Everything to do with the Next Stage Festival which happens in January in Toronto
Snack Music is SNAFU throwing a curious sort of house party. Grab a snack, tell a story — your first kiss? your first night away from home? your first time doin’ it? — and then watch co-creators Ingrid Hansen and Andrew Young act it out through off-the-wall puppets. It’s an acting exercise on steroids, and it’s a ton of fun.
Continue reading 2015 Next Stage Review: Snack Music (SNAFU)
Myth of the Ostrich, produced as part of the Next Stage Theatre Festival, is a hilarious show about motherhood, female friendship, and weed cookies. The three women in it are stellar performers with fantastic chemistry, and the script tackles important issues with a light touch that still has firm values. Continue reading 2015 Next Stage Festival Review: Myth of the Ostrich (Offside Productions)
As Mine begins a confident, smooth-talking woman in tight pants approaches a charmingly awkward woman with overtly seductive intentions. Then they transform into the same confident smooth-talking woman, Abigail (Michelle Polak), who is a Teaching Assistant for a poetry class, and the charmingly awkward woman, Bea (Jenna Harris), who is a student. Discord and Din‘s production, presented as part of the Next Stage Theatre Festival, traces these women’s romantic relationship with humour and honesty. Jenna Harris, who is also the playwright, said in NOW Magazine that she wrote this play based on “my own life experiences and what I observed around me” and the situations and dynamics in the play certainly felt familiar to me.
Continue reading 2015 Next Stage Festival Review: Mine (Discord and Din Theatre)
For A Good Time, Call Kathy Blanchard is playing at Factory Theatre for this year’s Next Stage Theatre Festival. Part farce, part family drama, it is wholly satisfying on both counts: this is a story that grapples with broken marriages, mental and physical illness, failed dreams, and hockey. Continue reading 2015 Next Stage Festival Review: For a Good Time, Call Kathy Blanchard (Outside Inside)
The Templeton Philharmonic, aka Toronto-based sketch comedy duo Briana Templeton and Gwynne Phillips, present their new equestrian-themed show Unbridled & Unstable at this year’s Next Stage Theatre Festival.