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.
Now in its 4th year, The Next Stage Theatre Festival is Toronto’s premiere winter theatre event, presenting 8 productions by the best local and international artists from across the Fringe circuit! Past productions have been recognized by a total of 9 Dora Award Nominations, remounts in top theatres across Canada, and even an Off-Broadway run in New York City.
This year’s lineup presents the festival’s greatest variety of shows, including work by celebrated artists such as: Australian Fringe Legend Nicola Gunn, Order of Canada recipient Judith Thompson, Juno Award Winning Pianist Hilario Duran, Winner of the John Hirsch Prize for an Outstanding Emerging Theatre Director Daryl Cloran, and UNIMA-USA Citations for Excellence winner Ann Powell.
Happy ‘we’re past the shortest day of the year!’ to everyone!
We’re taking a bit of time off at Mooney on Theatre over the next couple weeks to get ourselves in good shape for 2011. This means that, although there will still be some articles posted, we will be on a bit of a hiatus until the new year, so there won’t be quite as much content as you’re used to.
Don’t worry though, we’ll be back, full steam ahead, once we’ve refuelled a bit.
Last September Theatre Smith-Gilmour, Why Not Theatre, and TheatreRUNtook the Toronto theatre scene by storm with their smash-hit production Spent. In fact, the production was such a success it garnered 3 Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations (including outstanding production and outstanding new play) and went on to win for best performance by an ensemble in a featured role.
Due to popular demand Spent is returning to the Factory Studio Theatre on Friday, October 29, 2010, on the 81st anniversary of Black Tuesday. Fittingly enough, the piece is an intelligent, hilarious and poetic commentary on greed and the financial crisis of 2008.
In a couple days (Thursday, October 28) a new multi-disciplinary performance piece exploring the meaning of ‘home’ will open in the Theatre Passe Muraille backspace. The piece, called Homeland, is an interplay of fiction and reality, scripted fictional performance interacting with documentary film.
It’s a snapshot of our lives, divided between two or more worlds.
Homeland is described as a multi-faceted examination of the meaning of home in a hybrid setting of dance, live music and documentary film. The spoken, and at times unspoken, words of the personalities in the film are translated into a solo dance and physical theatre against the beat of drums and flow of electronic sequences performed by two musicians on stage. This contemplative journey of words, sounds, and movements, makes one rethink the definition of home.
Last year Toronto was all a twitter about the Birdland Theatre‘s sold-out presentation of Assassins. In fact, Birdland Theatre has won 6 Dora Awards, and regularly gets rave reviews and sold out houses.
This year, there’s something new to talk about. SoulSeek is an original new work that will be premiering at The Walmer Centre Theatre on Thursday October 7, 2010. The piece explores death death as a point of change, instead of an ending.
The plot revolves around one woman, Vita (played by Zorana Kydd), whose story starts in the moment of her death and continues as she travels through the underworld and her consciousness and as she searches for her lost loved one.
