All posts by Wayne Leung

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.

Review: FELA! (Mirvish)

1 Comment

Mirvish presents the hit Broadway musical FELA! at Toronto’s Canon Theatre through November 6, 2011.

When Sahr Ngaujah leaps out onto the stage as the title character in FELA! and cries out, “Let me hear you say, ‘yeah, yeah’”, the audience responds with an exuberant, “Yeah, yeah!” Our instinctive enthusiasm is ultimately well placed for this heart-pounding and thrilling performance.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti isn’t exactly a household name and many of us are probably unaware of who he was. A gifted Nigerian musician, Kuti was the father of the Afrobeat jazz genre of music, a fusion of jazz, funk, rock and traditional West African music and rhythms.

Continue reading Review: FELA! (Mirvish) →

Review: HARDSELL 2.0 (Factory Theatre, Necessary Angel and WYRD)

Factory Theatre presents Rick Miller in HARDSELL 2.0 through October 23.

Make no mistake about it, Rick Miller is incredibly talented. He sings, he dances, he acts and is capable of doing about a zillion spot-on impersonations. However, HARDSELL 2.0 which follows hot on the heels of his two other solo efforts, MacHomer and Bigger Than Jesus, opening this season at Factory Theatre may not be the best showcase for the man’s many talents.

Continue reading Review: HARDSELL 2.0 (Factory Theatre, Necessary Angel and WYRD) →

Review: Another Africa (Canadian Stage and Volcano Theatre)

Canadian Stage opens its 2011-12 season with Volcano Theatre’s Another Africa.

Another Africa brings together a cast, crew and creative team from over a dozen countries to create a theatrical dialogue between Africa and the West, and is also an exhilarating start to the Canadian Stage season.

The production is the end-result of a series of workshops beginning in 2007 and first appeared at the 2010 Luminato Festival as The Africa Trilogy where it garnered raves from critics and audiences alike.

Continue reading Review: Another Africa (Canadian Stage and Volcano Theatre) →

Review: Spring Awakening (Lower Ossington Theatre)

Toronto’s Lower Ossington Theatre (The LOT) kicks off its new season with 8-time Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening, now playing through October 8, 2011.

Spring Awakening is a rock musical with music by 90s alt-rocker Duncan Sheik. It’s based on a play of the same title by German playwright Frank Wedekind.

Written in 1891, Wedekind’s story is about a group of teens in a provincial German town struggling to deal with their budding sexuality in a stifling, repressive society. The stuffy, prudish adults in their lives all but ignore them in their need for sex education and leave them to deal with the consequences of acting on their throbbing biological urges.

Continue reading Review: Spring Awakening (Lower Ossington Theatre) →

Review: Come Fly Away (Dancap)

1 Comment

Dancap Productions presents choreographer Twyla Tharp’s tribute to Frank Sinatra Come Fly Away at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts through August 28, 2011.

I’ll admit I have a bit of an affinity for the old jazz crooners. The songs of Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin and of course Frank Sinatra are regular fixtures on my iPod playlists. Songs like “My Way” and “I’ve Got the World on a String” feature prominently in my shower concert sets, as my condo neighbors will undoubtedly attest.

The brassy big band arrangements of Frank Sinatra’s songs have the uncanny ability to make me feel nostalgic for an era in which I never even lived. That’s why I was interested in seeing Come Fly Away despite the fact that I’m not usually a fan of jukebox musicals or tribute shows.

Continue reading Review: Come Fly Away (Dancap) →