This May, Alberta Theatre Projects (ATP) is thrilled to present the Arts Club Theatre Company production of The Birds and the Bees by Mark Crawford, directed by Lauren Taylor in the Martha Cohen Theatre at Arts Commons, May 7 – 25. Just in time for warmer weather, budding leaves and blossoming flowers, The Birds and the Bees is the perfect comedy to usher in the Springtime.

Sarah, a turkey farmer, has just left her husband and moved back home to live with her mom Gail. Despite the fact that she’s a divorcée of twenty years herself, Gail isn’t exactly providing the sympathy Sarah needs. Gail’s a beekeeper and she has other things to worry about—like why her honeybees are dropping dead.

Then there’s Earl: Gail’s neighbour, farm tenant, and the ex-husband of Gail’s ex-husband’s new wife. In these past twenty years, he’s been keeping himself mighty busy with the ladies, but Gail has just never really got back on that horse… so to speak.

And finally, there’s Ben: an athletic 23-year-old Master’s student, here to study the collapsing bee colonies. Secretly still a virgin, he’s about to get a big lesson in pollination… if you know what we mean.

Set in two adjoining bedrooms on a modern Canadian farm, the play tackles sex, love, science, family, and… the artificial insemination of turkeys? “Satisfying on every level,” (Sudbury Star) The Birds and the Bees is a laugh-out-loud comedy with brains and a huge, honeyed heart.

The Arts Club Theatre Company’s production was a hugely popular audience favourite when it hit their Granville Island Stage in 2019. The Vancouver Sun said, “The Birds and the Bees had the Arts Club audience screaming with laugher and applauding enthusiastically… delivering both the conventionally comic and the exceptionally rare, it’s an ending that deserves its cheers.”

This production then toured BC in October and November of 2023, and will be hopping over the provincial border to ATP from May 7 – 25.

This is not the first Arts Club production ATP has brought to Calgary audiences. The wildly popular production of Ins Choi’s hit play Kim’s Convenience in ATP’s 2021-22 Season was also a production brought in from the Arts Club.

The Birds and the Bees is written by Canadian playwright, Mark Crawford. Crawford also wrote the hilarious, The New Canadian Curling Club, which enjoyed a smash-hit production at ATP in the Spring of 2019, becoming one of the best-selling non-holiday shows in the company’s history. The Birds and the Bees promises even more non-stop hilarity and hijinks, with “an emotional depth few other comedies can claim.” (London Free Press)

ATP fans may also remember Crawford’s work from when his new play, The Gig was a highlight of the online staged reading series, Playwrights Projects (in 2021). The Gig has since had its full premiere at Hamilton, Ontario’s Theatre Aquarius (in 2023).

The Birds and the Bees runs from May 7 – 25 at Alberta Theatre Projects in the Martha Cohen Theatre at Arts Commons. To get your tickets today, visit albertatheatreprojects.com.

Photo (Top) Nancy Kerr and Agnes Tong in The Birds and the Bees, Arts Club Theatre Company 2023: set design by Ted Roberts; costume design by Alaia Hamer; lighting design by Michael Hewitt; photo by Moonrider Productions for the Arts Club Theatre Company.