Coal Mine Theatre announces upcoming season, including Sarah Gadon stage debut in ‘Yerma’

Coal Mine Theatre, Toronto’s renowned storefront company with a reputation for intimate, high-quality performances, has announced a powerful roster of programming for their upcoming season.

This eighth Coal Mine season is a star-studded affair: David Cronenberg muse Sarah Gadon leads in the February 2023 production of “Yerma,” which will be the play’s Canadian premiere.

Gadon and Coal Mine co-artistic director Diana Bentley have had their eyes on Simon Stone’s gritty, shocking play for years — the two have been friends since meeting in Australian theatre artist Lindy Davies’ acting class a few years before the pandemic. (Acclaimed Canadian author and filmmaker Sarah Polley was in that class, too.)

“Diana called me during the early days of the pandemic in 2020, asking if I’d read this play ‘Yerma,’” said Gadon in an interview. “And I said I’d seen it in the U.K., and I loved it, and I think about it all the time. It’s a play that has stayed with me. And so we agreed to try and do it at the Coal Mine. And now here we are, finally able to talk about it after nurturing this project for the past two years.”

The play had a profound effect on the film star, known for her work on TV shows such as “Alias Grace” and “Letterkenny” as well as Cronenberg films “A Dangerous Method,” “Cosmopolis” and “Maps to the Stars.”

“It’s all about infertility and what that does to a relationship and what it does to a woman who desperately wants to get pregnant,” said Gadon. “I was drawn to the powerful movement in the play, the approach to acting that’s all about being an intuitive actor.”

Stepping onstage at the Coal Mine is no small feat — except maybe literally speaking. The Coal Mine is a tiny, modular theatre space, known for fostering an intimate relationship between actors and the audience. But that’s no worry for Gadon, who’s been a fan of the institution for years as an audience member.

“Of course I’m going to be nervous,” said Gadon. “But I think as an artist if you don’t challenge yourself and take risks and do things you’re kind of afraid of, you’ll live to regret it later.”

The rest of the Coal Mine season is equally promising. According to Bentley, the season is “all about connections.”

“It starts with Jani Lauzon’s ‘Prophecy Fog’ and the connection between the land and identity. Then ‘Yerma’ and the connection between fertility and womanhood,” said Bentley. “The Effect” and “The Sound Inside” both trace fiery relationships between unexpected groups of people — more “connections” within the hard-hitting season.

The Coal Mine is a special place not only for Bentley and husband and co-artistic director Ted Dykstra, but for the rotating roster of actors who call the beloved theatre space home.

“It’s never for the money when you come here,” said Bentley. “It’s for the process. It’s the love of the process.”

Check out the full season lineup below:

“Prophecy Fog” brings us to the Mojave Desert in search of Giant Rock, asking questions about the land we inhabit and the connections between humans and ancient prophecies.

Penned by “Succession” writer Prebble and helmed by Toronto theatre heavyweight Cushman, “The Effect” explores an illicit relationship between a psychology student and a charming drifter, both of whom have signed up to a clinical trial for a new antidepressant superdrug. Their feelings for one another are complicated and tangled in worries of a mere chemical romance or, worse, a placebo effect.

Jordan Tannahill’s novel “The Listeners” meets innumerable Canadian plays on transgressive student-teacher relationships in this suspenseful, intense two-hander (the other actor has not yet been announced). An Ivy League creative writing professor and an enigmatic student form a surprising and potent bond, tested when the prof makes a startling request of her pupil.

Tickets for Coal Mine Theatre’s eighth season are on sale now at coalminetheatre.com.

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