Rose Theatre releases 2009 season

The Rose Theatre Brampton announced its 2009-2010 season on Tuesday, promising to bring an eclectic mix of music, comedy, theatre and dance to the city of Brampton.

Performances include a concert by Grammy Award winning singer Natalie Cole and a limited Canadian engagement of The Color Purple, a musical based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel.

Presented by Oprah Winfrey, The Color Purple played in Toronto with Mirvish Productions until March of this year.

Brampton's state-of-the-art performance centre was inaugurated in 2006. Program director Costin Manu presents the 2009 season line-up.

Rose Theatre's 880-seat venue will feature comedic performances by Corner Gas actor Brent Butt and New York's off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz. Butt will do a stand-up routine, while Altar Boyz parodies a fictitious Christian boy-band with songs like Jesus Called Me on My Cell Phone.

Special holiday performances include Ballet Jorgen's The Group of Seven Nutcracker, a Canadian twist on a holiday classic featuring backdrop paintings by Group of Seven artists Franklin Carmichael and Tom Thomson. Toronto-based Ballet Jorgen features new Canadian choreography and exclusively original works.

Also scheduled for December is Scrooge! The Musical, Leslie Bricusse's adaptation of Dickens's A Christmas Carol and The Amazing Kreskin, thought-reader and mentalist.

The Canadian Tenors, fan favourites at the Rose, perform Dec. 23.

Michael Burgess makes a Rose debut in February 2010.

Also on the schedule:

• Acrobats New Shanghai Circus.
• Canadian band Spirit of the West.
• Summer of my Amazing Luck, a play based on the novel by Miriam Toews.
• Sleeping Beauty, from Russia's Tchaikovsky Ballet Theatre.
• Dancing from Tap Kids.
• Singer Art Garfunkel.
• CBC Radio's Stuart McLean and The Vinyl Caf live on stage.