Fringe Festival
Best of Fringe Uptown! at the Toronto Centre for the Arts
By Sonia Borkar
This delightful juried festival invites the best performances of the Fringe Festival, uptown to the Toronto Centre for the Arts for bonus performances. In a single night you will be able to see two very different performances. Tickets are $15 and the full list of shows is available now at www.tocentre.com Tickets can be purchased through the Toronto Centre of the Arts website, and not through the Toronto Fringe Festival Box Office.
Here are the 11 shows that have been selected for the Best of Fringe:
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Boyfriends (Le Carsonage) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review
In fact, I saw Boyfriends on Wednesday evening, midway though its successful run at the Fringe. It appears that the ghosts in the machine stole my review, and I’m now rewriting it on Monday, with the show having mellowed a few days in my head. As with scotch and men, I think time has improved my enjoyment of Boyfriends as well.
Operation Impervious (Skinny Jo Productions/Port Moresby Productions) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review
By Samantha Wu
The Fringe Festival is coming into its last day and as I head out to my final show for the season (a late show to boot) I’m hoping it’s a performance I’m going to enjoy. What I mean is, I’m tired and I really need to have fun so I can keep going! Bil Antoniou’s Operation Impervious was just that. Read the rest of this entry »
2011 Toronto Fringe shows Mooney on Theatre folks will be sad if they miss
By Megan Mooney
So, the Toronto Fringe Festival is drawing to a close. Today and tomorrow are your last chances to do some hard-core fringing this year.
With 145 shows, it’s impossible to see everything. So I asked my writers what they will be sad to miss if they don’t get to see it. Here’s what they told me:
The Traveling Saleman & His Magical Suitcase of Desires! (Zanni Arte Productions) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review
By Megan Mooney
The Traveling Saleman & His Magical Suitcase of Desires! by Zanni Arte Productions is a great show. One that works for both children and adults. I think that kids between the ages of 4 – 12 or so would be in their bliss during this piece filled with zany antics. But it’s also great for adults too. I’ve spoken to a number of adults who went and really enjoyed it, and I’ve recommended it to adults without children.
The Bright Idea (Ton O’ Fun Productions) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review
By Megan Mooney
The Bright Idea is a playful children’s play that will appeal to kids ages 4 – 10 or so I’d say. Narrated by a night-light, this piece follows two children as they help a lost shadow return to shadow land.
There is a bit of ’choose your own adventure‘ where the audience is given the choice between two things to move the action forward. I loved the idea of choose your own adventure in play format, but I’m not positive it worked here. I think the choices were too similar. They wouldn’t actually take the story in different directions, only change one action. Of course, I realise that developing, rehearsing and executing a more complex version where the choices drive the story may be a bit ambitious for a Fringe show.
discharge (metamorphosis dance theatre) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review
By Crystal Wood
discharge is a show that takes a lot of risks. While it doesn’t answer any profound questions about life and love, the creators turn themselves inside-out to reveal their souls to the audience.
It’s a bit difficult to describe this non-linear dance/theatre piece, so forgive me for stealing from the program notes here. Co-creator Tyson James refers to it as “wild and sexy, and full of sass, but it’s also full of confusion and sadness.” I’d say that’s a fair description – all of those emotions come across in a brief 50-minute show. Read the rest of this entry »
Oh, Raven!! (Land of the Young) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review
By Winston Soon
Walking into the perfectly air conditioned Palmerston Library Theatre and the set of Land of the Young’s “Oh, Raven!!” seems magical. It is a sort of enchanted forest with trees and an older hollowed out tree lying downstage. The music sets the right tone of enchantment and the kids get excited. A perfect beginning to a FringeKIDS show.
Patron’s Picks for 2011 Toronto Fringe Fest – get tickets to those shows that kept selling out!
By Megan Mooney
Each of the festival’s 13 main venues has a Patron’s Pick. It is determined by the show that sells the most tickets to their show over the course of the festival. Unlike during the rest of the festival, where only 50% of the tickets are available for advance sale, For the Patron’s Pick, 100% of tickets can be sold in advance, so make sure to buy your tickets early. They’re on sale now, and you buy them just like any other advance tickets at the Fringe.
All the patron’s picks are Sunday evening, a listing of the time in each venue is in bold in the Sunday section of the Master Schedule.
See below for a listing of all the patron’s picks:
Trotsky & Hutch: On Patrol (Impatient Theatre Co.) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review
By George Perry
Trotsky & Hutch: On Patrol did for comedy what real cops do on every shift. They accomplish the near-impossible. Trotsky & Hutch did it at Tarragon Theatre Extra Space. Real cops do it everywhere, all the time, all over the civilized world.
I’m not a fan of improv. For me it seems like a combination of old-school televised wrestling and cheap magic tricks. I’m more interested in watching Three-card Monte with my cuz in Times Square.