All posts by Katee Reid

Katee Reid is an assistant editor at Mooney on Theatre who joined the team in 2018.

FALLSVIEW TO A KILL – TORONTO FRINGE 2018 PRESS RELEASE

 

 

From Press Release:

Agents have had their identities compromised and the best of the best have been eliminated. It’s time to turn to the best of what’s left! Will they be able to save Niagara Falls in time…?

Dr. Thompson is up to his old tricks again, but this time he’s playing for keeps! Phase one is the elimination of every activeSMASH Agent. Phase two is a celebration party at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. Phase three is the total destruction of Niagara Falls! There’s only one man who can stop him, Disgraced Former C.I.E.H. Agent Jake Brand! Will Jake be able to stop Dr. Thompson in time, or will North America need a new “Honeymoon capital”?

Fallsview to a Kill is the Improvised Beatprov show that the Fringe Festival audience can’t afford to miss! The performance is structured but the plot and story of each 60 minute James Bond-style show will be unique. Through the improvised content in this show, audiences will get to see their suggestions come alive, as Jake Brand and his nemesis Dr. Thompson fight for the fate of Niagara Falls!

Details

  • Fallsview to a Kill plays at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. (79 St. George St.)
  • Tickets are $13, including a $2 service charge. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes and discounts for serious Fringers.
  • 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.
  • Content Warnings: Mature language; Audience participation; Gunshots.
  • This venue is wheelchair-accessible.
  • Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.

Performances

  • Friday July 6th, 3:00 pm
  • Saturday July 7th, 7:00 pm
  • Sunday July 8th, 2:45 pm
  • Monday July 9th, 2:45 pm
  • Wednesday July 11th, 11:00 pm
  • Friday July 13th, 5:45 pm
  • Saturday July 14th, 12:00 pm

 

WE THE MEN – TORONTO FRINGE 2018 PRESS RELEASE

 

 

From Press Release: 

Exploring the private and real conversations happening right now between men as they investigate whether the sexes are coming closer together or moving further apart.

In 2017 show co-creator and director Tracey Erin Smith took 54 women on the Soulomobile, Soulo Theatre’s storytelling bus, to the Women’s March on Washington and now feels the need to check in on how men are doing since the evolutionary movement.

This brand new and groundbreaking show from the award-winning SOULO Theatre is an outrageous comedy where 10 women walk in the shoes of men in an attempt to capture the state of men in North America.

The script is based on REAL conversations with REAL men exploring the backlash towards the #metoo movement while sharing a few of their own #metoo stories. With a culturally and artistically diverse cast from Nigerian, Pakistani, Indonesian, Jewish and LGBTQ backgrounds the story brings together 10 ‘men’ ​(women who have been theatrically transformed into men)​ for a weekend of beers, bonfires, confessions and a few tears. They decide the world needs to hear what they had to say, so the dudes decide to put on a Fringe show and ‘Take Back The Mic’.

Details

  • We The Men plays at the Cadillac Lounge. (1296 Queen St. W.)
    Tickets are $13, including a $2 service charge. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes and discounts for serious Fringers.
  • 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.
  • Content Warnings: Sexual content; Mature language; Unconventional venue.
  • 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.

Performances

Wednesday July 4th, 8:00 pm
Thursday July 5th, 8:00 pm
Friday July 6th, 8:00 pm
Saturday July 7th, 8:00 pm
Sunday July 8th, 8:00 pm
Friday July 13th, 8:00 pm
Saturday July 14th, 8:00 pm
Sunday July 15th, 8:00 pm

RAGE AGAINST The Trilogy – TORONTO FRINGE 2018 PRESS RELEASE

From Press Release:

“RAGE AGAINST The Trilogy” is three-of-a kind but really one-of-a-kind! A trilogy of shows all presented at the Toronto Fringe Festival that occur in a shared universe (of sorts), revolving around one-incident involving our amalgamated metaphor for the forgotten and marginalized (an unnamed homeless person). The ideas and questions asked revolve around “Good vs. Right” (i.e., what obligations, if any, do you have towards your loved ones in comparison to yourself and the cause you wish to die or fight for), “Finding Home” (i.e., what determines our sense of belonging? Is it our work? Is it our family? Is it our perceived sense of fulfilment?) and “Seeking Paradise” (i.e., How satisfied would we be if we perceive ourselves to be “successful” or at “home”? If ignorance is bliss then why do seek more?), and the madness and indifference in between. The structure of the trilogy is loosely inspired by Dante’s “Divine Comedy” – with each of the three shows drawing from “Inferno” (RAGE AGAINST The Inferno (Jerusalem), “Purgatorio” (RAGE AGAINST The Complacent), and “Paradiso” (RAGE AGAINST The King).

