Dorianne is a graduate of the Theatre and Drama Studies joint program between University of Toronto, Erindale campus and Sheridan College. She writes short stories, plays and screenplays and was delighted to be accepted into the 2010 Diaspora Dialogues program and also to have her short story accepted into the 2011 edition of TOK: Writing The New Toronto collection. She is also a regularly contributing writer on http://www.sexlifecanada.ca. You can follow her on twitter @headonist if you like tweets about cats, sex, food, queer stuff and lefty politics.
I felt that I was somewhat familiar with Shepard’s work, but I was pretty astounded at the content of the show. It begins with an old man muttering to himself about his past exploits in the Wild West. He says he is at least 120 years old and one of three brothers who led a gang of outlaws in endeavours like robbing trains. Continue reading Review: The Unseen Hand (Theatre Brouhaha/The Playwright Project)→
Theatre that breaks boundaries and tosses expectation aside at Toronto’s World Stage
When I walk into a theatre I tend to expect a fictional (or fictionalized) narrative with a structured arc, defined characters, etc. I tend to prefer things that are surreal, abstracted or absurd, but compared to the work of She She Pop, my usual tastes are tragically conventional. Happily, I had read enough about She She Pop & Their Fathers: Testamentthat I didn’t have any such expectations: I knew it would be performance art driven, so I walked in with an open mind and was happily delighted with the experience.
You probably haven’t seen anything like This at Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre
The title of This, currently produced by Canadian Stage, lends itself to a lot of wordplay, sometimes unintentional. When I walked into the Berkeley Street Theatre I gasped and said to my companion “I’ve never seen it like this.” I wasn’t referencing the play itself, though I laughed about it a second later. But I think the designer’s decision to strip away the stage from the space was intended to evoke a reaction to “this” and thus set the mood for the play. Continue reading Review: This (Canadian Stage)→
Arigato, Tokyo brings elements of Japanese Noh Theatre to the Toronto stage
The section on Japanese Noh Theatre I took in theatre school has finally come in handy. Daniel MacIvor’s Arigato, Tokyo, playing at Buddies in Bad Times, uses forms of Noh Theatre in the story of Carl Dewar, a cynical novelist who indulges in wanton sex and drug use to stave off his loneliness. Dewar travels to Japan for a book tour and the play is peppered with readings from this fictional novel, passages that show both disdain and deep longing for romantic love. Continue reading Review: Arigato,Tokyo (Buddies In Bad Times Theatre)→
Week one of Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival encourages some emerging Toronto talent
New Ideas at Alumnae Theatre is a festival of new plays, a starting place for playwrights and directors to experiment, to try out their works-in -progress.
So it is always an uneven night; the shows are of varying quality and are mostly in a nascent state. But by attending you may get to see a roughly cut gem and you do get to help develop new working – there is a feedback form in the program where each audience member can provide constructive criticism on each script. There are three weeks, each with a separate lineup of plays.
