roundabout Theatre in New York City in 2009 to rave reviews. "Full of idiosyncratic charm" (Time Out New York), Ordinary Days contains an emotionally powerful score with lyrics that are "arrestingly poetic" (LA Times). Remotegoat London gave the show five stars and calls it "one of the best musicals I have seen all year". Ordinary Days will run from November 29 until December 9, 2012.

Ordinary Days will be directed by Winnipeg Studio Theatre's Artistic Director, Kayla Gordon (Winnipeg's Spring Awakening, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Altar Boyz), with musical direction by Paul De Gurse (Winnipeg's My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, Avenue Q, Title of Show) and choreography by Brenda Gorlick (Winnipeg's Urinetown, The Producers, Altar Boyz). Set and costumes will be designed by Scott Penner (Stratford's Cymbeline, Angelwalk's I Love You Because) with lighting design by Siobhán Sleath (Angelwalk's I Love You Because, Hart House's Cabaret). The cast will star Justin Bott (Angelwalk's Title of Show, Songs for a New World; Hart House's The Great American Trailor Park Musical), Jay Davis (Angelwalk's I Love You Because, The Rose Theatre's The Last Five Years), Connie Manfredi (Winnipeg's Avenue Q, Spring Awakening), and Clara Scott (Angelwalk's Off-Broadway On Stage, The Lower Ossington Theatre's Spring Awakening, Reefer Madness).

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change is the second-longest running musical in Off-Broadway history, running for 12 years and 5003 performances. With book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change is presented in the form of a series of vignettes connected by the central theme of love and relationships. The show is everything you have ever secretly thought about dating, romance, marriage, lovers, husbands, wives and in-laws, but were too afraid to admit. "Hilarious...the most entertaining show on or off Broadway" claims Gannett Newspapers, while Newsday says "if this show were a blind date, you'd feel relieved, grateful and pleasantly surprised," and The Star-Ledger calls it "a great date show, a perfect mating dance, it's 'Seinfeld' set to music!"

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change was produced by KooGle Theatre Company in the summer of 2012 and Angelwalk Theatre is delighted to be building upon this success in the upcoming co-production. I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change will be directed by Evan Tsitsias (Acting Up Stage Company's Edges, Summerworks Festival's Strange Mary Strange, Aftershock) and will feature the cast from the original KooGle Theatre Company production: Christopher Alan Gray (Stratford's Inherit the Wind, The Sound of Music; Theatre Aquarius' Toad!), Dean Hollin (Theatre Aquarius, Drayton Entertainment, Stirling Festival), Leslie Kay (Theatre Aquarius, Sunshine Festival, St. Lawrence Stage Co.), and Alison O'Neill (Hart House's Bare; Lower Ossington Theatre's Pinkalicious). I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change will run from May 14 until June 2, 2013.

This season, Angelwalk Theatre will undertake a new initiative to showcase Canadian musical theatre talent on stage. Its brand-new performance series will feature Canadian musical theatre artists in three one-night shows. Dianne and Me stars award-winning actress Elena Juatco (Angelwalk's I Love You Because; Canadian Idol Top Ten Finalist) in a one-woman show directed by Luke Brown (Theatre Aquarius' Bittergirl) and written by Ron Fromstein (2012 Toronto Fringe Festival's One in a Million). Winner of the 2009 Canadian National Playwrighting Award and "a must see" at the 2011 Vancouver Fringe Festival, Dianne and Me will be performed on September 19, 2012. from Justin to Kelly features Justin Bott (Title of Show, Songs for a New World) and Kelly Holiff(Hairspray, Finding Love in Strange Places) in an intimate and exciting evening of musical bliss on October 3, 2012. Villains & Vixens showcases the talents of Jayme Armstrong (Angelwalk's Title of Show), Jay Davis (Angelwalk's I Love You Because), Kevin Dennis (Talk Is Free's Assassins), George Masswohl (Young People's Theatre's Seussical), Adrienne Merrell (Angelwalk's The Last Five Years), and Astrid Van Wieren (Mermaid Parade's This Wide Night) in a musical feast of some of Broadway's most infamous Villains and Vixens, performed on February 20, 2013.

Angelwalk Theatre is also pleased to announce the inaugural members of its new Artist Advisory, a group established to serve as a sounding board for Angelwalk Theatre and to help guide and shape future artistic strategies and decisions. Inaugural members of the Artist Advisory include: Mark Allan, Anthony Bastianon, Justin Bott, Jay Davis, Gabi Epstein, Darcy Evans, Tim French, Elena Juatco, Jeff Madden, Jeigh Madjus, Mike "Nug" Nahrgang, Erica Peck, Scott Penner, Janna Polzin, Stephen Ross, and Jennifer Walls.