Wayne Leung (1981-2019)
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.
fu-GEN Theatre presents Lauren Yee’s play Ching Chong Chinaman at Toronto’s Aki Studio Theatre
I grew up in the largely homogeneous, middle-class suburbs of Ottawa back in the 1980s; a time when it definitely wasn’t cool to be “ethnic”. As a result I had to assimilate as best I could to blend in to the dominant white, anglo culture.
This assimilation created a bit of a rift in my family; my parents are first generation immigrants, they speak with an accent and hold on to many old world Chinese values and customs whereas my brother and I were essentially middle-class suburban white kids … if it weren’t for the fact that we looked Chinese.
American playwright Lauren Yee explores complex identity issues and sends them up in deliciously irreverent manner in her play Ching Chong Chinaman which fu-GEN Theatre Company is presenting for the first time in Canada.
Mirvish presents Studio 180’s Clybourne Park at Toronto’s Panasonic Theatre
When I was a kid my family would drive down to Toronto once a year to visit my aunt and uncle in Leslieville. On a stretch of Queen Street east of the Don River literally on the wrong side of the tracks; back then Leslieville was a run-down, working-class, immigrant ghetto. Nowadays, several of my comfortably middle-class, mostly white friends are flocking to the rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood and I only go to check out trendy new brunch spots as my aunt and uncle have since retired to the more comfortable climes of Markham. Continue reading Review: Clybourne Park (Studio 180 Theatre/Mirvish)→
Toronto’s Obsidian Theatre opens its new season with Joseph Jomo Pierre’s play Shakespeare’s Nigga
I distinctly remember a conversation I had with my friend Rudy a few months ago. When I invited him to the theatre to see a Shakespeare play and he said, “Oh, I’ve never liked Shakespeare” when I pressed him to elaborate he offered, “you know, even in high school when they forced us to learn it I always just thought he was just some old white dude whose writing couldn’t possibly have any relevance to my life or my experience.”
The Canadian Opera Company presents Mozart’s last opera La clemenza di Tito in Toronto
Sometimes you just can’t please everyone even if you’re as benevolent as Emperor Titus. La clemenza di Tito was Mozart’s last opera. It was written on a commission to commemorate the coronation of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor as King of Bohemia, in 1791; the last year of the composer’s life.
Toronto’s Factory Theatre opens its new season with Nina Lee Aquino’s play Every Letter Counts
Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. is a storied figure in Filipino political history; in 1967 he was elected to the senate of the Philippines (the youngest person to be elected to the senate in that country’s history). He was a populist politician, a fierce fighter for the working class and an outspoken critic of President Ferdinand Marcos’ administration and the excesses of the president and his wife.
I grew up in the largely homogeneous, middle-class suburbs of Ottawa back in the 1980s; a time when it definitely wasn’t cool to be “ethnic”. As a result I had to assimilate as best I could to blend in to the dominant white, anglo culture.
