For Immediate Release Oct 13, 2015

Theatre Erindale Launches "Silver Season" with ORESTES!

[Mississauga ON, October 2015] Theatre Erindale launches its "Silver Season" this month with an outrageous new translation of Euripides' "tragic romp" ORESTES. The show runs October 22 to November 1 at the Erindale Studio Theatre. It's the first production in a knock-out lineup to celebrate 25 years of the Sheridan-UTM Theatre & Drama Studies Program, including How to Make Love in a Canoe, the Beck Festival of one-act plays, Uncommon Women and Others, The Comedy of Errors, Pericles Prince of Tyre, and The Seagull. Memberships featuring one show free are still on sale.

The story of the House of Atreus surely qualifies as one of the most tragic family sagas of all time, yet Orestes is no tragedy. In fact, it is closer to loopy black comedy or absurdist farce. Euripides was toying with the conventions at the end of his career, and laid the ironies and surprises on with a trowel. "This is like Oscar Wilde via Monty Python!" was the initial reaction of guest director Autumn Smith.

Days after murdering his mother and her lover in revenge for her murder of his father, Orestes is still deep in depression, tended by his sister and accomplice Elektra. Together with his friend Pylades, they dodge the Furies, await the sentence of the court – and plot the murder of their aunt Helen. What happens next, only the gods might predict. The Village Voice called the first production "intensely playful. A baffled chorus member announces, 'The weirdness goes on. It just goes on.' Yes it does. Delightfully." Said Shakespeareances.com, "I'd love to see this one again!"

The amazing translation is by acclaimed Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson, two-time winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize. Carson's savagely contemporary trilogy of translations titled An Oresteia (the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, the Elektra of Sophocles, and the Orestes of Euripides) was first produced by New York City's Classical Stage Company in 2008-2009. The Stratford Festival's production of Elektra enjoyed a sold out run starring Yanna McIntosh in 2012.

Director Autumn Smith is the former Artistic Director of MacKenzieRo: The Irish Repertory Theatre Company of Canada, and her credits elsewhere include the Shaw Festival and Stagedoor Manor in New York. To complement the extraordinary text, she has set the play in a Victorian London with "steam punk" overtones.

Orestes stars the graduating class of the Sheridan-UTM Theatre & Drama Studies Program. The 25th Anniversary of the program will be celebrated with a Reunion cocktail party in the Atrium of the new Deerfield Hall, following the closing matinée on Sunday November 1st. All grads, donors, past directors and staff are invited (RSVP online by October 27 at

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www.utm.utoronto.ca/silver-reception.

The show runs October 22nd to November 1st at the Erindale Studio Theatre on the UTM campus. Single tickets are $12 or $18, and Memberships for either 5 or 6 shows start at $50-$60. Parking in Lot 1 or the CCT Garage is $6.00, and Mississauga Transit Routes 44 and 110 will take you to the campus. For further information, call the Box Office at 905-569-4369 or visit

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www.theatreerindale.com

Autumn Smith at 416-471-8930 or autumndsmith@hotmail.com
Production photos from Monday 19 November:
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www.utm.utoronto.ca/academic/theatre/press.htm
Orestes TE Poster
Euripides'
ORESTES
translated by Anne Carson
directed by Autumn Smith
The master's tragic romp in an outrageous new version
Preview October 22; Opening Oct 23;
runs Oct 24 and 29 – Nov 1
Thurs 7:30; Fri 8:00; Sat 2:00 & 8:00; Sun 1 November 2:00
$12.00-$18.00
Erindale Studio Theatre
(UTM 3 lights north of Dundas off Mississauga Road)
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www.theatreerindale.com or 905-569-4369