Bear & Co.
  • HOME
  • Shakespeare's Will
  • A Child's Christmas in Wales
  • DONATE
  • 2020 video holiday card
  • Catch a Caroler 2020
  • Original
  • BOOK THE COHEN SHOW!
  • Lightfoot in Song
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • King Lear
  • Joni Mitchell tribute
  • Cymbeline
  • Grounded
  • Leonard Cohen tribute
  • Romeo & Juliet
  • Finishing the Suit
  • Jacques Brel
  • Macbeth at the Gladstone
  • Macbeth: Summer Tour
  • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  • The Tempest
  • The Glass Menagerie
  • Age Of Arousal
  • Momma's Boy
  • The Comedy Of Errors
  • Windfall Jelly
  • The Taming Of The Shrew
  • As You Like It
  • 'Tis Pity She's A Whore
  • Who We Are
  • Contact Us
  • up next for Bear
  • A Child's Christmas in Wales program
  • Shakespeare's Will program
AT LAST!
Picture

He’s a kid, a dreamer, a writer!
She’s older, headstrong, brave enough for two.
Now he’s dead, and you get to learn the truth.
The story of marriage to Wm. Shakespeare, told by Anne Hathaway, in today’s English, by Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen.

“Well known in Ottawa as a director, I’d like to see more of Crowder as an actor as well.”
—Brian Carroll, Apt613 Theatre Review “King Lear at The Gladstone”
 

ARE THOSE NEW DATES--again? Yes, they are. In March 2020, as the pandemic closed theatres, we were obliged to postpone this production--twice. We had to push it once more when the theatre was offered a new roof. We are thrilled to bring it to you at long last.
In the interest of keeping everyone as safe as possible, we will be asking at
tendees to show proof of full vaccination, and to  remain masked unless actively sipping a drink. We also guarantee distanced seating.
Those not yet ready to return to the theatre may buy tickets to view a video recording between April 27 and May 3.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS
Evening shows Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30
Matinees on most Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 2:30


Eleanor Crowder remounts a staging originally directed by Diana Fajrajsl. David Magladry is stage manager and lighting designer. The show is produced by Eleanor Crowder and Rachel Eugster.


Picture

MEDIA

See co-producers Eleanor Crowder and Rachel Eugster on CTV Ottawa Morning Live.
See Eleanor Crowder on CBC Ottawa's All in a Day.
See Eleanor Crowder on Rogers Daytime TV.

Shakespeare's Will by Vern Thiessen toured Newfoundland in August 2017.

Picture
Four centuries after Shakespeare’s death, his plays are well known but little detail remains of his home life in Stratford. Vern Thiessen imagines this world, bringing us history in a modern idiom.  Meet Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway - a woman to remember. 

Director and Sound Designer              Diana Fajrajsl *
Anne Hathaway                                   Eleanor Crowder *
Production Stage Manager                  Jane Vanstone Osborn*
Tour Manager                                      Sharon King-Campbell
Historical Research                              Linnea Rowlatt


NEWFOUNDLAND TOUR DATES
August 3, 6:00pm, Kenny's Pond, St. John's TBC 
August 6, 8:30pm, Ethie Room, Gros Morne Theatre Festival, Cow Head
August 8, 7:30pm, Stephenville Theatre Festival, Stephenville Arts & Culture Centre
August 9, 7:00pm, Beyond the Overpass Theatre, Gander Hotel
August 11, 2:00pm, Grand Bank Regional Theatre, Bait Depot
August 12, 7:00pm, Perchance Theatre, Cupids
Contact [email protected] for workshop information. 
*Appears by permission of Canadian Actors' Equity Association: This is a Canadian Actors' Equity Association Production under the Artists' Collective Policy.

Shakespeare's Will is produced by arrangement with Talent House Inc. 204A George Street, Toronto, ON M5R 2N5 [email protected]   416.960.9686

Shakespeare's Will was commissioned by the Free Will Players in 2002. It premiered on February 3, 2005 at the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in a co-production between the Citadel Theatre and The Free Will Players.

