Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador (TNL) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and producing professional theatre which reflects the lives and dirversity of our audiences on the provinces's west coast, extending to labrador and across the island of Newfoundland.
Through the Gros Morne Theatre Festival, youth theatre programming, main stage, courses in threatre instruction, and by touring productions to outport communities, TNL seeks to provide Newfoundlanders with thought-provoking and relevant entertainment, with an emphasis on regional and Canadian work.
To promote Theatre Newfoundland Labrador as a leading cultural voice for its communities, and to develop and maintain a growing arts community and audience on the west coast of Newfoundland & Labrador.
TNL actively promotes the development of theatre artists and the growth of an indigenous arts community through youth theatre instruction, the fostering of emerging artists in our winter season and at the Gros Morne Theatre Festival.
TNL reaches out to its community, by providing programmes in theatre instruction, youth theatre productions, Gros Morne Theatre Festival, and by touring mainstage productions. In so doing we aspire to enrich the cultural life of our community and to inspire new audiences to a life-long love affair with the theatre. Our programming must reflect an awareness of Canadian and world theatre as well as our own, in order to bring the world to the west coast of Newfoundland & Labrador and at the same time help our audiences to see themselves.
TNL seeks to forge an alchemy of traditional theatre rendered in fresh and innovative ways, and alternative theatre produced in ways which provide access and engagement for our audiences. We are committed to finding and helping to develop emerging artists in western Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Atlantic provinces and in Canada.
As a grassroots organization heavily involved with our communities, TNL must be as concerned with the process of developing a theatre audience and a community of artists, as with production. That means we must remain devoted to audience development and young artists and provide both with artistic leadership and a stable and creative professional context in which to develop.
Welcome to our 30th year!
It's hard to believe that its 30 years since I sat at a window seat in the Glynmill Inn dining room and listened to Maxim Mazumdar dream of a professional theatre company in Corner Brook! Wow. What a ride it's been!
Thirty years, over three hundred productions, over half a million audience members and right now we're revving up for a thirtieth year that is to be the mother of all 30th anniversaries! An anniversary of successes!
We are reviving our most successful musical ever "Oliver!" With the great Gary Graham's musical direction and Amy Andrews's choreography we're thrilled to be bringing back Atlantic Canadian singing and directing star Cliff LeJeune to direct one of the most popular musicals in the world!
From January 6th to January 25th our production of Robert Chafe's "Tempting Providence" will be a part of the Great Canadian Theatre Company's 2008/09 season in Ottawa!
On February 14th we'll again present our annual fund raiser, "Sexy and Dangerous" Theatre. This show is always a celebration of the sexiest and most talented actors in Corner Brook as they donate time and talent to fundraise for their professional theatre company!
The Corner Brook Youth Theatre has become the Corner Brook flagship of Theatre Newfoundland Labrador. I remember very well the first class and our production of Cinderella - thirty years later and we're enrolling over one hundred students per semester and producing important and wonderful theatre under the auspices of the most dynamic Youth Theatre director in Newfoundland, SaraH Macdonald-Anderson! In February we're producing "The Muppet Show" as part of the Winter Carnival celebrations, "Here & There" a group of stories from cultures around the world, will be staged at the Corner Brook Arts and Culture Centre on April 26th and Jane Austen's romantic classic, "Pride & Prejudice," our largest youth theatre production to date, will take to the stage May 2nd, 3rd, & 4th.
Our 30th year as a professional theatre company in Newfoundland and Labrador coincides with Newfoundland and Labrador's 60th year as a province within Canada. To mark this significant anniversary TNL is embarking on an exciting and unprecedented project that will see Newfoundland's most celebrated playwright David French's 5 Mercer plays presented in repertory at our 2009 Gros Morne Theatre Festival. The plays follow the story of Jacob and Mary Mercer and their family from Coley's Point in 1920's post-war Newfoundland (Soldier's Heart and Saltwater Moon) to the battle for confederation (1949) to family drama in 1960's Toronto (Leaving Home) to Jacob and Mary's later years in the 1970's (Of the Fields Lately).
From that modest Glynmill Inn soup and sandwich lunch to a 30th year buffet of entertainment that will see the production of over a dozen plays, a budget closing in on a million dollars and audiences that will number close to 25,000 people.
Please come out and be entertained by your local professional theatre company in 2009!
We know we have the stories, the talent and the expertise! Theatre Newfoundland Labrador - it's yours to celebrate!
