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JANUARY 8, 2013
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Vol. 61, Issue 05
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Captain of the Key Performer and presenter Gerard Gibbs has been appointed managing director of the Key City Theatre SALLY MACDONALD Townsman Staff
BARRY COULTER PHOTO
COLLECTING INTEREST: Shylock the moneylender (Dean Nicholson) is owed 3,000 ducats by the suddenly bankrupt business man Antonio (David Prinn), and is out to collect the agreed upon collateral — a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Bard in Your Own Backyard, Cranbrook’s Shakespeare society, is mounting “The Merchant of Venice,” one of Shakespeare’s most famous and controversial plays. Opening night is Thursday, January 24, at the Key City Theatre in Cranbrook.
Open market in the Elizabethan era
‘Merchant of Venice’ looks at insider status, and what people will do to achieve it BARRY COULTER
The Bard is back for 2013, and flesh is selling by the pound. If you thought service charges were bad today, you never did business in 16th century Venice. Bard in Your Own Backyard, Cranbrook’s Shakespeare society, is mounting an intriguing production of one of Shakespeare’s most famous
and challenging plays. “The Merchant of Venice” opens Thursday, Jan. 24, at the Key City Theatre in Cranbrook. “Merchant” follows a dual storyline — the wooing of Portia, a rich heiress, by several suitors, and the debt of the businessman Antonio to the moneylender Shylock the Jew. Antonio has borrowed the money from Shylock to fi-
nance his friend Bassanio’s pursuit of Portia. The two storylines with their main characters merge at the play’s climax, but a mix of comedic and tragic elements makes “Merchant” one of Shakespeare’s more challenging plays to produce. The production marks the directorial debut of Dean Nicholson, who also plays one of the lead characters, Shylock
the Jew. Nicholson was intrigued by the contrast of the two storylines, the first a fluffy romance and the second a dark drama exploring human weakness, and he has sought to create a production that seeks to meld the two with commentary that is relevant to today’s audience.
See MERCHANT, Page 4
There’s a new captain at the helm of the Key City Theatre, and he brings decades of experience in the arts. Gerard Gibbs moved into his office as managing director of Cranbrook’s theatre on Wednesday, January 2, two days after he arrived in town. Gibbs is just beginning to settle in, and he is keen to meet the locals, he told The Townsman. “First I want to get to know people in the community, what they would like to see, and go from there.” Born in the U.S., Gibbs ran the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod, Alberta, from 2002 to 2010. “In Fort Macleod, it took two years to fit in, get to know people and say, ‘What if we were to try this?’” Gibbs explained. A successful oboist as well as a presenter, Gibbs studied performance at Wayne State University and Indiana University’s music schools. He has played with orchestras in Minnesota, Washington and Al-
Gerard Gibbs, the Key City Theatre’s new managing director.
berta, performing throughout western Canada and the United States. Gibbs’s first managing role was for the symphony orchestra in Duluth, Minnesota, before he took the Fort Macleod position, recommended by fellow performers in western Canada. During that tenure, he began working with prominent Israeli violist Rivka Golani, who splits her time between Canada and the United Kingdom.
See NEW, Page 4
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