Rowing by Chrysalis Workshop is playing at the Toronto Fringe Festival, in the site specific venue of a creepy unfinished basement accessed via an alleyway in Kensington Market. In it, a sad group of rowers who has garnered the first loss in their team’s 51 years of existence, attempts to throw a party and livestream it to raise money for charity.

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The premise of the piece To Jane With Love by Promise Productions at the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival spent it’s time teetering on the fine line between being a real knockout or a cliche drama, and unfortunately the play delivered the latter.

Playwright and director, Deon Denton, tackled an ambitious storyline in 51 minutes. The play deals with Henry (Geoff Mays), a recovering alcoholic struggling to come to terms with his past, who is confronted by his councillor along with his 10-year-old neighbour, to move on from his traumatic history.

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What if Lena Dunham had written Little Woman? That’s the basic premise of Martha Rose Productions Inc.’s Women, playing at the Annex throughout the Toronto Fringe Festival.  It’s an adaptation, but not a traditional one: the March sisters are all modern girls trapped in the bodies of their 1860s counterparts, and therein lies the gag.

It’s the kind of thing that could go wrong and get irritating so easily. Thankfully,  Women is a total blast, mostly due to a clever core script and strong comedic performances across the board.
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When I was ushered into the Majilis Art Garden to see Bodies Strange at the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival, it didn’t seem like they were ready to have me.  There were some people on the stage, talking and rifling through papers.  I felt a little lost, but eventually chose what I thought was a good seat, right in the front row.

The staging is set with the audience in a semi-circle around the actors, but it was clear from the beginning that there was a lack of awareness of the audience, as I spent at least half the play staring at the back of an actor’s head.  I was also forced to pull my legs up to dodge frenetic movement, while in the middle of the play my particular seat turned out to be in the splash zone (conveniently left out of the play’s many warnings).

Continue reading Bodies Strange (Messy Kween Collective) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review →

Binocular Theatre’s production of Jordan Tannahill’s Get Yourself Home Skyler James, directed by Ali Joy Richardson at the Toronto Fringe Festival is surely Fringe theatre at its best — bold, brilliantly performed, and centred around an urgent, timely story of love and resilience in the face of homophobia.

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