A Lover Improper, playing at this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival, is one woman’s personal tale of acknowledging, accepting, finding, and enjoying love and sex. One-person shows of a personal nature are always either a hit or a miss and it comes down to how engaging the story teller is. In this case, Arianne Shaffer is endearing, uplifting, and a lot of fun to watch.
Continue reading A Lover Improper (Templeton Productions) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review
I chose the best way to kick off this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival — with a cold beer at the air conditioned ROUND venue for a rock show. Well, kind of. Binge is the story of two band mates wrapped up in the drunken downfall of rock and roll resulting in one helluva ride.
Continue reading Binge (Epigraph Collective) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review
From press release
A woman and her dead lover meet in dreams. A surreal physical comedy caught between love and parasomnia. Winners of Leipzig’s PALAZZO Award and Hollywood Fringe’s BLAFF Award. After winning the Canadian Association of Fringe Festival’s Touring Lottery, RAGMOP Theatre is thrilled to bring their latest to the Toronto Fringe.
Nayana Fielkov is a performing and visual artist trained in classical theatre, musicals(Capilano College Theatre department, Alex Bruhanski Theatre), mask, clowning (John Turner of Mump and Smoot, David MacMurray‐Smith, Deanna Fleycher, Peter Jarvis), Action Theatre TM (Ruth Zaporah), and Contact Dance Improvisation (Peter Bingham, Edam Dance, Karl Frost). She has received a Columbia Basin touring grant for Oracle Improv, and was the assistant director for Jessie Award nominated Hard Times Hit Parade. She is a founder, director, and player in the roving troupe The Ladies in White, in the clown troupe Poupon Parade, and in the theatrical musical ensemble The Myrtle Family Band. She is co-founder of Hawah art lab, The Ancient Rugged Revival, and of The Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret.
Matthew “Poki” McCorkle is mime and object manipulator specializing in physical illusions. His work has traveled to Dubai (Cirque Éloize 2014, 2015), Israel, Taiwan, and Germany (PALAZZO Dinner Theater 2015-2016). He co-conceived the award winning physical theatre duo Button Wagon (2010-2013) and The Incredible Incredible (2015-current). He is a proud member of Clowns Without Borders including tours to The Philippines in the wake of Super Typhoon Hiayan (2013) and to Syrian Refugee centers in Nürnberg Germany (2016). Matthew is based at the Lookout Arts Quarry in Bellingham WA, USA where he is the Artist in Residency Coordinator.
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Photo of Matthew “Poki” McCorkle and Nayana Fielkov by Kai Hou.
From press release
Frolick Theatre is excited to announce Cowboy Mouth – Sam Shepard and Patti Smith’s 1971 classic – at Toronto Fringe 2016. This twisted psychedelic love story will be brought to life at Theatre Passe Muraille’s Mainspace, with seven show dates starting June 30. A mythology of their own real life tryst, Smith and Shepard’s iconic personas inspire the play’s action.
Cavale kidnaps Slim at gunpoint convinced he’s the rock-and-roll saviour, a “Jesus with a Cowboy Mouth,” and she’s ready to make him a star. Only problem is, they fall in love. These two accidental lovers occupy a room at the famous Chelsea Hotel in New York City, where they face each other, their creative dreams turned nightmares, and the constant desire to escape from their sordid reality, through sex, love and rock & roll.
Directed by L’ecole internationale de Jacques Lecoq graduate Maria Wodzinska, the production examines without censure the fantasy, folly, and freedom embodied in counterculture. Written at the beginning of the punk rock movement, Wodzinska urges the viewer to fast-forward to the here and now, inspired by the loft-living arts collective growing locally in Toronto at Frolick’s base: Bartley Studio.
“It’s escapism pushed to its most intense extreme, pure creative mania,” she says. “It can be revolutionary, it can be visionary, it can be beautiful as equally as it can be turbulent, chaotic, and destructive.”
For Frolick Theatre’s artistic director, Matthew Krist, Cowboy Mouth resonates strongly with the company’s mandate: presenting plays that explore dreams and other realities, mythologies and their impact on the artist’s path. A huge fan of both Shepard and Smith, Krist describes it as a “maverick play with rock n’ roll edge and a great comedic seriousness that will resonate with the Fringe audience.”
This production premiered in April 2016 at Frolick’s space in Toronto, Bartley Studio, as a dinner theatre fundraiser for the Multidisciplinary Association for Disciplinary Studies (MAPS). MAPS advocates for the safe use of psychedelics in association with PTSD and other mental health issues. Continuing on this successful run, the play will be re-imagined for the Fringe stage.
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Image provided by the company
From press release
Glacity Theatre Collective (GTC) from Toledo, OH will bring their original musical, House of Vinyl, to the Toronto Fringe Festival this summer. Written and composed by company members Edmund B. Lingan and Timothy Lake, House of Vinyl was developed through Glacity’s Junkbox Theatre Initiative which is focused on devising new works for the company. According to Lingan, “Junkbox describes GTC’s particular approach to devised (or made-from–scratch) theatre. Junkbox theatre is created out of whatever materials the collaborative group of artists has lying around: old, unfinished portions of plays, ideas jotted on notebook paper and shoved in a drawer. Whatever. The Junkbox process takes these various materials and converts them into a full and comprehensive work of theatre with a fascinating story.” For this Junkbox creation, the script is based on a story that Lingan wrote and re-wrote several times in different formats, first as a play, then a novel, followed by a screenplay, and now in musical format. The Lingan-Lake score is mostly guitar driven, and augmented with triggered samples.
House of Vinyl focuses on Horton Stephen Wilder, who has an intense fear of open spaces, or agoraphobia. When Horton is forced out of his apartment and into the street because of a gas leak, he embarks on a strange and hallucinogenic journey involving lawyer-knights, psychic stingrays, a diaper fetishist, and yards and yards of vinyl. Will he ever make it back to his apartment and safety? Or will he be trapped in the House of Vinyl forever?
Lake directs the show, and Lingan serves as actor/musician. The rest of the company consists of Nolan Thomaswick as Horton, Tori Zajac, Jennifer Nagy-Lake, Lynnette Bates, Gary Insch, Noah York, and Holly Monsos. Andrés Medina is Stage Manager, costumes are designed by Lynnette Bates, and lighting is by Cory Sprinkles.
To help offset the cost of housing a company of 11 for nearly two weeks in Toronto, Glacity has started a Go Fund Me campaign. To learn more or to donate your support, go to https://www.gofundme.com/Glacity.
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Poto of Tori Zajac and Nolan Thomaswick by Cory Sprinkles