Coal Mine Theatre presents SUPERIOR DONUTS

Coal Mine Theatre is proud to present its second Tracy Letts play with the Canadian premiere of SUPERIOR DONUTS, February 5-26, 2017. Following last season’s sold-out smash hit Killer Joe, (the Coal Mine’s biggest seller alongside this year’s Breathing Corpses) by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Tony Award-winning actor Tracy Letts, SUPERIOR DONUTS is directed by Ted Dykstra, starring Robert Persichini and introducing Nabil Rajo.

Despondent donut proprietor Arthur Przybyszewski, the son of Polish and Russian immigrants and an ’60s radical, has pretty much withdrawn from life. Franco Wicks, a troubled 21-year-old black writer from the neighbourhood, has talked his way into a non-existent job at the donut shop. The heart of the play is the budding relationship between Arthur and Franco as they circle each other, and the gap between youth and age, idealism and experience, black and white.

“Tracy Letts is one of my favourite living playwrights because he is able to see the fragility underneath people we might otherwise go out of our way to avoid,” explains director Ted Dykstra. “For me, that is a primary reason why I go to the theatre. To see things and people I might not otherwise encounter, and to understand them better.”

SUPERIOR DONUTS, a cross-racial, cross-generational comedy with a wallop of a social conscience, debuted with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre in 2008, opened on Broadway in 2009, premiered in London in 2014, and is soon to be seen as a network television comedy.

The all-star cast of nine stars Robert Persichini as Arthur Przybyszewski and Nabil Rajo as Franco Wicks, Darla Biccum as Officer Randy Osteen, Michael Blake as Officer James Bailey, Paul Dodz as Kiril Ivakin, Ryan Hollyman as Luther Flynn, Diana Leblanc as Lady Boyle, Alex Poch-Goldin as Max Tarasov, Jon Lachlan Stewart as Kevin Magee.

Coal Mine Theatre, a new independent theatre in Toronto’s east end, founded by Chief Engineers Diana Bentley and Ted Dykstra, proudly presents its third season of fearlessly challenging plays, produced, directed, designed and performed at the highest possible level.  With less than 100 seats available per performance, the Coal Mine is inspired by the intimacy and excitement of the off-off-Broadway experience.