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.
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.
