Always a theatre lover Sam realized in middle age that there's more to Toronto theatre than just mainstream and is now in love with one person shows, adores festivals, and quirky venues make her day.
Toronto’s Cue6 Theatre presents Ruby Rae Spiegel play taking on teen abortion
Cue6 Theatre’s production of Dry Land opened on Friday at The Assembly Theatre. Playwright Ruby Rae Spiegel was only 21 when the play was first produced. One of the things that motivated her was reading an article about the rise of DIY abortions. Given the changes to the laws in the U.S. over the past few years it’s a timely topic. It’s one we can’t afford to ignore here either. Unfortunately.
This makes it sound as if Dry Land is a political play. It isn’t. The publicity says it’s a play about “abortion, female friendship, and resiliency“. It’s funny, and agonizing, and wonderful. My friend Marg and I both loved it. Continue reading Review: Dry Land (Cue6 Theatre)→
Soulpepper Theatre brings Delightful Bed and Breakfast to the Toronto Stage.
Soulpepper has extended their production of Mark Crawford’s play, Bed and Breakfast, to September 8th. It’s easy to see why. It’s very funny, very fast, and it has 21 characters played by two actors – Gregory Prest as Brett and Paolo Santalucia as Drew – who change characters in the blink of an eye.
It’s also fairly long for a new play, two hours and twenty minutes with an intermission. I was concerned that it might be too much for my rather short attention span. Not at all. I was engaged from beginning to end. In fact, I didn’t want it to end. Continue reading Review: Bed and Breakfast (Soulpepper)→
In the SummerWorks program it said that The Artist’s Children by Liv Hussey would receive ‘a play workshop reading’. I interpreted that as a staged reading. I’ve enjoyed the staged readings that I’ve seen in the past so chances were I would like this. I did. It doesn’t feel appropriate to review a reading but it was lovely and I was glad I was there.
Are you old enough to remember ads in the personals, life before online dating? Brian Francis is. In Box 4091, part of SummerWorks, he answers 13 replies to an ad he placed in the London Free Press in 1992 when he was 21. He found the letters recently and reread them. He hadn’t responded to them at the time, for various reasons. To me, it’s amazing that he kept the letters in the first place.
Francis starts with some background about why he placed the ad, about how difficult it was to live in a house with four straight men, that it was hard to meet other men, and that he was only emerging from the closet, not everyone knew he was gay.
Swim Team, a play by Jaber Ramezani, had it’s premier on Sunday at SummerWorks. In the program it says the play is “Inspired by real stories from the world of women’s sports in post-revolutionary Iran…”
On Saturday afternoon I saw 35 minutes of amazing, heartrending, theatre performed in Arabic with English subtitles. Adrenaline is produced by Theatre Mada in Kitchener, a collective of Arab theatre artists living in the Waterloo Region, and is part of SummerWorks.
I watch movies and TV with subtitles often, probably about 20% of the time. For some reason, it never occurs to me to see theatre in languages other than English or French. I guess I assume there wouldn’t be subtitles. I don’t know why I’d assume that. Continue reading Adrenaline (Theatre Mada) 2018 SummerWorks Review→
Arriving about four minutes late for Lion Womxn, The Amy Project’s production for SummerWorks because of a streetcar backup, I had to discretely text my editor to let her know that I had indeed made it in after all, and then dig in my bag for a pen and my notebook.
About 10 minutes into the show I realized that there were going to be tears involved – mine – but I really didn’t want to dig in my bag again, looking for tissues, unless it was really necessary. It wasn’t. I did cry through a lot of the piece but they were the kind of tears I could manage without kleenex. They were tears of sadness, recognition, regret, and admiration. It wasn’t all tears, I laughed too. Continue reading Lion Womxn (The Amy Project) 2018 SummerWorks Review→
Have you ever been to the Red Sandcastle Theatre? It used to be a store and it’s quite long and narrow. It’s a small space that seats about 50 people in three rows along the long wall. The stage isn’t raised at all–it’s what’s left over after the seating. It makes for very intimate theatre, and was perfect for this gothic piece set in the middle of nowhere. Continue reading Review: Gripless (Deborah Ann Frankel/Red Sandcastle Theatre)→
The Merkin Sisters (a SNAFU production, playing at the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival) has a back story. I know because it says so in the Fringe program. If I hadn’t read that, I wouldn’t have a clue — and it wouldn’t really matter. It’s billed as “A no-holds-barred physical comedy” but I don’t think that comes close to describing it.
I’d add wildly imaginative, absurd, bizarre, and sometimes baffling. And funny. Very funny.
Toronto’s Cue6 Theatre presents Ruby Rae Spiegel play taking on teen abortion
Soulpepper Theatre brings Delightful Bed and Breakfast to the Toronto Stage.
Arriving about four minutes late for 
Gothic play takes to the Toronto stage