Photos

Photos by Andrew Alexander Photography

Video Excerpt

The Creative Team

Vern Thiessen —Playwright

Picture
Vern Thiessen's plays include 
SHAKESPEARE'S WILL, APPLE, EINSTEIN'S
GIFT, LENIN'S EMBALMERS,A MORE PERFECT 
UNION and many other works including 
musicals and TYA. He is the winner of the 
Governor General's, Dora, Sterling, and Carol
Bolt awards for Outstanding New Play. 
Recently, he was named Artistic Director of 
Workshop West Playwrights' Theatre in 
Edmonton.

Excerpt From Playwright's Note:
I have played "fast and loose" with the will
and it's meaning. Those readers seeking a 
play that sheds light on Shakespeare's 
writings may be disappointed in my play. So 
too those audience members who desire a 
historical representation of Anne 
Hathaway's life. I have done neither of those
things. Instead, I have used the will as a 
springboard for my own imagination and my 
artistic goal -to explore the  journey 
of a woman who faces adversity, rises above 
it, and ultimately re-kindles faith in herself.   
          
          - Vern Thiessen, September 2007

Diana Fajrajsl—Director and Sound Designer

Picture
Shakespeare's Will marks Diana's second
collaboration with Bear & Co.  She is a 
forty-year veteran of the professional 
Canadian theatre.  Diana has acted or 
directed for theatres from Vancouver to 
Newfoundland.  She is also a sometime 
music composer, including incidental piano 
for the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton 
(Mephisto), an entire pentatonic score
(Caucasian Chalk Circle) for students of the 
National Theatre School of Canada, and some
 choral work in the vein of Aaron Copeland
 for 17 Anonymous Women (Infinitheatre,
 Montreal).  Diana is a graduate of the 
National Theatre School of Canada,
and once wrote some bars of a fugue 
that were too difficult for her to play.

Jane Vanstone Osborn—Production S.M.

Picture
Based in Ottawa, Jane’s career has taken her across the country with operas, school tours, a visually impaired theatre company, puppet theatre, and almost every community hall in Nova Scotia.  Some highlights of Jane’s stage management career include the Capital Critics Award–winning productions of And Slowly Beauty (NAC/Belfry), A Christmas Carol (NAC), and a Rideau Award for Stage Management on The Turn of the Screw.  Jane has worked for five seasons as an ASM at the Shaw Festival, and for 10 years at the NAC as an SM, ASM, and shuttle van dispatcher.  She has also worked at GCTC (Facts, The Net, Rock & Roll) and the Thousand Islands Playhouse (Little Shop of Horrors, Nunsense II, Lend Me A Tenor, Up The River).  She is following in the footsteps of the amazing women in her life who shared their love of theatre, and her Mom, who taught her to type so she could always find a job and her essays would be legible.
Tour Manager—Sharon King-Campbell
Picture
Sharon King-Campbell is a storyteller, writer, and freelance theatre artist based in St. John's. She holds a BFA in Theatre from Memorial University and has appeared with and directed for companies across Newfoundland and Labrador for a decade. Her company, skc originals, has toured the province in partnership with For the Love of Learning, Inc. and the Arts & Culture Centres.
Sharon most recently directed Bear & Co.'s 2018 
Cymbeline, and assistant directed Artistic Fraud's Between Breaths. Her latest piece, original, will premiere at the LSPU Hall in November as part of PerSIStence Theatre's 2018-19 season.

Eleanor Crowder—Anne Hathaway

Picture
Eleanor's interest is often in outdoor and site-specific work. Ottawa audiences know her for seventeen summers of outdoor Shakespeare in parks and curious sites across the city, her work as Mother Courage for Third Wall Theatre, the arsonist nun Mary in Wendy Lill's Sisters for GCTC, and a decade of successful gambles with Rachel Eugster where big musicals and big casts delight the Glebe.
David Magladry—Lighting Designer
Picture
David Magladry is a professional lighting and set designer working in theatre, television, museum exhibitions, houses of worship, special events, and concerts.
      His theatre clients include Bear & Co., Plosive Productions, Pierre Brault, SevenThirty Productions, Algonquin College Theatre Department, Carleton University, St. Lawrence College Theatre Department,and Eddy May Mysteries. 

Program-Killaloe.pdf
File Size: 1302 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File