›› Michael Shamata

Seven wild Rez ­Sisters, two estranged Best Brothers, Vanya and Sonia and Masha (his sisters) and Spike (Masha’s boy toy), one theatre director and one Greek ­goddess. Plus one Greek god, one Bollywood dancer, one lesson in lighting design and 14 ­musical theatre triple threats.

That’s the Belfry Theatre’s 2014-2015 Season in a nutshell. As you can see, it’s a season about brothers and sisters. And Greek gods, apparently! It is also a season filled with more funny plays than we have seen at the Belfry in a long, long time. These are great plays from Canadian and ­American ­writers: Daniel MacIvor, Christopher Durang, Anita Majumdar, Duncan Sheik, David Ives and the great Tomson Highway—award-­winners all, on both sides of the border—lots of Tony Awards, Dora Awards, and Chalmers Awards.

Some of Canada’s most talented artists will be burning up the stage this season—Tantoo Cardinal (Dances with Wolves), R.H. Thomson, Hawksley Workman, Deborah Williams, Vincent Gale, Celine Stubel (a born and raised Fernwoodian), Amanda Lisman, Brenda Robins—and more and more and more.

Putting a season of plays together is an awful lot like alchemy. There is no real ­recipe—I try a lot of different ingredients and continually refine the mixture. But it really comes down to magic—when it’s right, it’s right. I feel it in my guts.

This season has lots of cool ideas to take away and think about after experiencing the plays. It also offers—my favourite—ways of viewing the world from a ­different perspective, allowing you to leave the ­theatre with a new understanding of certain people and certain situations. But it is all presented within the envelope of comedy. There will be people literally falling in to the aisles with laughter. I guarantee it!

And finally—I am going to type it in black and white—this season has sex. Hot and kinky sex in Venus in Fur, ­budding ­sexuality in Spring Awakening, and sex embodied in one irresistible young man who can’t seem to keep his clothes on in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. And that’s especially funny!

Find out more at www.belfry.bc.ca.