Results tagged “theatre”

The Mill is definitely one of the most exciting things happening right now in Toronto theatre. It's a series of four plays written by four of the best young playwrights around these parts (Hannah Moscovitch, Matthew MacFadzean, Damien Atkins, and Tara Beagan), each centred on an historic Ontario mill. And while that might sound at first like typical Canadian theatre fodder, there is more than one twist: MacFadzean's play (Now We Are Brody), the first in the cycle, is set in 1854; Moscovitch's (The Huron Bride) is set twenty years prior; Beagan's (The Woods), another three hundred years prior; and Atkins's (Ash) is actually set in our own future. Plus, there's lots of ghosts and gore.

It was only a matter of time before someone did a clown show about the financial crisis. We always had the feeling the recession was actually the set-up for a really good joke, and SPENT, the new play created through the joint efforts of TheatreRUN, Why Not Theatre, and Theatre Smith-Gilmour, promises to deliver the punchline. It sounds like a good idea: the show is created and performed by Ravi Jain and Adam Paolozza, two of our favourite young theatre artists, with the assistance of Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour, two accomplished old hands at physical theatre. Yet somehow, even though this is a subject we would all surely love to be able to laugh about, SPENT doesn't quite give us the giggles we were looking for.

Continuing the merry trend of importing whatever's been a hit on Broadway or the West End from the past several years, CanStage kicked off its current season with Tom Stoppard's latest effort: Rock'n'Roll. In this show, a decades-spanning epic, Stoppard tells the story of a Cambridge University family who become involved with a visiting scholar from the former Czechoslovakia. It opens shortly after the Prague Spring of 1968 and finishes up at a Rolling Stones concert just after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The history of communism in Czechoslovakia is interwoven with the history of rock'n'roll music, as well as Czech scholar Jan's interest in civil disobedience (and Czech rock band the Plastic People of the Universe), Marxist Cambridge professor Max's family life, and the mental decline of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett. If you think that sounds like rather a lot of things to be jammed into a single play, you are absolutely right. In fact, it's far too many.

While most people cheered the announcement of Brendan Healy as new artistic director of Buddies, NOW pointed out (albeit a tad awkwardly) that this meant seminal queer Canadian writer/director Brad Fraser didn't get the job. These days, he seems to be more popular with Factory Theatre, where his newish play, True Love Lies, has just received its Canadian premiere and opened their fortieth anniversary season. And Fraser isn't the only one returning to Factory: he's bringing David, a regular character in his work often considered the author's own alter ego, along for the ride. In this show, David returns to Toronto and to the life of erstwhile lover, Kane, who has since switched back to hetero and now lives with his interior-design partner/wife Carolyn, and their two teenage children, Madison and Royce. When Madison tries to get a job at David's restaurant, it sets into motion a string of events that leads to old family secrets being unearthed, new ones being buried, and a big, sexy mess where a family used to be.

Today's edition of Drama Club is brought to you by sex and gender politics. A couple of very interesting shows opened in the city last week, both of which approach aspects of sexuality and gender identity from very different perspectives. In the girl corner, we have Sasha Von Bon Bon's Neon Nightz, a two-woman burlesque(-ish) cabaret about the 90s Montreal strip club scene directed by outgoing Buddies Artistic Director David Oiye. Over at the boy's club, there's Darren Anthony's Secrets of a Black Boy, heavily promoted as the male answer to his sister's trey's hugely successful Da Kink in My Hair, which promises to let us all know what it's really like to be a black man in the city.

Remember The NeverEnding Story? That 1984 film about some kid who gets lost in a magic book and ends up having an excellent adventure involving a giant, flying, luckdragon?

Wednesday night's opening performance of Thaiing the Knot reinforces what we knew all along: Toronto is brimming with fantastic independent theatre that is both marquee-quality and ridiculously affordable. A mere $15 per ticket gained us entry to this full-length, two-hour (with intermission) production of Thom Stoneman's wrenching story of love, loss, obligation, faith, and guilt that somehow manages to keep the audience laughing out loud the entire time.

This has been a week for big announcements in theatre. First off, Brendan Healy has been appointed as new artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, taking over from the departing David Oiye. And just this morning, Tarragon Theatre announced the winner of their inaugural Under 30 National Playwriting contest: Evan Placey for his play Mother of Him.

We're back! Drama Club's been taking it easy over the summer, but now that September has rolled around, it's back to school (ew, as if!) and back to the theatre. Not that theatre picks up and leaves town for the summer the way it used to. Sure, most of the playhouses go on hiatus, but between Fringe, SummerWorks, Luminato, and independent productions, there's always something you can go see. Which brings us to Soulpepper, a local oddity in its decision to program a February–December season, rather than a September–May one. The poor ushers at the Young Centre barely had any cottage time at all this year, what with the summertime productions of Loot, Awake and Sing!, Of the Fields, Lately, and Billy Bishop Goes to War.

