Samantha is both a writer and a fan of the arts and has been able to find numerous ways to pair the two. Aside from being an editor here at Mooney on Theatre, she's a photojournalist for Been Here Done That, a travel, dining and tourism blog that focuses on Toronto and abroad and previously for Lithium Magazine, which got her writing and shooting about everything from Dave Matthews Band to Fan Expo. She's passionate about music, theatre, photography, writing, and celebrating sexuality -- not necessarily in that order. She drinks tea more than coffee, prefer ciders over beers, and sings karaoke way too loudly. You can follow her on various social media including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
A personal tale meets live concert in Life, Death and the Blues, debuting at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille
Life Death and the Blues is a hybrid of theatre and live concert making its debut at the Theatre Passe Muraille mainstage. It’s the story of Raoul Bhaneja, a self-professed heart-and-soul blues man whose Indian-Irish background and Canadian upbringing doesn’t immediately lend itself to a pension for blues music, but yet here he stands — a man who’s happy to pour his heart into his harmonica.
Bhaneja, backed by his blues band The Big Time and lead by soul songstress Juno-Award winner Divine Brown, takes the audience on an autobiographical journey of discovery through blues music. The evening caps off with a unique jam session with a different blues legend each night. Allow me to assure you, if each jam session is as electric as the one I witnessed tonight, that session alone is worth the price of admission.
Factory Theatre, with the unanimous support from this season’s partners, is attempting to redefine what “opening night” means by considering what the artists want from it, and what the audience deserves from it, not just what tradition dictates it should be.
Mooney on Theatre is giving away tickets to a performance of Escape from Happiness at Alumnae Theatre (70 Berkeley Street) on Thursday, October 2at 8 pm.
To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets just send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “Escape from Happiness” by 11:00 pm on Monday, September 29, 2014.
See below for details about the show and how the contest works:
Aromas is a candid look at professional sex work, on stage at Toronto’s Red Sandcastle Theatre
Confession — sex work fascinates me. Having befriended strong and proud individuals from professional dominatrixes to professional girlfriends (or ‘companions’ as many prefer to be called), I feel I have a pretty strong understanding of what the industry entails. So when the opportunity to see Aromas, playing at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, arose, I was instantly intrigued.
The performance is a one-woman show — a first-person account of a skating ballerina turned professional escort and the wondrous encounters with fascinating and colourful individuals from her rich and vibrant past. What the audience is left with is an empowering and revealing story that speaks on many levels, with nuggets of intriguing wisdom like how “the Kama Sutra is a book of prayers”.
Tartuffe, the classic French comedy, is on stage at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto
Tartuffe, the classic French comedy by Molière originally premiered in 1664, is one of the world’s most famous comedies to ever be performed on the stage. In fact, it was become so popular that the term “Tartuffe” has made its way into both English and French dictionaries and is defined as “a religious hypocrite, or a hypocritical pretender to excellence of any kind.”
Taking to the stage at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts and translated into English by Richard Wilbur, the diligent cast at Soulpepper have breathed vitality and tenacity into this already fast paced and physically demanding play for two and a half hours of seriously funny theatre.
Mooney on Theatre is giving away tickets to a performance of 
Confession — sex work fascinates me. Having befriended strong and proud individuals from professional dominatrixes to professional girlfriends (or ‘companions’ as many prefer to be called), I feel I have a pretty strong understanding of what the industry entails. So when the opportunity to see 