Millbrook’s 4th Line Theatre has announced its second virtual play reading this spring, with a live-streamed performance of Maja Ardal’s one-person show The Cure for Everything on Thursday, June 4th.
The play is a follow-up to Adral’s You Fancy Yourself, which 4th Line also presented as a virtual play reading on May 7th. That play was nominated for three Dora awards, with Ardal winning for outstanding performance.
“Maja’s writing and performance is a master class in both writing and acting,” says 4th Line’s managing artistic director Kim Blackwell.
The Cure for Everything, which 4th Line describes as “wildly entertaining” in a media release, tells the story of Elsa, a typical 15-year-old girl growing up in the early 1960s.
“Her world revolves around independence, boys and being popular at school, despite growing concerns surrounding the Cuban missile crisis,” according to the media release. “Knee-deep in teenage angst, her mission is clear: get drunk for the first time and lose her virginity before the world blows up. Though Elsa is old enough to feel the tense political climate, she is young enough to believe there might be a cure for everything.”
“A comedic and compassionate play, The Cure for Everything is a coming-of-age story about a teenager who discovers that the world is more complex that she could have imagined.”
The Cure for Everything was first produced in December 2010 by Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, and was later presented in 2011 by Victoria Playhouse, PEI, and California International Theatre Festival.
You can enjoy The Cure for Everything as a standalone performance, or you can watch the staged reading of the first play You Fancy Yourself below or on 4th Line’s YouTube channel.
VIDEO: “You Fancy Yourself” by Maja Ardal
“Ardal proves once again that she is a talented mimic, capable of creating dozens of distinct characters with their own movements, manners and accents,” wrote J. Kelly Nestruck in a 2010 review for The Globe and Mail.
The livestream of The Cure for Everything begins at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 4th and will run for around one hour.
The free event takes place on the Zoom video platform, and is limited to the first 100 people who register at eventbrite.com/e/106416005136. Once registered, you will receive an email prior to the event with a Zoom link.
The virtual play reading is presented with funding support from Nexicom, a longtime supporter of 4th Line Theatre.
