Cariou and Storch Star in Canadian Premiere of 'Frost/Nixon' at CSC

The Canadian Stage Company opens its 2008/09 Bluma Appel Theatre season with Frost/Nixon, the 2007 Tony Award®-nominated play by Peter Morgan, award-winning author of The Last King of Scotland and The Queen. Tony Award®-winning stage and screen veteran Len Cariou (star of the original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd) plays the role of President Richard Nixon and is joined by David Storch (Canadian Stage’s Lonesome West) as TV talk-show host David Frost. Three-time Dora Award-winner Ted Dykstra (Canadian Stage's Fire) directs. A co-production with Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company, Frost/Nixon had its Canadian premiere September 18, 2008 in Vancouver. The production transfers to the Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto October 13 to November 8, 2008.

For tickets and information, contact 416-368-3110 or canstage.com. “Frost/Nixon has never been more relevant than it is today in the waning days of the Bush administration. There are strikingly parallel themes between the play and the current political landscape,” states Artistic Producer Martin Bragg. “I can’t wait for audiences to experience this visceral thrill ride through one of the most hard-fought political interviews in history.” Frost/Nixon is a gripping stage dramatization of the historic events leading up to and including the notorious series of televised interviews that disgraced former US president Richard Nixon granted David Frost in 1977, after the Watergate scandal. The play illustrates how Frost, a celebrity TV talk-show host with a playboy reputation, came to solicit an admission of guilt from the only United States president to resign from office.

The original TV broadcasts attracted an audience of 45 million viewers - the largest on record for a TV news program. The series of interviews were Richard Nixon's first since resigning from the White House in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal. For three years, he chose to remain silent and refused to admit any direct involvement in Watergate. Finally, in 1977, he agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Up until the broadcasts, he enjoyed a reputation as a great manipulator of the US media and his choice of interrogator was seen as telling; he intended to outfox the British TV host for the tidy sum of $1 Million. Before the debate, some observers dismissed Frost as a hand-picked patsy, neither strong enough nor intelligent enough to put the former president on the hot seat. But as cameras rolled, a chargEd Battle of wits resulted and Frost proved himself a more than worthy opponent, bringing the former President to his knees.

Frost/Nixon is directed by Ted Dykstra (Fire) and features 12 cast members from across Canada. In addition to Mr. Cariou and Mr. Storch in the title roles, Frost/Nixon features Ari Cohen as Jim Reston, Tom McBeath as Jack Brennan, Damien Atkins as John Birt, Andrea Runge as Caroline Cushing, Michael Healey as Bob Zelnick, Alec Willows as Swifty Lazar, Shaker Paleja as Manolo Sanchez, Edwina Cheer as Evonne Goolagong, David Bloom as Mike Wallace/Floor Director and Lissa Neptuno as Makeup Lady/Waitress. The creative team includes Patrick Clark as Set and Costume Designer, Alan Brodie as Lighting Designer, Jamie Nesbitt as Video Designer, with Sound Design and Original Music by Creighton Doane. Rick Rinder is the Stage Manager and Marinda De Beer is the Assistant Stage Manager.

A critically acclaimed runaway hit on London’s West End and on Broadway, Frost/Nixon debuTed August 2006 in a sold-out run at London’s acclaimed Donmar Warehouse, starring Frank Langella as Nixon, Michael Sheen as Frost and directed by Michael Grandage, before transferring to London’s West End and winning an Evening Standard Award. The original London cast and creative team opened on Broadway in April 2007, and played a limited five-month engagement, garnering Tony Award®-nominations for Best Play and Best Direction, a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Play and an Outer Critics Circle nomination for Outstanding New Broadway Play. A film adaptation directed by Ron Howard with Frank Langella and Michael Sheen reprising their stage roles has been generating Oscar buzz. The film premieres October 15 at the London Film Festival with a North American release date set for December 2008.

Peter Morgan is a multi-award-winning British screenwriter and playwright best known for The Queen, The Last King of Scotland and Frost/Nixon, his first stage play inspired by James Reston Jr.’s book The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/Nixon Interviews. Morgan received the Best Screenplay Award at the 2006 Venice Film Festival for The Queen starring Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen.The Queen also earned Golden Globe, New York Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics and British Independent Film Awards and an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. The Last King of Scotland earned Mr. Morgan a British Independent Film Award nomination. Other screenplays include Longford, The Deal and The Other Boleyn Girl with Scarlett Johansson.

Len Cariou is a Tony Award®-winning Broadway veteran, originally from Winnipeg. He is best known for creating the roles of the Fredrik Egerman in A Little Night Music (Tony Award® nomination) and title role in Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street opposite Angela Lansbury (Tony Award® and a Drama Desk Award). Other Broadway roles include Applause with Lauren Bacall (Tony Award® nomination), Nightwatch, Cold Storage, The Dinner Party with John Ritter and Henry Winkler, Proof with Anne Heche, and a revival of Funny Girl with Whoopie Goldberg, Ricki Lake, Andrea Martin and Peter Gallagher. He is the former Artistic Director of the Manitoba Theatre Centre and former Associate Director of the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. During his years at the Gutherie and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Mr. Cariou built his classical repertoire to include the roles of King Lear, Macbeth, Prospero, Coriolanus, Iago, Oberon and Henry V, among others. Film credits include One Man (Genie Award), The Four Seasons, Flags of Our Fathers, 1408, Executive Decision, Lady in White, Thirteen Days, About Schmidt, Secret Window, The Greatest Game Ever Played, The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club and the screen adaptation of A Little Night Music with ElizaBeth Taylor. His TV guest appearances include CSI, Numb3rs, The Practice, The West Wing, Law & Order, Star Trek: Voyager, The Practice, Ed, and Murder, She Wrote.

David Storch is a Dora Award-winning actor who has worked with companies across the country, including the Alberta Theatre Projects, Theatre Calgary, Manitoba Theatre Centre, National Arts Centre, Citadel Theatre, Blyth Festival, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Tarragon Theatre, Soulpepper Theatre Company and Neptune Theatre, among others. Mr. Storch’s affiliation with The Canadian Stage Company spans 19 seasons. His first job with the Company was as assistant director to Peter Hinton, and fight choreographer on The Comedy of Errors in 1989. He has directed the Canadian Stage productions of A Number, Take Me Out, Omnium Gatherum, Twelfth Night, Sunday Father, The Beard of Avon and most recently The Palace of the End and Misery. As an actor, he appeared in various Canadian Stage productions including Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – A Love Story, Angels in America, Patience, Hysteria, The Lonesome West (for which he won a Dora Award), Amadeus, Take Me Out, Habeas Corpus and What Lies Before Us.

Nationally and internationally acclaimed, The Canadian Stage Company is Canada’s leading not-for-profit contemporary theatre company. Founded in 1987 with the merger of CentreStage and Toronto Free Theatre, the Company is dedicated to programming international contemporary theatre and to developing and producing landmark Canadian works which have been awarded some of the country’s most prestigious literary and performing arts honours, including the Governor General’s, Chalmers and Dora Mavor Moore Awards. The Company presents the richest variety of Canadian and international plays and musicals – from edgy and provocative works at the Berkeley Street Theatre to productions with universal appeal at the Bluma Appel Theatre and a summer of Shakespeare at the CanStage TD Dream in High Park. Canadian Stage has a long-standing commitment to education and enhancement programs for the public, nurturing theatre professionals, and developing new Canadian plays, while producing thoughtprovoking
theatre and high quality entertainment in Toronto, one of North America’s largest theatre centres. For more information, refer to canstage.com.

Photo Credit Linda Lenzi