Wheelwright’s If One Night performed at Toronto’s Trinity St. Paul’s – a new touring music-theatre show that gave theatre a good reimagining

Have you ever been to something that you just wanted to tell everyone about? Well If One Night: A Collodion Remedy by Wheelwright was one of those. I loved it. I was invited to see it by a friend, one of the writers. A bunch of my friends were going so I decided to tag along. It turned out to be such a great decision I asked if I could write a review about it.

Wheelwright sold If One Night as “a new touring music-theatre show”. The theatre part of the show is about 3 individuals who obsessively move cities. The narrative follows their logic, as each of the characters tries to explain to us their silent, yet unignorable desire to emigrate to a new city. The music part comes in the form of 5 local bands and musicians playing between the actors scenes.

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Toronto’s leading queer theatre space Buddies in Bad Times presents PIG, a complex multi-layered story about perversion, love and making art

Even considering the current fashion for representations of BDSM in the arts, Tim Luscombe’s new play PIG is… a lot. At the same time, the great pleasure of having a world-class queer theatre in Toronto is that we get to make our own choices about whether we prefer to see it, rather than having it erased from our theatrical landscapes by prudish directors afraid to upset their patrons. Brendan Healy, artistic director of Buddies In Bad Times and director of this world premiere play is quite clearly not afraid to be upsetting.

PIG is a complex, multi-layered story about respectability, desire, love, perversion and making art. The official synopsis says that it’s about bug chasing and civil partnerships, but it reminded me of nothing so much as the centagenarian quoted in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray Love, who says “There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. ‘How much do you love me?’ And, ‘who’s in charge?'” More than any other play I’ve ever seen, these questions beat out of the text and staging, imposing themselves none-too-gently on the audience. And even still, I left feeling like Luscombe had tied the play up in knots of cleverness, trying to prove that it really was art and not (merely) perversion.

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Toronto’s The Second City’s Fresh Meat pits 20 up and coming local comedians against each other in competition for the Tim Sims Award of Recognition

Monday evening seems like a strange time to go see 20 comedy acts – stand-up and sketch – but that’s what I did on September 16th at The Second City. Each act is hoping to be one of the five finalists that go on to Cream Of Comedy on October 28th. One of them will win the $5000 Tim Sims Award of Recognition.

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Mesmerizing and intricate dance lights up Toronto’s Winchester Street Theatre in Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects’ Stages

Two contemporary dance routines – Time Now (Choreographed by Jennifer Dallas) and Thirst (Choreographed by Tedd Robinson) – were featured in the Kemi Contemporary Dance Projects production, Stages. Showing at the Winchester Theatre, these two pieces are made up of unique choreography that use an abundance of intricate distorted movements and interesting props. Though both works intriguing, I was drawn more to Robinson’s duet piece Thirst primarily for its use of storytelling, simplicity and expressive emotions by dancers Michael Caldwell and Jennifer Dallas.

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Sterling Studio Theatre’s The Foursome is an exceptionally acted dark tale of social elitism being performed in Toronto’s Bloordale Village

The Foursome is Sterling Studio Theatre’s opening production for their 2013-2014 season. Dark and poignant, this play chronicles the tale of a social ladder-climbing trio whose lives are turned awry when a young heiress to a snack cake empire joins their tennis ensemble.

While at first the premise may seem a little niche and formulaic, the writing for this piece was exceptionally strong and easily relatable. Playwright and performer Jane Ford was able to accurately depict all the pretense and insincerity that one often associates with trying to maintain a social façade.

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