PRIVATE LIVES

BY NOËL COWARD

JULY 11 - 28TH, 2024

DIRECTED BY Max Rubin

Starring

BELINDA CORNISH as Amanda Prynne
JOSH MEREDITH as Elyot Chase
GARETT ROSS as Victor Prynne
PRIYA NARINE as Sibyl Chase

ABOUT

Amanda and Elyot are enjoying a romantic honeymoon – just not with each other. This hilarious classic comedy filled with clever, witty barbs starts when an explosive divorced couple and their new spouses inadvertently honeymoon in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. When combustible chemistry reignites, mayhem occurs, and strong passions and stronger personalities take over. Noël Coward’s most popular and enduring comedy is a funny, tempestuous battle of equals.

RUN TIME APPROXIMATELY 2 HOURS WITH A 15 MINUTE INTERMISSION

SPECIAL TICKET PRICE PERFORMANCES

$25 PREVIEW TICKETS: Thursday, July 11th
$33 SUNDAY MATINEES: Every Sunday
PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN (available at the door only): Tuesday, July 16 and Tuesday, July 23
FREE WINE & CHEESE: Wednesday, July 17th

“Gorgeous, dazzling, fantastically funny.”

— The New York Times

CAST AND PRODUCTION TEAM

**Belinda Cornish** (Amanda Prynne) Belinda was a Co-Artistic Producer with Teatro from 2020 through 2023. She made her company debut in *A Grand Time in the Rapids* in 2005, and has subsequently been seen in *Witness to a Conga, The Exquisite Hour, Vidalia*, and most recently *Evelyn Strange*. Her directing credits with the company include Fever Land, A Grand Time in the Rapids (2022 revival) and *The Oculist’s Holiday*, as well as the three online streaming offerings in Teatro’s 2021 season- *Lost Lemoine Parts 1 and 2*, and *A Fit, Happy Life.* Belinda has appeared frequently with the Freewill Shakespeare Festival and The Mayfield Dinner Theatre, and she’s been in both versions of *A Christmas Carol* at the Citadel and in *Peter Pan Goes Wrong,* which also played at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver. With her own company, the Varscona-based Bright Young Things, she produced and appeared in *No Exit, The Real Inspector Hound, Our Man in Havana,* and *The Bald Soprano.* Belinda has won two Sterling Awards for playwriting: for *Little Elephants* at Shadow Theatre, and *Category E* with The Maggie Tree. Her adaptation of Todd Babiak’s novel *The Garneau Block* premiered at the Citadel in the fall of 2021 and her play *Hiraeth* played at the Varscona shortly thereafter.

Garett Ross (Victor Prynne) Garett made his Teatro debut in I Heard About Your Murder in 2017 and returned for Fever Land in 2021. He’s a graduate of both Grant MacEwan Theatre Arts and the University of Alberta’s BFA program, and has been working professionally in Edmonton Theatre for over 25 years. His recent credits include the Citadel’s The Sound of Music, Pride and Prejudice, and Jane Eyre, Shadow Theatre’s Outside Mullingar, and Catalyst Theatre’s Nevermore, seen across Canada as well as in the UK and off-Broadway in New York. Garett has also appeared at The Mayfield Dinner Theatre in Hairspray, Chicago, and Shear Madness. He has numerous Fringe credits, including Wilder and Wilder in 2015, and his Sterling Award-winning turns in the Plain Janes’ It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman! and A New Brain. Garett has also been the Varscona Theatre’s Front of House Manager since 2021.

Noël Coward (Playwright) was born in 1899 and made his professional stage debut as Prince Mussel in *The Goldfish* at the age of 12, leading to many child actor appearances over the next few years. His breakthrough in playwriting was the controversial The Vortex (1924), which featured themes of drugs and adultery and made his name as both actor and playwright in the West End and on Broadway.
During the frenzied 1920s and the more sedate 1930s, Coward wrote a string of successful plays, musicals and intimate revues including *Fallen Angels* (1925), *Hay Fever* (1925), *Easy Virtue* (1926), *This Year of Grace* (1928), and *Bitter Sweet* (1929). His professional partnership with childhood friend Gertrude Lawrence started with *Private Lives* (1931), and continued with *Tonight at 8.30* (1936).
During World War II, he remained a successful playwright, screenwriter and director, as well as entertaining the troops and even acting as an unofficial spy for the Foreign Office. His plays during these years included Blithe Spirit, which ran for 1997 performances, outlasting the War (a West End record until *The Mousetrap* overtook it), *This Happy Breed* and *Present Laughter* (both 1943). His two wartime screenplays, *In Which We Serve*, which he co-directed with the young David Lean, and *Brief Encounter,* quickly became classics of British cinema. However, the post-war years were more difficult. Austerity Britain – the London critics determined – was out of tune with the brittle Coward wit. In response, Coward re-invented himself as a cabaret and TV star, particularly in America, and in 1955 he played a sell-out season in Las Vegas featuring many of his most famous songs, including "Mad About the Boy," "I’ll See You Again" and "Mad Dogs and Englishmen."
In the mid-1950s he settled in Jamaica and Switzerland, and enjoyed a renaissance in the early 1960s, becoming the first living playwright to be performed by the National Theatre when he directed *Hay Fever* there. Late in his career he was lauded for his roles in a number of films, including *Our Man In Havana* (1959) and his role as the iconic Mr. Bridger alongside Michael Caine in *The Italian Job* (1968). Writer, actor, director, film producer, painter, songwriter, cabaret artist as well as an author of a novel, verse, essays and autobiographies, he was called by close friends "The Master."
His final West End appearance was *Song at Twilight* in 1966, which he wrote and starred in. He was knighted in 1970 and died peacefully in 1973 in his beloved Jamaica.

