Corona Cold Reads: The Lion in Winter

These are crazy times and we’ve all taken on a bunch of new projects as we socially isolate in order to help stop the spread of Covid-19.

We’re donating where we can, we’re cleaning the pantry, we’re organizing the 2300+ title dvd library. We finished work on the Nominee Interview Series even though the live event for our yearly Critics’ Pick Awards had to be cancelled (we’ve still got trophies to give out, eventually). We started the Corona Movie Club to help curb our boredom and constant need to talk about movies with other human beings. I’m even watching network procedurals and actually writing about them.

But what we all really need is comfort. We need our favourite things and our favourite people and right now those are hard to come by so we have to do everything we can to bring them together whenever possible. Our solution was to gather some of our favourite people every Saturday night throughout quarantine to read scripts over Zoom. We read all 38 Shakespeare plays in six months. Then we kept going. We decided to create mini-seasons featuring highlights from the canons of major writers across generations, plus a few bonus episodes thrown in. There’s a lot more to come, so stay tuned.

This season we’re taking on a selection of Twentieth Century Classics. In week three, the directorial reigns were handed over to troupe member Melissa Wright who cast and produced this reading of one of her all-time favourite plays, The Lion in Winter.

Listen in audio form below (or on iTunes) then tune into our YouTube page to check out the video versions of all our live readings.

CLICK HERE to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes so you don’t miss an episode.

The Cast of The Lion in Winter

Henry the 2nd: Shawn Wilson

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Anne van Leeuwen

Richard the Lionhearted: Ziad Ek

Geoffrey: Gaby Grice

John: Laura Hubbard

Philip, King of France: Shalyn Bass-McFaul

Alais: Lauren Horejda

Stage Directions: Melissa Wright