Rock musical about Donnelly family among shows in NAC’s English theatre season

OTTAWA – A rock musical about Ontario’s notorious Donnelly family and a play about the man who led Newfoundland into Confederation are among the shows in the National Arts Centre’s upcoming English theatre season.

Jonathan Christenson’s “Vigilante” features the Irish-born Donnelly clan, which was massacred by an angry mob in 1880.

And “The Colony of Unrequited Dreams” by Robert Chafe focuses on Joey Smallwood, who served as Newfoundland’s first premier for 23 years.

Trey Anthony’s “Da Kink in My Hair” will kick off the 2016/17 season, which was announced on Monday at an event co-hosted by CBC personality Rick Mercer and artistic director Jillian Keiley.

The season in Ottawa has co-productions and presentations from companies across Canada.

Other shows in the lineup include “Infinity” by Ottawa-born playwright Hannah Moscovitch, who recently won the US$150,000 Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize. It’s described as a play about “love, sex, and math.”

An Oji-Cree family whose children were sent to residential school is featured in Corey Payette’s musical “Children of God.”

The season will also include “Empire of the Son,” written and performed by CBC radio broadcaster Tetsuro Shigematsu, as well as “A Christmas Carol” and Brad Fraser’s “Kill Me Now.”