COAL MINE THEATRE presents the Toronto premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s “A Case For The Existence of God“, on stage November 3 to November 24, 2024. 

 Returning to the Coal Mine after making an acclaimed Broadway debut in Tracy Lett’s The Minutes and recently starring in the Amazon series Outer Range, beloved Schitt’s Creek actor and musician Noah Reid stars alongside rising star Mazin Elsadig (Top Dog, Underdog and Pipeline) with COAL MINE co-founder Ted Dykstra directing.

A thoughtful and meditative two-hander, Samuel D. Hunter’s extraordinary play is both intimate and expansive as it explores themes of parenthood, financial insecurity and empathy. Unfolding in a cubicle where two seated people unexpectedly choose to bring one another into their fragile worlds, in the play mortgage broker Keith, and Ryan, a yogurt plant worker seeking to buy a plot of land that belonged to his family many decades ago, realize they share a “specific kind of sadness.” At this desk in the middle of America, loan talk opens up into a discussion about the chokehold of financial insecurity and a bond over the precariousness of parenthood. With humor, empathy and wrenching honesty, Hunter commingles two lives and deftly bridges disparate experiences of marginality.

“When I read this play, I immediately knew I wanted to direct it,” says COAL MINE Artistic Director Ted Dykstra. “Being a father going through divorce is something I have experienced first-hand in my life; it had a deeply visceral impact on me. Beautiful, heart tugging, and satisfying, for it to also include the subtleties and nuances of male friendship through the lens of a straight white man and a black gay man was also, for me, a thrill and icing on a very beautiful cake. And the ending was one of the most surprising and beautiful things I’d ever come across.”
 
Dykstra continues, “I feel in my bones that Noah and Mazin were made to do this play. Incredibly, Mazin will become a first-time father during the run of the show and Noah is a proud new dad himself! I met Noah when I taught him years ago at the National Theatre School and have always been a fan and Mazin I have admired from the audience side of the lights in other theatres, many times. I am a very lucky man to be at theirs and this play’s service.”

 A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD is on stage at the COAL MINE THEATRE 2076 Danforth Avenue November  3 to November 24, 2024 with performances Tuesday – Saturday at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2:00pm.

Tickets
 

 

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist with a focus on travel, lifestyle, entertainment and hospitality. He has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He enjoys discovering delicious eats, tasting spirited treats, and being mesmerized by musical beats.