There’s a little white logo riding on the back of a pair of black, size four yoga pants striding purposefully just ahead. You recognize the ubiquitous emblem without having to squint inappropriately: Lululemon. It’s fitting. Torontoist is on foot following a small pack of sleeksters headed south on Spadina, crossing the bridge that links a small grove of new high-rises with the city proper north of the GO/VIA/CN rail tracks. They’re heading home to the same de rigueur condominium of structured glass, steel, brick, and marble where our interviewee resides.

If, like us, you're mourning the passing of this summer's fantastic indie theatre festivals (Toronto Fringe, SummerWorks) and the novel, experimental shows that go with them, you'll be pleased to know No More Masterpieces theatre company is holding a very Fringe-esque production called The Girl Who Married a Ghost at the InterAccess Gallery at Queen and Ossington. This complex play bravely steps into the landmine of North American Aboriginal history and subtly comments on the work of prominent artists of various disciplines (photography, theatre, visual art) who did the same in their day.

Montparnasse is the name of an area of Paris (Left Bank, 14th arrondissement, named after Mount Parnassus) and also the name of a certain bit of Parisian mythology (early 20th-century epicentre of artistic productivity and site of correspondingly legendary bacchanalia). Montparnasse is the play at SummerWorks that explores these intersecting worlds, examining what it might take to make your way through them in both the practical and mythological senses. Co-authored and co-performed by SummerWorks veterans Maev Beaty and Erin Shields, Montparnasse tells the story of two American ex-pats, one diving headlong into the revelry and one pursuing the loftiest of artistic aspirations, both working as nude models to make ends meet all the while.

In Daniel Barrow’s Every Time I See Your Picture Cry, the overhead projector is liberated from its usual role in tossing static images onto a surface. A kaleidoscopic parade of illustrations flow across the screen, as revolving overlays keep limbs and other objects in constant motion.

d'bi.young's new one-woman show benu is one of the strongest pieces we've seen at this year's SummerWorks. Although this production, directed by Natasha Mytnowych, is technically a workshop presentation, and young does perform the show script-in-hand, her thrilling performance style makes her play seem more put together than a lot of non-works-in-progress.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process, so we are often told, is full of missed opportunities. So too, unfortunately, is QuipTake's production of Apricots, which takes that process and the conflict that underlies it as its subject. There is no shortage of material to work with, and the play opens quite promisingly with duelling speeches by the leaders of Israel and Palestine, punctuated with interjections by a bombastic and self-congratulatory American president. The premise of that scene—in which the politicians say what is really on their minds, what we all know is really on their minds, but what protocol will forever prevent them from saying out loud—is precisely what a play on this particular topic calls for: using the truth as a tool to skewer the pretensions and prejudices of everybody involved.

This sentence is leading off this review. This sentence is intended to mimic the speech pattern that dominates the first segment, and recurs at transitional points among the other pieces, of Red Machine: Part Two. This sentence is telling you that this production is the middle portion of a trilogy that began at this year’s Fringe. This sentence hopes not to alarm as much as the sentence in the program where one of the two directors hopes that the audience will “let yourself be as curious and confused as we are” about this work in progress. This sentence won’t deny that we experienced curiosity and confusion while watching the three short pieces taken from the point of view of different pieces of a writer’s brain. This sentence is proof of how the language games of the first piece etch themselves in the brain, though it may be up to you whether this is appealing or, as repeated at the end of the production, if “this is a sentence” of the legal kind.

What happens during the night shift? That's the simple question which provokes Suburban Beast's new docudrama show The Art of Catching Wild Pigeons by Torchlight. An off-site performance at Rolly's Garage on Ossington (note: a real garage, not the name of a hipster bar), Wild Pigeons invites you into a sleepover blanket fort—complete with flashlights—to listen to a group of actors in plaid shirts sing Neil Young songs and tell "ghost stories." The stories in the script, created by Jordan Tannahill, are all taken from real interviews the actors conducted with various night owls: a prostitute, an insomniac, night-shifters at Tim Horton's and Wal-Mart, a Nunavut prison guard, and many others. Each story is accompanied by a slide show, and occasionally a shadow play with the aid of blankets and flashlights (note to Suburban Beast: the shadow stuff worked really well, but there wasn't enough of it; more shadow puppets, please).

How lucky are we that the "artistic funhouse" (a.k.a. the SummerWorks Performance Gallery) is on for seven more nights (August 7–9, 13–16)? Yesterday, we took in the debut soirée at the atmospheric Gladstone Hotel, not knowing what to expect, and left agape at the stunning performances that are practically being given away for free (PWYC). On any given evening, as many as seven different five- to eight-minute shows are available for patrons to peruse at their leisure, taking place in the rooms (including the restroom) and hallways on the second floor. The doors to the balcony facing Queen Street are thrown open to the summer evening, letting the sounds of the city meld with the eclectic mix of performances that make up the Gallery. Below are some we particularly enjoyed.

