Not all ghost stories are make believe....

Photo of Aviva Armour-Ostroff and Jeff Meadows by Julien Lafleur at Image Control

The show that spooked Vancouver will unnerve Toronto this Summer.

A new Toronto-based production of Biographies of the Dead & Dying will be part of this year’s SummerWorks Festival.

Directed by Amiel Gladstone (The Black Box; The Wedding Pool), the production will feature Aviva Armour-Ostroff and Jeff Meadows. Design will be by Kim Purtell and our Stage Manger will be Christina Cicko. 

Find out more on our current page.

And check out our special SummerWorks' promo video, part of their "20 words in 60 seconds series".

Here's a selection of media and audience response to the original Vancouver production of Biographies:

Quite possibly one of the best plays I have ever seen, Biographies of The Dead and Dying is an excellent mix of suspense and thriller built up by exemplary performances and hair-raising music. Alice (Heather Lindsay) is a famous author who has left her husband and child behind to live in a haunted house out in the country in an attempt to write an autobiography about the man who committed suicide inside the house. Alice is a desperate, disillusioned alcoholic who finds herself in an intense relationship with the dead, riding the barrier between reality and fiction created in her mind.

The creepy, heart-pounding music (Emma Hendrix) aids in establishing the difference between what we perceive to be real, especially during the moments when Alice is speaking to her husband Jonathan (Simon Driver), who may or may not be a ghost. The uncertainty of this for both Alice and the audience is one of the driving elements of the plot. You are drawn into the story while being inherently uncomfortable about it.

The ending is filled with dread and tension and it doesn't let the viewer down. I certainly recommend this play to anyone who is into the psychological, but there is also humour, terror and wonder in Biographies of the Dead and Dying; it is one of those plays that wouldn't fade on second or even third impressions.
~Alex Hutt, Press Plus One

I have been praying to the Theatre Gods to send someone to write a play about ghosts that would leave my skin crawling and my heart pounding. Well, someone up there heard me, and sent Andrew Templeton along with MachineFair and Craning Neck Theatre baring their newest creation: Biographies of the Dead and Dying.

This show is violently haunting.  All the elements of Biographies are crafted together perfectly to create an incredibly eerie piece of theatre. Templeton’s writing is both lyric and quick-witted.  His piece has a seamless flow of making even the most unnerving moments buzz with bits of dark comedy.
~Megan Marie Gates, PLANK Magazine

This is a smart, hour-long investigation into what it takes to be a writer: the sacrifices that the choice entails, the line between where imagination and madness lies.
~Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail

Biographies of the Dead and Dying is a captivating play that clutched me from the opening music until the unpredictable ending. The female lead, played by Heather Lindsay, twists her way through her neurotic need to write and find material while blocked by her own inability to live in the present reality.

Biographies is unique and brilliant…This skilfully woven story takes us on a journey through the mind of this disenchanted writer. Templeton pushes the boundaries of the characters, touching on all their vulnerabilities and strengths. The characters are engaging throughout the story as the cleverly written dialogue allows them to push and pull at their inner psyches.
~Lianna Walden, PLANK Magazine

Biographies is a compelling piece of dark humour and a twisted journey into sex, death, life, and love.
~Kendra Hart, Link Newspaper

[Biographies] was dark and morbidly funny and I spent half of it unaware that my jaw was agape. I haven't been in contact with very many pieces that embrace not only a writer's passions and fears, but also the manipulativeness, the hyper-logical mind.

The writing is lyrical and witty, the actors gave us absolutely everything they had and the music/crawling-dancing-whatever it was so creepy. It was intense.  The script, it knew me. Even if I haven't been pushed that far, I can see it, and I can see myself reacting the same way. It's a scary thing, seeing your vulnerabilities laid bare on a stage like that. In short, an experience you need if you are prone to staring out windows drinking writing talking to yourself.
~Crashing the Net Blog

I didn’t think Fringe shows were supposed to mess with your mind.
~Twitter comment.