**Josh Meredith** (Elyot Chase) Josh is an artist and educator from Hull, North England. He trained as an actor at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and then the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He trained as a teacher of voice and speech at the University of Alberta, where he is currently an instructor He has played onstage at the Globe, with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in the castles of Glamis, Cawdor, and Windsor, at Fringe Festivals, regional theatres, and in front of the late Queen Elizabeth II. He has worked as a carpenter, a doorman, a waiter, a busker, and has permanently damaged his hearing from years of playing drums in bands you’ve never heard of. He loves his woman, their cats, and playing football (soccer!) in the rain. This is the first play Josh has done in five years. He is thrilled to be coming home.

Max Rubin (Director) Making his Teatro Live debut with this production, Max is currently co-artistic director of Edmonton’s Theatre Yes, for whom he most recently directed The Pillowman. Originally from the UK, Max worked as an actor from 2000 to 2008, appearing at Lyric Hammersmith, Liverpool Everyman, Harrogate Theatre, The Dukes Lancaster, Liverpool Royal Court, Theatr Clwyd, Oldham Coliseum and others. In 2006 Max co-founded Lodestar Theatre Company Ltd which produced a range of work including The Liverpool Shakespeare Festival from 2007 – 2013. Highlights include Macbeth at Liverpool Cathedral, Hedwig and the Angry Inch at The Kazimier Nightclub and Romeo & Juliet at Liverpool City Hall. Max’s other directing credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream (Liverpool Royal Court) James (National Tour) A Jacobean Christman (Hampton Court Palace) Hamlet (Liverpool City Hall), Lear, Coram Boy, The Country Wife, A Clockwork Orange, The Wind in the Willows, First Lady Suite (LIPA), Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, The House That Dripped Horror (Liverpool CUC) Spring Awakening (Oslo), Silence (Institute of Arts Barcelona) Black Snow, The Master & Margarita (Unity Theatre) His Canadian credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream / The Proposal (Lodestar), as well as Two and Dead in the Water, both of which played at the Varscona.

Hunter Luth (Stage Manager) Hunter is delighted to return to Teatro Live!, having debuted with Deathtrap in 2022. He is an Equity Stage Manager based in Edmonton, and is a graduate of MacEwan University’s Theatre Production program. Selected previous credits include work as an apprentice stage manager on La Bohème, Candide, Rigoletto, and Count Ory for Edmonton Opera, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike for Shadow Theatre, assistant stage manager for Edmonton Opera’s Orphée+, Stabat Mater, Don Giovanni, and Das Rheingold, and as stage manager of Jack and the Beanstalk and Hansel and Gretel Virtual Tour for Alberta Musical Theatre Company, and Hold These Truths for University of Alberta & Edmonton Japanese Cultural Association, and Cosi Fan Tutte for Opera Kelowna.

**Tiana McLean** (Production Manager) After doing Scenic Construction/Carpentry on numerous Teatro shows in recent seasons, Tiana steps up as the company’s first official Production Manager. A graduate of MacEwan University’s Theatre Production program, Tiana has spent the last two decades working in Edmonton Theatre, where extreme weather, fire, illnesses, broken scenery, aggressive prop handling, and squirrels have taught her much about problem solving and remaining calm in a crisis. Past credits include working as Production Manager for FreeWill Shakespeare Festival, Head of Lighting and Carpentry for Theatre Network, and Technical Director for Alberta Musical Theatre (formerly Alberta Opera). Her favourite show experiences include doing scenic construction for AMTC’s *Pinocchio* while 7 months pregnant, and building the fun and creepy set for Theatre Network’s *The Woman in Black*, with all its ghostly tricks. She'll be back with Teatro Live for an exciting soon to be announced season opener in October.

