The Good Person of Setzuan
Our 1998/99 season was a resounding success. Ruby Slippers in collaboration with new co-producers Touchstone Theatre and Vancouver Moving Theatre produced their third installment of the Brecht In The Park series this summer. John Lazarus' adaptation of the Good Person of Setzuan premiered in August of 1998. Critics and audiences couldn't get enough as over 6000 people packed the parks at this wildly successful outdoor extravaganza.
Ruby Slippers co-production of The Good Person of Setzuan won many Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards including Best Production of the season.
Acts of Passion
Our fifth annual Acts Of Passion reading series of Quebecois plays, co-produced with Pink Ink Theatre and Theatre Le Seizieme, was produced in association with the UBC Department of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing. We flew out internationally acclaimed playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, translator Linda Gaboriau, and teacher/director Paul LeFebvre to partake in the week-long event. Our guests gave lectures to theatre and creative writing classes at UBC and SFU. Ruby Slippers also commissioned the English language translation of Bouchard's Le Chemin des Passes Dangereuses (Dangerous Passes Road) especially for the series, which was performed by Andrew Wheeler, Dean Paul Gibson, and Bob Frazer.
The Winners
In the spring of last season, Ruby Slippers presented the English language Canadian premiere of Francois Archambaults' play The Winners at the Firehall Arts Centre April 9 – 18, 1999. The Winners was a fastpaced, sharply satirical exposé of the urban class, portrayed by a cast of characters who embrace the materialist paradigm even as they sense that it is morally and personally void. Featuring an original soundscore by Andreas Kahre, visual design by Tim Matheson, set design by David Roberts, and lighting design by Adrian Muir. The cast was made up of some of Vancouvers best actors: Scott Bellis, Kurt Max Runte, Laura Di Cicco, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, Courtenay J. Stevens, Sarah Turner, and Bob Frazer. Francois himself flew out for opening night! The show was a critical and popular success.
