by Sam Mooney

This is the 22nd New Ideas Festival hosted by Alumnae Theatre Company so you know that they’re doing something right.  The Alumnae website describes it better than I can “The New Ideas Festival is a juried, three-week annual festival of new writing, works-in-progress and experimental theatre, with a different program of plays each week, and a staged reading on Saturdays at noon. It runs from March 10 – 27, 2010. There are 18 scripts in the Festival this year – something for everybody: long ones, short ones, funny, sad, tension-filled, silly, and some surprises that we won’t give away.”

It’s a juried festival so you know that it isn’t going to be a crapshoot – every show will have some merit.  Of course they may not all be to your taste.

This week there are 4 plays – in order of presentation:

• JOIN THE CLUB by Suzanne Courtney & Leora Courtney-Wolfman • Directed by Stacy Halloran
• AN INKED HEART by D.J. Sylvis • Directed by Heather Keith
• A VERY DIFFERENT PLACE by Carol Libman • Directed by lindi g. papoff
• ASHES TO ASHES by M.P. Fedunkiw • Directed by Maureen Callaghan

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by Megan Mooney

On Tuesday March 9, 2010, at the Supermarket in Kensington Market you have the opportunity to see two one-man shows for $10.  Basically you’re getting two-for-one.  And the one is very reasonably priced…

The two shows are:  Nile Seguin’s Fear of a Brown Planet and Gavin Stephens’ Spectacular! Spectacular! and the event is being put together by Nerdgasm Comedy

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By Leanne Milech

My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding or MMLJWW for short, is, to put it bluntly, colossal Canadian yummyness.

After an amazing run at the 2009 Fringe Festival, Mooney on Theatre writer Sam Mooney raved about MMLJWW in her review of the show.  After Fringe, Mirvish swiftly picked MMLJWW up and extended its run as long as it possibly could before it had to make room for a previously scheduled production. During that run, our very own editor, Megan Mooney, reviewed the show, professing her love for the production just as earnestly as our first reviewer did.

Indeed, Mirvish chose wisely when it decided to pick up this touching true love story of Claire, played by Lisa Horner, and Jane, played by Rosemary Doyle, two middle-aged women who fall for each other.

As a lesbian and a Jew, I had actually been a tad skeptical about this show: could they really pull off the whole lesbian thing without making all of the usual stereotypes and without being cliché or boringly political?

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By Sam Mooney

Until tonight, all I knew about talk was “Clashing views about the Middle East conflict threaten a friendship in this drama.” I expected that it would be difficult to “ignore” the politics and concentrate on the theatre.  I also expected that it would be, if nothing else, an interesting play.

Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company’s production of talk at the Jane Mallett Theatre is not only interesting, but a wonderful evening of theatre. The play entertained me, left me with a lot to think about and didn’t hit me on the head with a hammer.

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By Darryl D’Souza

I went to the operas Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci as part of a double bill at the Bickford Centre Theatre put on by the Toronto Opera Repertoire.  I was thoroughly engrossed during the performances of both and impressed by the experience.   

What impressed me most was the calibre of the singing.  In my opinion, the calibre of the singing is the ultimate litmus test for judging whether any opera is a success or failure.  While the Bickford Centre Theatre is certainly not the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, (the home of the Canadian Opera Company), and in all truth seems more like a high school gymnasium than a theatre per se, the singing was as good – if not better – than what you’d expect to hear at the average Canadian Opera Company performance.       

If you feel like opera is not for you, you’re definitely not alone.  In fact, our motto here at Mooney on Theatre is: “Theatre is for everyone…so how come it doesn’t feel that way?”.  If this is true of theatre in general, it’s even more true of opera.  Ever since its inception over 300 hundred years ago, due to high ticket prices, seeing opera has been almost solely the privilege of the bourgeois class.  (more…)

By Megan Mooney

I know this sounds odd, but often I try and read as little as possible about a show before I go.  I like to go without expectations.  Sometimes that means that the beginning of a show is a bit of a shock.  Sulong Theatre Collective’s Future Folk playing at Theatre Passe Muraille was one of those shows.

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by Sam Mooney

When I first heard about Rebecca Northan’s Blind Date last year the idea made me feel a bit squeamish.  Blind Date is an improvised show where Northan – as Mimi – picks a man from the audience as her blind date for the evening after her arranged date is a no show. Definitely cringe potential.

Then I heard so many good things about it that I really wanted to see it, but it was sold out. So when I heard the show was coming back to Toronto – to the Harbourfront Centre as part of World Stage…

…obviously I had to see it.  And so should you.  It was a wonderful evening.

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By Leanne Milech

What to say about the 31st Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre except: run, walk or skydive there – get there any way you can and DO NOT MISS OUT!  This is the last week of the festival, and I implore you to check it out.  Rhubarb gathers contemporary theatre artists in one building and curates a one-site, two-room festival of short, experimental theatre pieces.  It’s convenient, quick and cheap at only $17 for a full night of entertainment.

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by Lucy Allen

AAhhh, Canadian theatre.  In university, I was saturated with it, and the name of George F. Walker became known to us as an icon.  So, naturally, when I heard that he had written a new play, And So It Goes, currently playing at the Factory Theatre, I had to check it out. (more…)