S. Bear Bergman has great faith in the power of theatre to make change, and has been putting his money where his mouth is on that one for some time. A writer, performer, and lecturer, Bear works full time as an artist and cultural worker and loves to see as much live performance as possible – making this a fantastic gig for him.
The Stratford Festival production of Molière’s satirical play is currently on stage in Toronto
355 years ago, the Catholic Church considered Tartuffe so threatening to the moral fabric of society that they pressured the king of France into banning it’s performance. The two most satisfying facts about Canadian Stage‘s completely delightful production of the classic work, honestly, are these: this Tartuffe doesn’t remotely feel 355 years old and yet somehow it still feels dangerous.
School of Rock hits the stage at Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre; family fun holiday musical
Here’s what you need to know, from the perspective on an eight-year-old, about School of Rock at the Ed Mirvish Theatre: “That was the awesomest show I’ve ever seen!” While my jaundiced 44-year-old view is perhaps a little less unreservedly complimentary, part of the value for me in bringing actual children to theatre intended for children is to understand what they like, love, or…don’t especially care for. School of Rock fell squarely into the “love,” category and prompted my middle child to ask a question they’ve never, ever asked before: “Do you think they’d let us see that one again?”
Family-favourite musical Mary Poppins warms the hearts of Toronto audiences at Young People’s Theatre
“I like how this is looking,” said my eight-year-old companion as we settled into seats for Mary Poppins at the Young People’s Theatre. “It looks fancy on the stage and I see musicians. Is there a lot of music and dancing in this show? I would love that.” When the orchestra swelled and the lights dimmed, they bounced happily in anticipation, which proved well-warranted – there was indeed a lot of excellent music and dancing, and we absolutely did love it.
For opera fans, there has become a certain electricity around Alexander Neef‘s innovation of the Centre Stage Gala. Centre Stage is when young singers from across Canada compete for cash prizes and spots in the Canadian Opera Company‘s world class internship program, the Ensemble Studio. It’s a little bit like going to watch minor league games but in very nice clothes; looking out for who clearly has the goods and enjoying a sense of having spotted them early as they make a career.
A new show in Toronto explores some of the many ways women fade from sight in our culture
The late, great Southern writer Flannery O’Connor famously wrote “everything that rises must converge,” and I have always heard that sentence in the back of my mind when I see a piece of theatre that’s so emotionally specific and truthful that the experiences just shimmer up off the stage and, inevitably, converge with the audience’s experience (no matter how demographically different the audience member may be from the performer). Now You See Her, the new collaboration from Quote Unquote Collective, is exactly this kind of extraordinary work. Continue reading Review: Now You See Her (Quote Unquote/Nightwood/Why Not)→
A pre-Broadway run of the new musical about The Temptations is playing in Toronto
The latest show to play Toronto before transferring to Broadway, Ain’t Too Proud at the Princess of Wales Theatre is the story of The Temptations, one of the first and best known “crossover” groups in American music. The appetite for jukebox musicals is apparently never going to diminish, and though the writing is workmanlike, Ain’t Too Proud as a musical does what The Temptations themselves did: make bright, easy to enjoy, reasonably talented music on schedule.
The Canadian Opera Company opens its 2018-19 season with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
There are some excellent things about Eugene Onegin at the Canadian Opera Company to open the season: Joseph Kaiser, the French horn, and the direction of Peter McClintock. While I did not find myself carried away (as I would always prefer to be at the opera) I did feel nicely eased into the season, and felt as though it would be an equally nice way to ease a theatre-lover into opera appreciation.
The version of Winners and Losers showing at the 2018 SummerWorks Festival is adapted from the original play of the same name, written and performed by Marcus Youssef and James Long. Youssef and Long, like Valerie Planche and Makambe S. Simamba, are friends, artists making work in Canada, and of markedly different backgrounds (by which I actually mean backgrounds and not “background as a euphemism for race” – though also that). In the show, Planche and Simamba play a game where they throw out nouns from “TTC” to “Space Soldiers” and discuss whether they’re winners or losers.
Thaya Whitten, the subject of The Red Horse Is Leaving in the 2018 SummerWorks Performance Festival, was clearly a woman ahead of her time. The performance of her character, drawn heavily from her own writing and speaking engagements, is full of chewy, delicious ideas about art, commerce, relationships, colour, light, music, and fear. Whitten, who convened panel discussion and drew them live, who engaged people about their deep feelings and expectations around artwork, is utterly fascinating.
There’s nothing like a Morro & Jasp show: not in other time slots at Tarragon Theatre, not in the whole of the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival, not ever. Toronto’s favorite clown sisters have a new two-hander in the Fringe this year and it’s everything you ever wanted from them – bickering, antics, deep emotional engagement with the foundations of human connection, belly laughs and snacks.
The Stratford Festival production of Molière’s satirical play is currently on stage in Toronto
School of Rock hits the stage at Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre; family fun holiday musical
Family-favourite musical Mary Poppins warms the hearts of Toronto audiences at Young People’s Theatre
A new show in Toronto explores some of the many ways women fade from sight in our culture
A pre-Broadway run of the new musical about The Temptations is playing in Toronto
The Canadian Opera Company opens its 2018-19 season with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
