Producer Jonathan Hirsh and actor-director Ryan Seeley have formed a new theatrical production company whose mandate is to reinvent classic plays with an edgy and contemporary twist.

This summer, after they raised $35,000, their production company, Remain in Light Productions, produced its first two plays, House and Waiting for Godot, at The Paper Mill Theatre in Todmorden Mills in Toronto.

The duo met eight years ago while Hirsh was a student and Seeley his drama teacher at Metropolitan Preparatory Academy, a private school in Toronto.

“We were so sick of talking about it [starting a production company], I thought we’d better do it already, so I found funding for the show within three days, got the rights and found a theatre that was available for a month,” Hirsh, 21, said. “Somehow it all magically [came together] – a star was following us so we got the show up.”

Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor’s House is a one-man interactive play about Victor, a character who shares his tragic life story with the audience as he loses his grip on reality. Seeley, in the role of Victor, approaches his performance differently than MacIvor did.

“It’s Ryan’s personality that comes through,” Hirsh said. “The pacing is much slower than MacIvor would do it, but that helps to bring the text forward and you understand the character of Victor, since timing, design and staging of the show influence what you receive from the text.”

Hirsh and Seeley set Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in Nazi Germany and changed wealthy landowner Pozzo to a Nazi soldier.

“Because Pozzo’s speech to his slave Lucky is based on harsh words – the way he speaks of humanity, we were inspired to look at his character as one of the most despicable people to land in our time,” Hirsh said.

“It seems logical to make Lucky his Jewish slave so that’s our recasting. That’s part of the reason we set it in World War II. We know people are saying, ‘Let’s not let this [the Holocaust] happen again, let’s not forget,’ but every day you turn on the news and read of genocide – all over the world, it’s happening.

“Also, we want to bring it to the consciousness of others, so our reasoning is based on the text, our research of Beckett’s lifestyle and time in history,” Hirsh says.

The entertainment business runs in Hirsh’s family. His father, Michael, co-founded and ran one of Canada’s largest animation companies, Nelvana, and his mother, writer-producer Elaine Waisglass, has been involved with CBC Radio and various television productions.

Hirsh has worked in improv productions as house manager for Bad Dog Theatre; a lighting assistant on the preschooler hit Doodlebops; and has toured with jazz musician DK Ibomeka through Canada and Europe as a lighting director. Last year, Hirsh and director Rodrigo Pizza created Ibomeka’s music video Someone to Love Me.

Hirsh heads back to the California Institute of Arts this month to complete his bachelor of fine arts in design and production, and he plans to tour House and Waiting for Godot outside of Toronto, while he and Seeley work on Remain In Light’s 2009 season.

For more information about Remain In Light, visit www.remaininlight.ca, www.jonathanhirsh.ca.