Wayne was the Managing Editor of Mooney on Theatre from 2012 - 2019 and will be sorely missed. His death from an apparent heart attack was a loss not just to Mooney on Theatre, but also to the Toronto Theatre Community at large. You can read our publisher Megan Mooney's tribute to him here here.
Wayne was a writer, editor and corporate communications professional who was thrilled to be a part of the Mooney on Theatre team. Wayne loved theatre ever since his aunt brought him to a production of Les Misérables at the tender age of ten . . . despite the fact that, at that age, the show’s plot was practically indiscernible and the battle scenes scared the bejeezus out of him. Wayne’s current list of likes ran the gamut from opera, ballet and Shakespeare to Broadway musicals, circus and Fringe theatre. Outside of the theatre Wayne’s interests included travel, technology and food.
What if some of the most powerful and ruthless despots in the history of the world, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Oliver Cromwell, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Pancho Villa, Pope Pius XII, and Chairman Mao could meet together in a summit? What if they were pitted against each other in a game show-like contest to determine which among them would be named the strongest man who ever lived? Continue reading The Physical Ramifications of Attempted Global Domination (Birdtown and Swanville) 2011 SummerWorks Review→
Written in 1946, The Glass Menagerie was Tennessee Williams’ breakthrough play and has since become one of the most prolific works of the American theatre. Soulpepper’s production of The Glass Menagerie is an exquisitely directed, beautifully acted and wonderfully designed tribute to the classic story.
Following up on their stunning production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman last year, Soulpepper is firmly establishing its reputation for brilliant interpretations of the classic works of the American theatre canon.
After a successful run on Broadway, Mirvish brings film star and author Carrie Fisher to Toronto for the Canadian premiere of her one-woman confessional show Wishful Drinking, now on stage at the Royal Alexandra Theatre through August 21.
Much can and has been said of Carrie Fisher; actress, author, mental-illness survivor, recovered alcoholic, daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, cultural icon, tabloid fodder and unwitting masturbatory aide for a generation of sci-fi geeks the world over.
Wanda T. Grimsby is Toronto’s top detective-slash-adventurer. Wanda works for the mysterious Franco-Russian, Big Bittions who finds companionship in the giant eyeball she carries around with her (the “private eye”) and has a fondness for prattling on in a comically exaggerated French accent.
This show has an amazing back-story. After being diagnosed with cancer; comedian, actor and writer Daniel Stolfi was forced to withdraw from the 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival to prepare for the battle with the disease that would ultimately become the inspiration for this new show.
There was a time when online dating carried a real social stigma. After all, people who needed to find dates on the Internet were obviously too socially inept to meet people the “normal” way. With the proliferation of social media that stigma has greatly diminished, as meeting people online has become the “normal” way of meeting new people. Continue reading Love, Virtually (Working Title Artists Company) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review→
One of the pitfalls of living in such close proximity to so many people in an urban setting is that it can make you a bit callous to the human condition. I recall this time last year when I was in a hurry to get somewhere and couldn’t use the subway because there was an indefinite delay due to “injury at track level”.
Michael Hughes is a musical theatre performer, cabaret singer and lifelong devotee of Judy Garland. As a kid, Michael’s burgeoning obsession with musicals, Judy Garland and cross-dressing worried his parents to the point where they sent him to a psychiatrist.
Twenty years later, that psychiatrist wanted to talk to him again. Michael agreed on the condition that the psychiatrist would relinquish photocopies of all the charts from his childhood analyses to him. Those charts are incorporated into Mickey & Judy, a musical revue and “pseudo-memoir” of Hughes’ childhood. Continue reading Mickey & Judy (Random Hero Entertainment) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review→
Get Happy is an interesting multi-disciplinary work incorporating music, dance and poetry. Harking back to the swing era, the show combines torch songs with lindy hopping and wistful, poetic verses.
