East of Berlin by Hannah Moscovitch

East of Berlin (Premiere), Impromptu on Nun’s Island (co-production with Centaur Theatre) at Tarragon.  Other theatres include: Soulpepper (Top Girls; Way of the World; Ring Around The Moon); Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre (The Shaughraun); Shaw Festival (Love Among the Russians; Major Barbara; Bus Stop; The Importance of Being Earnest); Theatre Calgary (Saint Joan); The Grand Theatre (Strawberries in January); Resurgence Theatre (Twelfth Night; As You Like It); da da kamera / National Theatre School (You Are Here).

East of Berlin (Premiere), Playwrights Unit 2008 at Tarragon.  Other theatres include: LKTYP (Hana’s Suitcase; Blue Planet); Canadian Stage (The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?); Buddies in Bad Times (Snowman); NAC (After the Orchard); and six seasons at the Stratford Festival (Caesar and Cleopatra; Romeo and Juliet; Elizabeth Rex; Glenn).  Other: playwright (Dalton and Company; Offensive Shadows; High-Gravel-Blind; BOYS); graduate, Grant MacEwan Theatre Arts, National Theatre School; guest instructor, National Theatre School.

A graduate of George Brown Theatre School, Brendan has written three plays: Panhandled (UnSpun Theatre), A Quiet Place (Single Threat – 2007 Dora nomination: Best New Play), and Alias Godot (Tarragon Theatre – 2007 Dora nomination: Best New Play). An earlier version of Alias Godot was translated into Italian and performed in Florence as part of Teatro Della Limonaia’s 2006 Intercity Festival and subsequently remounted the following year as part of their 20th anniversary retrospective. Brendan has also collaborated on the collective creations Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and Don’t Wake Me (with UnSpun Theatre), I Keep Dropping Sh*t and Dedicated to the Revolutions (with Small Wooden Shoe), contributed pieces to Convergence Theatre’s multi-playwright environmental shows The Gladstone Variations and AutoShow, and written the feature film Dakota (distributed by Mongrel Media). Brendan developed Alias Godot through the Playwrights Unit at Tarragon Theatre, where he is currently a Playwright-in-Residence. He is also an actor.

East of Berlin (Premiere), Anything that Moves (Dora Award), Sibs (Premiere and Canadian Tour) at Tarragon.  Other theatres include: Shaw Festival (The Philanderer; Belle Moral; A Natural History; Pal Joey; Diana of Dobson’s); Soulpepper (Top Girls, Dora Award; ‘Night Mother); Canadian Stage (The Clean House; Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet; Adam Baum and the Jew Movie); Nightwood Theatre (Smudge; Random Acts); Theatre Columbus (The Attic, The Pearls & 3 Fine Girls, director and co-author, published by Scirocco Drama); Froth Productions (A Play About the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Chalmers Award; Quartet, Dora nomination).  Upcoming: The Blonde, The Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead at MTC; Sunday in the Park with George at the Shaw Festival.  Other: From 1994-2001, Ms. Palmer was the Artistic Director of Nightwood Theatre.

East of Berlin (Remount/National Tour) at Tarragon. Other theatres include: Directing – Théâtre Misceo (La Déposition); NotaBleActs (Chapel Arm); SideMart Theatrical Grocery (Buddy); National Theatre School of Canada (Drift; My Zinc Bed; The Dybbuk); Geordie Theatre (Illegal Playwriting Class; Gremlin). Assistant Directing – Company Theatre (Festen); Soulpepper (Top Girls); The Canadian Stage Company (The Clean House); Necessary Angel (Insomnia); Theatre Passe Muraille (Cringeworthy). Ms. Plotek teaches in the Drama Studies department at Glendon College.

Hannah Moscovitch is an acclaimed playwright, librettist and TV writer. She’s been honoured with numerous awards, including the Trillium Book Award, both the Herald Angel and a Scotsburn Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival, and the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize administered by Yale (she is the first Canadian playwright to win the prize). She’s been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and twice for the Siminovitch Prize. This past spring, Hannah was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Book of a Musical after OLD STOCK: A REFUGEE LOVE STORY (co-created with Ben Caplan and Christian Barry) toured to New York City, playing off-Broadway for seven weeks. Hannah’s work for the stage (which includes EAST OF BERLIN, THIS IS WAR, LITTLE ONE, THE RUSSIAN PLAY, INFINITY, BUNNY) has been widely produced in Canada, as well as in the United States, Britain, Europe, Australia and Japan. Hannah is a Playwright-in-Residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.