Hello, Toronto! Drama Club has been taking it easy ever since a certain mid-July theatre festival, but we're back in action to give you the scoop on SummerWorks, August's indie answer to the Fringe. Some of you may remember how the festival got revamped and re-branded last year thanks to then-new Artistic Producer Michael Rubenfeld, who added such elements as a Music Series and a "Performance Gallery" at the Gladstone Hotel to the theatre festival, and also limited it to the Queen West strip. All this and more continues at the fest this year, and while we're not entirely sure about this year's roadkill visual motif (or the now annual tradition of sexist and kind of indulgent promotional videos), it's exciting to see the festival grow and develop.

After twelve days, this year's edition of the Fringe has drawn to a close. While most performers return to their day jobs or plan their next theatrical endeavour, seven lucky productions will be remounted as part of the "Best of the Fringe" series running at the Berkeley Street Theatre from July 15 to 25.

There are a lot of funny shows at the Fringe this year, but Morro and Jasp Do Puberty might just be the funniest. The two red-nosed clowns (whose shows are typically semi-educational and meant for young audiences) get bold and ballsy in this adults-only show that is basically all about menstruation. And it's popular. So popular, in fact, that even though its Fringe run is technically over, it won the coveted Patron's Pick spot at its venue (the Tarragon Extra Space) and will be doing an extra performance tonight at 6:45 p.m. (For a complete list of Patron's Pick shows, see here.)

Last night's performance of In a Magic Kingdom was, in a sense, an archetypal Fringe experience. Having just missed entry into the show we had been aiming for we simply decided to roll with the theatrical punches and see whatever was playing next. The audience was small in number (fourteen in all), but made up for in camaraderie. (Upon hearing the clatter of a dropping piece of gum a woman in the first row turned around to see what was up. The stovepipe hat–wearing clumsy culprit leaned across two rows of empty seats and promptly offered her a piece.) It is moments like this—an actor facing a nearly empty house, an audience relaxed enough to start chatting—which reveal both the frustrations and the charms that are found at the festival.

As we approached the Glen Morris Theatre for one of the early showings of BAGS: Obsessions of a Hoardaholic, an intense, sinewy man with earbuds jammed in his ears strode across our path, half singing, half screaming. Only when he bypassed the ticket lineup to enter the back door did we realize it was Lee Michael Buckman, actor and writer of the one-man show we were about to see. With energy like that we thought, "This has got to be good."

One of the best things about this year's Fringe is that it’s the first to be fully Twitter-enabled. Using the #FringeTO tag, anyone can easily get announcements from the official Fringe office (@Toronto_Fringe) as well as real-time reviews from audience members and press alike. What’s also super fun is peeking into the tweets of performers as they prepared for and live through Fringe week. They're tweeting about everything from pre-performance jitters to post-show euphoria. Here are a few of our favourites.

Candida is, without question, one of the hits at this year's Fringe. The show had picked up some buzz before it even opened, and the raves have been rolling in ever since. And, more or less, we agree.

It's official: Fringe has taken over the city. And while we aren't sure about numbers yet, attendance this year has seemed especially high. In past years, getting tickets during the opening weekend of the fest has been a cinch; this year, we noticed a ton of shows that were opening-night sellouts, and many have continued to pack houses, even in tough time slots such as weekday afternoons and Sunday nights. Once again, Drama Club forsakes its usual format to bring you a special Fringe edition to tell you what's been going on in the Fringe venues (and at the beer tent).

To paraphrase a legendarily misquoted Oscar speech, the Fringe likes T. Berto, they really like him. A Singularity of Being marks the second time the playwright has won the festival’s Best New Play award (the first was bestowed upon Bash in 2000). The play follows the life of a scientist with a passing resemblance to Stephen Hawking and his relations with others over the course of his degenerative disease. While the script ventures into discussions on how far one should quest for the secrets of the universe without arousing the wrath of a higher being, it is the human relationships that stand out. The all-too-mortal connections between the characters create an emotional richness that draws the audience into the action onstage, from the scientist’s small physical triumphs to his wife’s ultimate heartbreak.

Due to the climate-controlled museum that shares a wall with St. Vladimir's Theatre, the event space was as chilly as sea air or the review Bert and I received from Eye Weekly on Friday. This must account for the low attendance on Saturday night because the performance surely does not. John E. Nelles, accomplished performer and Hollywood drama coach to the stars (Sam Neill, William Hurt, Jude Law, etc.), can act circles around anyone at Fringe, and he poured his heart and soul into the script, which he adapted from 50s-era humouristic stories centred around the Maine lobster fishery.

Shadows in Bloom is one of the best, and certainly one of the bravest, shows you will have the chance to see at this year's Fringe. A woman alone on stage, in street clothes, without scenery or significant staging, with just a single prop—this is the kind of performance where there is literally no place to hide. Fortunately, Gemma Wilcox doesn't need it.

At the end of Tim Buck 2, the audience is invited to participate in a brief debate over a motion that asks for the right to suspend the civil rights of a few to protect the security of everyone else. The opening night crowd appeared nervous to take a direct part in the proceedings, as many Toronto Fringe audiences often are when given the opportunity, but their applause for those arguing the “no” side showed where its sympathies lay. Given the piece’s base focus on a rehearsal of a play in support of jailed 1930s Communists, it was doubtful there were going to be too many viewers on the right side of the political fence.