RAGE AGAINST THE COMPLACENT
By Daniel Bagg

RAGE AGAINST THE INFERNO
(JERUSALEM)
By Rouvan Silgox

RAGE AGAINST THE KING
By Andrew Markowiak

 

HERE ME – TORONTO FRINGE 2018 PRESS RELEASE

From Press Release:

This deaf dancer wants to speak…with you.

Words can lie. The body does not.

This mantra is the basis of AESTRIDR’s groundbreaking work, ​HERE ME​, a solo set to premiere this summer at the ​Toronto Fringe Festival​. ​HERE ME​ follows an intimate dialogue between AESTRIDR and the audience as she attempts to bridge the lifelong disconnect between her atypical deaf identity and the rest of the world.

At the age of six AESTRIDR was diagnosed with profound bilateral hearing loss and subsequently began wearing hearing aids. However, due to advice from presiding doctors and the cultural climate at home, she was never assimilated into Deaf culture – there was no instruction or communication in ASL, no social relations with the Deaf community and its participating individuals.

With her deafness, a persisting speech impediment, social isolation and ridiculement in the midst of a loud world, AESTRIDR struggles to convey her stories.

To remedy this, she has decided to create a language, one that is founded on eye contact, touch, expressions and gestures shown through movement of the body alone. In order for this language to function, ​AESTRIDR needs to have a conversation with someone, or rather a great amount of someones. Those who choose to participate must acknowledge that, in entering the space, they are trusted. AESTRIDR asks that trust to be reciprocated.

HERE ME​ is series of stories and experiences created in the moment – the dialogues created between each night may be similar or drastically different. Choices are made by both audience and artist as they interact, witnessing and feeling joy, grief, and laughter. In exiting the conversation, no two participants take home the same experience.

Details

  • Here Me plays at the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace. (30 Bridgman Ave.)
  • Tickets are $13, including a $2 service charge. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes and discounts for serious Fringers.
  • 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.
  • Content Warnings: Unsuitable for minors; Nudity; Audience participation.
  • This venue is barrier-free. Patrons who use wheelchairs or who cannot climb stairs are seated in the front row.
  • Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.

Performances

Thursday July 5th, 10:45 pm
Saturday July 7th, 7:15 pm
Monday July 9th, 6:30 pm
Tuesday July 10th, 10:15 pm
Thursday July 12th, 4:15 pm
Friday July 13th, 2:00 pm
Sunday July 15th, 12:15 pm

THE ABCs OF LOVE WITH ADULT BABY CUPID – TORONTO FRINGE 2018 PRESS RELEASE

From Press Release: 

The ABCs of Love with Adult Baby Cupid is the absurdly literal struggle of a woman making sense of possibly outdated romantic ideals and their impact on her career…which happens to be Cupid’s assistant in a traveling romantic advice show that’s been protested from coast-to-coast-to-coast. Join the doxed and glitter-bombed Kristen Mueller-Heaslip, playing herself, as she invokes Adult Baby Cupid to answer your questions about love and romance in the post #MeToo world at the Tarragon Theatre Solo Room during the Toronto Fringe July 5-15.

Written by Mueller-Heaslip and Adam Bailey, The ABCs of Love takes the popular character of Adult Baby Cupid, which Bailey created for the Lunacy Cabaret in Toronto, and gives him his first Fringe appearance. Mr. Bailey has created or directed several touring Fringe hits including The Life Henri (Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Production – Now Magazine, 5 Stars – Edmonton Fringe, Best of the Best – Saskatoon Fringe), Adam Bailey is on Fire (Patron’s Pick – Toronto Fringe), Skunkweed (Patron’s Pick – Toronto Fringe) and The Assassination of Robert Ford: Dirty Little Coward (Best of Fringe – Toronto). Mueller-Heaslip, who’s musical career includes opera credits such as Elvira in Ipuritani (Opera in Concert), winning the 2007 Eckhardt-Grammate National Music Competition, and being the lead singer of the Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra, joins Bailey after working with him on the 2012 Fringe hit, The Enchanted Crackhouse. Their zany take on love and Romance is sure to spark lots of conversation at this years Fringe tent, ensuring another must see show from Still Your Friend.

Details

  • THE ABCS OF LOVE WITH ADULT BABY CUPID plays at the Tarragon Theatre Solo Room. (30 Bridgman Ave.)
  • Tickets are $13, including a $2 service charge. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes and discounts for serious Fringers.
  • 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.
  • This venue is wheelchair-accessible through a secondary route. Check in at the venue box office at least 15 minutes before showtime, and a staff member will escort you to the venue. Accessible seating is in the front row.
  • Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.

Performances

Thursday July 5th, 7:45 pm
Sunday July 8th, 4:30 pm
Monday July 9th, 9:15 pm
Thursday July 12th, 6:15 pm
Saturday July 14th, 2:45 pm
Sunday July 15th, 2:15 pm