East of Berlin (Premiere); Bashir Lazhar at Tarragon. Other theatres include: The Shaw Festival (The Stepmother – set only); fu-Gen (Singkil – set only; Banana Boys); Cahoots Theatre Projects (The Sheep & The Whale – set only; Bombay Black; Bhopal); Native Earth Performing Arts (Death of a Chief; Dreary & Izzy – set only); GCTC (Helen’s Necklace; Plan B). Upcoming: lady in the red dress (fu-GEN), Pobby & Dingan (LKTYP), In Good King Charles Golden Days (Shaw Festival), and The Shadow (Tapestry).  Other: graduate of Ryerson Theatre School and Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design (UK). Recipient of four Dora Awards including Outstanding Set Design for East of Berlin and shared the 2006 Siminovitch Protégé Prize.

East of Berlin (Premiere); Generous at Tarragon.  Other theatres include: Stratford Festival (Hamlet);  Soulpepper (‘Night Mother); Theatre Aquarius (Oliver!; Blood Brothers; Opening Night); Grand Theatre (The Drawer Boy; Sexy Laundry; Moonlight and Magnolias; Over the River and Through the Woods); Studio 180 (Offensive Shadows); Theatre Smash (Norway Today; Tiny Dynamite); Blyth Festival (Courting Johanna); Rainbow Stage (The Full Monty); Neptune (Oliver!; This is How it Goes); Theatre & Company (A Christmas Story); MTC (The Goat Or, Who is Sylvia?; The Last Five Years); Theatre Calgary (Hay Fever).  Upcoming projects include: Rainbow (Little Shop of Horrors); Acting Up Stage (A New Brain); Stratford Festival (Macbeth; A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

East of Berlin (Remount/National Tour) at Tarragon.  Other theatres include:  Design – The Classical Theatre Project (A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Twelfth Night); Vertigo Mystery Theatre (Go Back for Murder); Peggy Baker Dance Projects (The Disappearance of Right & Left); inDance (Solo, Red); Victoria Playhouse Petrolia (A Matter of Time); Carlos Bulosan Theatre (People Power); Crowning Monkey Productions (Joe: The Perfect Man); Acting Upstage (John & Jen).  Associate Design – Canadian Stage Company/Citadel Theatre (Fire); Citadel Theatre/LKTYP (The Forbidden Phoenix); Ross Petty Productions (Aladdin); Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (Don Juan); Theatre Aquarius (Cats); TILT Sound + Motion (Slept Away).  Upcoming projects: inDance (5 Gods, 2 Kings, and the Frog Princess); (Victoria Playhouse Petrolia (Mending Fences; Sexy Laundry).

East of Berlin (Premiere), Chimera, Goodness (co-produced with Volcano), Private Jokes, Public Places, Capture Me (Dora nomination), Well (Dora nomination), I, Claudia, Motel Hélène, Emphysema (A Love Story) at Tarragon.  Other theatres include: Shaw Festival (Magic Fire; Little Foxes), Volcano (2 Words for Snow; Mortality, Dora nomination); Soulpepper (Fool for Love; Happy Days; No Man’s Land); Canadian Stage (Its a Wonderful Life; Palace of the End; Indian Ink); DVxT Theatre (A Doll’s House, Dora Award; Coyote Ugly, Dora Award); Nightwood Theatre (Smudge); Froth Theatre (Quartet, with Julia Alpin, Dora Award); Guardian Spring Productions (The Widow Judith, Dora Award).

East of Berlin (Premiere), Lèo (tour) at Tarragon. Other theatres include: Green Thumb Theatre (Blindspot); Thousand Islands Playhouse (Glorious!; Les Misérables); The Toronto Summer Music Academy and Festival (The Barber of Seville); The Centre for Opera Studies in Sulmona, Italy (Le Nozze di Figaro); Theatre Collingwood (Side by Side by Sondheim); Seventh Stage (Whale Music); Canadian Musical Theatre Festival; Chemainus Theatre Festival (My Fair Lady; She Stoops to Conquer; Enchanted April; Little Women; The Nightingale).  Upcoming: Shaw Festival (Play.Orchestra.Play;  Albertine in Five Times).  Other: graduate, University of Waterloo, honours drama.