Going back to her thirteenth year for inspiration, performer Lara MacMillan presents her storied concert Grade 8 at the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival. She is one of the site specific (BYOV) offerings at this year’s Fringe and has chosen to mount the show in a classroom studio at Artscape Youngplace (180 Shaw St.). The building was formerly Givins-Shaw Elementary School and where MacMillan taught grade eight music twenty years ago. “I’m really looking forward to performing the show in a school classroom which is similar to the school I attended as a grade eight student,” says MacMillan. “And, it provides an extra level of meaning for me that it will take place in a school where I taught music for two years.”
A singer-songwriter with two full length CDs to her credit Miss Mercury (2008) and Lara MacMillan (2013)), Lara has been experimenting with storytelling in a more theatrical/ cabaret way for a number of years. She started with a straight up tribute show Lara Loves Leonard – a Cohen Cabaret where she performed a selection of his songs and poems. Then came Lara Loves Lennon and Lara Loves Lightfoot”When I did the Lennon show I shared some of my personal stories between his songs and poetic writings and after the show a good friend said “You should do more of that” and I thought…. yes! That’s what I want to do, connect personal story and public song.” For years fans of her original music shows enjoyed the patter from the stage as much as the songs themselves.
She tried with middling success to bring a long story arc to Lara Loves Lightfoot “I was trying to do two things in one show,” she says. “It was a tribute show on the one hand and on the other: stories from my nineteenth year living in Banff. As much as I love Lightfoot’s music it wasn’t what I was listening to that year, so there was a disconnect for me.” Grade 8, which MacMillan has already performed at the Stratford SpringWorks Festival and London Fringe, ends up being a different kind of tribute show, one that celebrates a year (1980-81). MacMillan calls the form a storied concert and loves how it has come to life. “Really it’s a one-woman-show-juke-box-musical and were talking 1980 radio-play so the music is SO much fun.”
When MacMillan started pulling stories together for Grade 8 she found that the central theme was the friendship she had had with one of her classmates, Sean. “There came a point when I realized that my show was his story as much as it was mine and I had to reach out to him to ask for his blessing.” The two had been connected on social media but had not seen each other in over thirty years. “I sent him the synopsis and held my breath,” she laughs. I really didn’t know what I would do if he said “Hell no!” – I guess I’d have had to re-write it.” Turns out Sean not only gave his blessing but travelled from Windsor to Stratford with his family for the show. “That was magic,” says Lara. “And a little emotional for all.”
What is the main take away for MacMillan now that the show is up on it’s feet? “It’s great to spend an hour with the thirteen-year-old me,” she says. She was a hell of a kid.”
Details
Grade Eight plays at Artscape Youngplace. (180 Shaw St.)
Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Festival Box Office at Scadding Court (707 Dundas St. W.), and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
The Fringe Festival considers this venue to be wheelchair-accessible.
Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.
This year, Mooney on Theatre is bringing a team of more than 25 correspondents to the Toronto Fringe Festival. With a team this big and diverse, no matter what you’ve got to show us, we have someone who wants to see it — and we will! As always, Mooney on Theatre will post a longform review of every show in the festival (~160 shows in all!) by the end of opening weekend.
But for now, a little buzz: our Hot Tickets are the shows which excited, attracted, intrigued and interested our team more than any others. These are the pieces which turned our heads, tickled our brains, and caused stampedes at scheduling time. Presenting, in no particular order, Mooney on Theatre’s Hot Tickets for Toronto Fringe 2018!
The Greatest Love Story Ever Forgotten is a sixty minute story told over two days about Florence (Brittaney Bennett) who is an elderly woman in a home. She’s visited by a therapy clown (Gungun Deep Singh) who discovers that the picture Florence thinks is her husband, is actually actor Rock Hudson. The clown undertakes to help Florence piece the memories of her life back together.
The fate of salmon, doomed at the end of their legendary migrations upstream to spawn in their home waters, can be a source of great drama. Upstream Downtown, currently playing in the Toronto Fringe Festival at the St. Vladimir Institute, thanks to the efforts of the Animacy Theatre Collective, shows this. Through an inventive combination of physical humour, ingenious costuming, and a canny grasp of theatre space, Upstream Downtown emerges as an original hour of theatre well worth seeing.
Plays In Cafés is returning to the Toronto Fringe for the 4th time. The signature series, created by Shadowpath’s Artistic Director, Alex Karolyi, launched in Newmarket in 2006. It has since provided a platform for new works and has frequented dozens of cafés in six different municipalities in York Region. In 2015, Plays In Cafés expanded its reach into Toronto and Vancouver via the Fringe!
Part of Shadowpath’s new work development is to nurture female theatre creatives. Plays In Cafésshowcases the Shadowpath Femme5 with an all-female production team and new plays created by women and directed by the unstoppable, Rosanna Saracino.
This year, Plays In Cafés has a new venue partner – Poetry Jazz Cafe, introducing a jazz trio to the production. Guests receive a menu where each item tells a story. The audience then charts the artistic course of action by ordering their entertainment off the menu. Three of the five possible plays will be performed each night and an evening of theatre and song shall be served throughout the venue. The flavour of plays includes rich, bitter, dry, sweet and spicy
Shadowpath was founded in 2002 and is a charitable arts organization that turns everyday spaces into creative places. Plays In Cafés is Shadowpath’s version of café theatre, integrating the performing arts with café culture. Shadowpath received the 2016 Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award for Innovation in Newmarket and the 2016 Creativity Connected Award for Best Innovation in Richmond Hill.
Details
Plays In Cafes plays at the Poetry Jazz Cafe. (224 Augusta Ave.)
Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Festival Box Office at Scadding Court (707 Dundas St. W.), and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
The fate of salmon, doomed at the end of their legendary migrations upstream to spawn in their home waters, can be a source of great drama. 