There are a few ingredients needed to make a great sketch show. You need talent, a point of view, strong writing and competent directing. Simply put, Pick of the Fringe has it all.
Continue reading Pick of the Fringe (Punch In the Box Productions) 2010 Toronto Fringe Review
By Megan Mooney
If you don’t already know Shel Silverstein’s piece The Devil and Billy Markham, picture a raunchier, graphic, and more profane grown-up version of something like Casey at the Bat set in good ol’ Mudville. Because of the rhythm and flow it feels similar, although, it’s certainly not something you’d be teaching your children to recite in grade school.
The piece is billed as ‘storytelling’, and it makes sense with this as the text they’re working from. Storytelling differs from ‘traditional’ theatre because the person on stage is actively talking to the audience, and although different voices are used, there isn’t the same focus on ‘developing a character’. In fact, for me, when it works best for me is when it feels as great as it did when my dad would read to me when I was a kid, using all sorts of different voices for the characters.
By Megan Mooney
Anita Majumdar has a reputation and track record to live up to. She’s a woman with a phenomenal amount of talent. Her most recent piece, Oy! Just Beat It! may not work as well for me as her earlier work, but there is still a lot to recommend this piece.
Continue reading Oy! Just Beat It! (Theatre Ji) 2010 Toronto Fringe Review
By Megan Mooney
At Mooney on Theatre we are grateful for the support from our sponsors. We hope that to reward their support of the arts in Toronto you go and check out their show.
I’m talking about The Whores at the Toronto Fringe Festival. The show has been getting some positive buzz. I am hearing great things and hope I get a chance to see it.
Darreck Chua, the president of the board for the Toronto Fringe Festival (aka, the Toronto Fringe God) named this one as a play to see.
And, an awesome added bonus, A portion of the proceeds from these performances will go to support Maggie’s Toronto, an advocacy group for sex workers.
Continue reading (Sponsored Post) The Whores at Toronto and Hamilton Fringe
By Megan Mooney
Okay. Cactus: The Seduction is a friggin’ weird show. Luckily, it’s also a friggin’ awesome one.
This is a show that’s been selling out everywhere it’s gone, and the buzz clearly followed it to the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival. I got there close to 20 minutes before the show started and was glad I had pre-booked my ticket. I’m pretty sure they were already sold out.
What’s particularly impressive about that is that it was the first performance of Cactus in Toronto at this year’s festival. Sometimes it seems a bit like pulling teeth to get audiences out to the first show of the festival. Everyone wants to wait for reviews to come out so they can choose which of the 150+ shows they’re going to go to.
If you’re looking for a traditional narrative, this isn’t the show for you. But if you have a sense of humour that sometimes trends towards the more base pursuits, and don’t mind a touch of the absurd, then you may very well pee yourself laughing at this one. Which would perhaps fit perfectly into this show.
Continue reading Cactus: The Seduction (Jonno Katz) 2010 Toronto Fringe Review