If your town were in the middle of an arson epidemic and two strangers showed up at your house and started stockpiling gasoline in your attic would you hand them a match? For any rational person the answer would be “no.” Unfortunately, modern morality is never quite so straightforward.
On the evening of November 6, I sat around in breathless anticipation for the big news story of the night. No, not the results of the US presidential election, the launch of the Soulpepper 2013 season.
Founded in 1998 by a group of actors, Stratford Festival alums who were eager to establish a leading classical theatre company in Toronto, Soulpepper has since become the largest employer of theatre artists in the city.
Continue reading Announcement: Soulpepper and the Young Centre – 2013 – the year to come
On October 30, 1938 a young actor/director named Orson Welles took to the radio, a relatively new medium at the time, for a dramatic adaptation of H.G. Wells’ sci-fi Martian invasion novel The War of the Worlds. The radio play, staged as a series of mock news bulletins, incited mass panic as people mistook the fake newscasts for the real thing, believing an actual Martian invasion was occurring.
It’s a good thing times have changed and people today are no longer so gullible and uncritical. Well, okay, there were those fake images of Hurricane Sandy that flooded social media platforms this past week and the not-infrequent celebrity death hoaxes on Twitter. Maybe not much has really changed since the infamous broadcast. Continue reading Review: The War of the Worlds (Art of Time Ensemble)
Bobby Del Rio is a Toronto-based actor, producer and playwright. His latest project, in 40 years, is a hybrid performance piece that resembles a poetry reading crossed with a dance recital.
Del Rio collaborated with nine talented young artists; Dasha Bosaya, Charlotte Cattell, Michael Demski, Naomi Krajden, Kwame Kyei-Boateng, Chase Lo, Cydney Penner, Roselyn Kelada-Sedra, Miroki Tong, to create a piece that consists of meditations on different aspects of love. Continue reading Review: in 40 years (Bobby Del Rio)
In February of last year, Theatre 20 debuted with a big splash. An artist-led, story driven company, Theatre 20 announced their intention of creating a company that would nurture the development of Canadian musical theatre talent and develop new Canadian musicals.
At the time of its launch, artistic director Adam Brazier proclaimed that Theatre 20 would be “the voice of the great unsung musicals” and that the company aimed to create work that was “evocative, memorable and challenging … theatre that asks big questions and explores big ideas.”
Continue reading Review: Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare (Theatre 20/Mirvish)