Geoffrey Simon Brown, Leanne Govier, Joe Perry, Eliza Benzer, Daniel Fong & Brett Dahl in Alberta Theatre Projects ‘The Circle’. Photo Credit: Kenneth Locke

The Circle

By Geoffrey Simon Brown

It’s a high school garage party Friday night in suburbia.

Amanda is a genius. Ily is a drug dealer. Kit is a runaway. Mutt is a mess. Will has ADHD. Daniel is the son of a priest.

Everyone’s a bit too drunk and a bit too stoned. Everyone’s uncomfortable in their own skin. Everyone’s looking for a place to belong.

How far will things stretch without breaking?

Brown has a facility for digging beyond the tough guy personas into the fears and insecurities of his characters, a bunch of high school students with wildly varying prospects for the future — in other words, not so different from anyone’s kids.

Calgary Herald

As I watched The Circle with all its verbal, physical and emotional violence, I kept thinking this must have been what it was like back in 1956 at London’s Royal Court Theatre for the premiere of John Osborne’s 'Look Back in Anger', a play that ushered in and defined a generation.

Calgary Sun

The Circle unfolds, almost in real-time over the course of an evening — a hazy, lazy garage party with an ill-fitted crew of millennial misfits who finally end up pushing their luck a little too far in the name of a good time.

Calgary Herald

It’s hard not to like 'The Circle'… a script that is very real, very now and unexpectedly poetic.

Globe and MailJ. Kelly Nestruck

★★★★...gritty, ground breaking theatre

Calgary Sun

Brown’s a talented theatrical voice with an ability to find both poetry and lots of humour in his teenage characters’ lives

Calgary Herald

Production Details

4 Male

2 Female

90 minutes (no intermission)

By Geoffrey Simon Brown

Purchase Play Script

October 13, 2019

POSTPONED: The Circle – Globe Theatre (Regina, SK), April 16 – 25, 2020

December 30, 2010

PAST EVENT: The Circle – UTSC Drama Society (Scarborough, ON) January 31 – February 3, 2018

July 7, 2010

PAST EVENT: The Circle – Tarragon Theatre (ON), October 18 – November 27, 2016

Production History

The Circle was developed at The National Theatre School of Canada where is was presented by the graduating class of 2014.

The next year it was picked up by Alberta Theatre Projects where it received it’s professional world premiere in the fall of 2015.

Programmed as part of Tarragon Theatre’s 2016-17 Season.

The Circle was published by Scirrocco Drama, 2018

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