Priya Narine (Sybil Chase) Priya is absolutely delighted to be making her Teatro debut with Private Lives. She’s a mixed-race multidisciplinary theatre artist from Edmonton and a graduate of the BFA Acting program at the University of Alberta. This season Priya starred as Maria in The Sound of Music, a co-production between the Citadel and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Other select credits include: Four seasons of A Christmas Carol at The Citadel, Measure for Measure and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Freewill Shakespeare Festival, Queen Lear is Dead with Fox Den Collective, and the Theatre Yes/Citadel co-production Slight of Mind. Love always to her family and friends for their support, and especially to G. This is for you.

**Leona Brausen** (Costume Designer) Leona has worked regularly with Teatro as a performer and designer since the company’s inception at the first Edmonton Fringe in 1982. Her appearances include such classic Teatro shows as *Cocktails at Pam’s*, and *The Vile Governess and Other Psychodramas*, and she was Nancy in the original cast of *Pith.* Leona has been Teatro’s principal costume designer for four decades, and her recent company costume credits include *Pith*, *Everybody Goes to Mitzi’s,* *Deathtrap*, *The Margin of The Sky, Evelyn Strange*, *Fever Land*, and *The Bad Seed*. Her other recent credits include *Clue*, and Jersey Boys at the Citadel, and *The Drawer Boy* and Tiny Beautiful Things for Shadow Theatre. She’s worked on many shows for The Mayfield Dinner Theatre including this season’s *Canada Rocks: The Reboot*. Leona designed costumes for the recently released feature film *Before I Change My Mind*, directed by Trevor Anderson, and in 2021 created a series of window installations at the Varscona featuring costume tributes to distinguished Canadian women. She was honoured with a 2020 Edmonton Artist’s Trust Fund Award from the Edmonton Arts Council, and she’s a three-time Sterling Award winner for costume design.

**Chantel Fortin** (Set Designer) Chantel made her Teatro debut with *Cocktails at Pam’s* in 2016 and her many subsequent set designs for the company have included those for *The Oculist’s Holiday*, *The Exquisite Hour/Love is for Poor People*, *Deathtrap*, *A Grand Time in the Rapids*, *Evelyn Strange*, *The Bad Seed, Shockers Delight!,* and *Witness to a Conga*, the last of which earned her a Sterling nomination. She also designed the sets for Teatro’s 2021 streaming project *Lost Lemoine: Parts One and Two*. She’s a freelance scenic artist and prop master who’s been working in film and theatre in Edmonton for the past 19 years. Her other set design credits include *Our Man in Havana* for Bright Young Things, *Going to St. Ives* and *Mesa* for Atlas Theatre, and Shadow Theatre’s *Fly Me to the Moon*. She’s also done scenic painting and prop work for Workshop West, The Citadel, and Edmonton Opera. In other media, she was the production designer for all of the Government of Alberta’s Mr. Covidhead commercials, and she did the art direction for a pair of music videos by singer Roya Yazdanmehr. She has also served as production designer for a number feature length films produced locally by Northern Gateway Films under the Hallmark banner and for Dept. 9’s most recent feature *Souls Road*.

Narda McCarroll (Lighting Designer) Narda is a set, costume, and lighting designer based in Calgary. A selection of her work seen in Edmonton includes The Garneau Block, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Penelopiad, Julius Caesar and Vimy for The Citadel, Vigilante for Catalyst Theatre, Rock the Canyon & Hair for The Mayfield Dinner Theatre and Beth Graham’s Mermaid Legs for SkirtAfire. She was the costume designer for the Freewill Shakespeare Festival for 16 seasons. Narda’s favourite Calgary credits include To the Light, The Circle, Red, and Mary’s Wedding for Alberta Theatre Projects, and The Extractionist, Cipher and Sweeney Todd for Vertigo Theatre. Her national credits include set and costumes for Bronte: The World Without at the Stratford Festival, lights for Rock of Ages at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, set for Cinderella at Winnipeg’s Rainbow Stage, set for The Wizard of Oz for Western Canada Theatre & Rainbow, and national tours of Glory (Western Canada Theatre) and The Drowning Girls (Bent Out of Shape). She also designed costumes for the feature film Cutbank. A recipient of 4 Sterling Awards and 4 of Calgary’s Betty Mitchell Awards, Narda first worked for Teatro as a lighting designer for Damp Fury in 2000. Since then she has returned to light Evelyn Strange, A Grand Time in the Rapids, Listen, Listen, and The Oculist’s Holiday.