Megan loves being in the thick of all things theatre, but her ultimate goal is to promote theatre to the world of non-theatre people. It was the same when she was the theatre writer for blogTO, or the Fringe Correspondent for CBC Radio One‘s Here and Now, as it is as the founder of Mooney on Theatre. Her basic belief is that there is theatre/performance out there for everyone to love, they just need to find it. This is not to be confused with the idea that everyone should love theatre for theatre’s sake, in fact, as obsessed as she is with theatre, even *she* doesn’t love all types of theatre.
Think the peaceful protest against war started in the 60s? Nope. The 60s may have brought us “make love, not war”, but ancient Greece brought us “until you stop making war, we’ll stop making love”.
If you’re unfamiliar with the story, a woman, Lysistrata, convinces the women of Greece to deny men sex until they stop their fighting in a civil war. She’s successful. Sex is denied. And that leads to a lot of sexually frustrated people, and what’s funnier than sexually frustrated people?
So, the Toronto Fringe Festival is drawing to a close. Today and tomorrow are your last chances to do some hard-core fringing this year.
With 145 shows, it’s impossible to see everything. So I asked my writers what they will be sad to miss if they don’t get to see it. Here’s what they told me:
The Traveling Saleman & His Magical Suitcase of Desires! by Zanni Arte Productions is a great show. One that works for both children and adults. I think that kids between the ages of 4 – 12 or so would be in their bliss during this piece filled with zany antics. But it’s also great for adults too. I’ve spoken to a number of adults who went and really enjoyed it, and I’ve recommended it to adults without children.
The Bright Idea is a playful children’s play that will appeal to kids ages 4 – 10 or so I’d say. Narrated by a night-light, this piece follows two children as they help a lost shadow return to shadow land.
There is a bit of ‘choose your own adventure‘ where the audience is given the choice between two things to move the action forward. I loved the idea of choose your own adventure in play format, but I’m not positive it worked here. I think the choices were too similar. They wouldn’t actually take the story in different directions, only change one action. Of course, I realise that developing, rehearsing and executing a more complex version where the choices drive the story may be a bit ambitious for a Fringe show.
Each of the festival’s 13 main venues has a Patron’s Pick. It is determined by the show that sells the most tickets to their show over the course of the festival. Unlike during the rest of the festival, where only 50% of the tickets are available for advance sale, For the Patron’s Pick, 100% of tickets can be sold in advance, so make sure to buy your tickets early. They’re on sale now, and you buy them just like any other advance tickets at the Fringe.
All the patron’s picks are Sunday evening, a listing of the time in each venue is in bold in the Sunday section of the Master Schedule.
See below for a listing of all the patron’s picks:
