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TWO TALES BY COUNT GOZZI                                  Editor: Nancy Nourse

Date: March 15, 2012  Region: Sherbrooke

Bishop's University Drama announces its upcoming production, to hit the Centennial Theatre stage, March 15-18: two fantastic 'tales' for the theatre by Carlo Gozzi, a cynical nobleman of eighteenth-century Venice and the writer of Useless Memoirs. Gozzi's grotesque imagery would inspire the German Romantics, and today have enjoyed renewed success on the stage, attracting star directors including Julie Taymor.

In the two plays, The Love of Three Oranges and King Stag, Gozzi reinvents the famous masked theatre for the audience of its time. These tales reflect political and societal fears of the eighteenth century in fantastic form. Both plays use the human/beast transformation to explore the instability of identity and to celebrate the transformative power of theatre.

The senior acting and production students will take on these physically demanding transformations in a hilarious and sinister theatre duo. For this project, Bishop's University welcomes two exceptionally talented guest artists: Chris McGregor and Carmen Alatorre.

Director Chris McGregor graduated from Bishop's University in 1987 with a BA in Drama. He's toured all over Canada, the US and Ireland. In 2007, he went back to school for his MFA in Directing at The University of British Columbia. Since graduating in 2009, he returned to Bishop's to direct last season's studio production of Unity (1918). He recently directed his first major musical The Sound of Music at the Gateway Theatre and has been invited back to direct The Fiddler on the Roof next season.

Originally from Mexico City, Carmen Alatorre earned her MFA degree in Theatre Design at the University of British Columbia and has worked as a designer in Vancouver since 2006. Among her many other designing accreditations, she is known as the Patron Saint of Stanley Park (Arts Club) She is very grateful to UBishop's and Director Chris McGregor for giving her the opportunity of being part of this exciting production. Carmen is a member of Associate Designers of Canada.

Performances take place at Centennial Theatre from March 15-18 (8p.m.)

Tickets are $15 regular/$8 student

Box office: 819-822-9692

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Photos (courtesy) : Chris McGregor and Carmen Alatorre