The Quest Reading/Presentation

Sammy, Rosie, Frankie, and Taylor live in a world of their own as players of QUEST, a fantasy role-playing game - but everything changes when Taylor assigns them quests in the real world, and they’re forced to exchange their imaginary monsters for real ones.

On October 15th, attend a full-length, books-and-stands presentation of THE QUEST to support the continued development of this new musical. Doors open at 6:30pm.

MURRAY FOSTER

After twenty years as a touring musician, Murray Foster has turned a love of musical theatre into a second act career as a book writer and lyricist.

Best known for his role in the bands Moxy Früvous and Great Big Sea, Murray is a Juno-nominated songwriter, producer, and performer. In Moxy Früvous, Murray released several gold and platinum records (selling half a million copies), opened for songwriting greats like Bob Dylan, played over two thousand shows around the world and appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. In 2002, Murray joined Great Big Sea, and has since recorded five albums, written songs for the band (including the critically-acclaimed “Safe Upon the Shore”) and toured extensively throughout North America and Europe.

In 2014, Murray wrote, directed and scored his first feature film The Cocksure Lads Movie. After a successful Dragons’ Den pitch, The Cocksure Lads Movie premiered in December 2014 at the Whistler Film Festival and was released in theatres across Canada in 2015. You can still watch it on Crave or Starz in Canada or on digital providers like Amazon Prime and Google Play.

In 2017, he was invited to adapt The Cocksure Lads Movie into a musical through the Canadian Music Theatre Project at Sheridan College. Re-named Chelsea Sunrise, the musical has been workshopped at Theatre Sheridan (Toronto, ON), Millikin University (USA), and as an Off-Sheridan presentation at Theatre Passe Muraille (Toronto, ON).

In addition to musical theatre, Murray is the founder of Toronto Songwriting School, a songwriting professor at Seneca College, and president of The Urban Orchestra.

Kieren MacMillan

As a composer and arranger, Kieren MacMillan is regularly commissioned by artists and organizations around the world. His catalogue includes musicals, chamber operas, film and theatre scores, pieces for solo instruments and ensembles, vocal and choral works, spoken word compositions, and concert-length multidisciplinary works. Many of these have received feature performances at international music conventions and festivals, as well as broadcasts on national, regional, and internet radio. Numerous recordings are currently available on compact disc or for digital download.

Kieren’s musical dramas — seen by thousands of people throughout Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom — have been called “brilliant” (Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review), “a new kind of musical theater…smart and moving” (Andy Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), and “a new, stunning body of story and sound, that left me deeply satisfied and piqued” (Sequenza21). In additional to being perennial audience favourites, these works have garnered many critical awards, including Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production for Young Audiences (NOW Magazine), Top Ten Concerts in Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2006 and 2008), and a Total Theatre Award nomination (Total Theatre Edinburgh).

Kieren received his B.Mus. at the University of British Columbia, and his M.Mus. from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where he studied with Paul Cooper and Samuel Jones. He now lives in Toronto with his wife Lada Darewych, and their two children Marianna and Theodore.