Amy Nostbakken’s one-woman show engages through song at Toronto’s Factory Theatre
I’m wary of one-person shows. I’m very wary of one person shows from Fringe Festivals and I’m particularly wary of one person shows from Fringe Festivals about heavy topics like depression. The Big Smoke is all of these but I went to see it at The Factory Theatre Studio Space anyway. The press I saw from its launch at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was very good and I was intrigued by a show that was sung-through, A capella. I was not at all disappointed. The show is a feat for performer Amy Nostbakken, and for director Nir Paldi; the pair of them also wrote the script together.
Perhaps “script” isn’t even the correct word, as the show is almost entirely sung. But it’s a monologue, an aria if you will, not songs with verses and choruses. Nostbakken plays the character of Natalie, a bright and talented young painter who has a fantastic opportunity to enter the world of high art in London, UK. But Natalie finds she can’t paint. She can barely get out of bed. Continue reading Review: The Big Smoke (Theatre Ad Infinitum Canada in association with Why Not Theatre)→
The Merry Widow is a lighthearted operatic production playing at the Toronto Opera Repertoire
Accompanying their production of Lucia di Lammermoor, the Toronto Opera Repertoire is also presenting The Merry Widow, a show I was invited to for a matinee showing that I graciously accepted considering how much I enjoyed my first exposure to the TOR. A show as opposite to its counterpart as night is to day, The Merry Widow is a comedic musical gallivant of cheating lovers and the pursuit of greed with a healthy dose of provocative can-can dancers.
Written by Franz Lehár and making its original debut in 1905, The Merry Widow is a story taking place in the imaginary Balkan country of Pontevedro. A newly widowed, Anna Glawari (Jennifer Rasor), has inherited a hefty sum of 20 million francs. The money, being stored in the Pontevedrian national bank, amounts to most of the country’s finances. Should Anna marry a foreigner, the country would go bankrupt! Of course, there is no shortage of Pontevedrian men (of the bachelor and married variety) willing to offer their hand in marriage including Anna’s former flame Prince Danilo Danilovitch (Jay Lambie).
Dani Girl written by hot New York playwrights plays at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille
Written by Christopher Dimond and Michael Kooman, a duo who has been dubbed some of the hottest up-and-coming writers in New York, Dani Girl tells the story of a nine year old girl battling leukemia. It is set entirely in a hospital, and in Dani’s imagination (played by Gabi Epstein), as she struggles to understand cancer and overcome the disease. While in the hospital, she meets and befriends Marty, a young boy played by Jonathan Logan, who Dani likes to refer to solely as Meriwether. A fact which she learns from snatching up his hospital chart like any nine-year-old would do when curious and impatient for information. Continue reading Review: Dani Girl (Talk Is Free Theatre and Show One Productions)→
This week we have five great live theatre shows you can check out in Toronto. The first play is a piece of visual theatre for all ages, the next is a psycho thriller that consists of two one-act plays, we also have a documentary play about a farmer, a show based on historical women like Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton and Slyvia Plath and finally we have an autobiographical show that looks at the struggles of a composer. There is definitely something for everyone this week, so get out there.
Here is what’s going on in Toronto theatre this week. There are several great shows to catch for the week of February 20, 2012: ** Shows marked with the double asterisks and in red are the ones that make Wayne, our Managing Editor, wish he could exist in multiple parallel universes so he could check them all out.
