Ashley with a ‘Y,’ is created by Ashley Botting and is the kind of show that is compact enough to have one-night engagements easily. Most recently, it played for one night at the newly-renovated Paradise on Bloor, which now brings in live comedy and music shows along with films. It brings old Hollywood to life – if old Hollywood was having an existential crisis.

Ashley with a ‘Y’ started as a Fringe Festival show in 2018, was voted best comedy show of 2018 by Now Magazine and well-loved by our reviewer. I can see why. Botting, a Second City alum, is hilariously self-deprecating and sweetly debaucherous as she wears a sparkling diamond necklace and croons about hangovers and one night stands.

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This Is How We Got Here was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General’s Award for English-language drama, and it’s easy to see why; Keith Barker’s meditation on grief is lyrical and haunting. Native Earth Performing Arts’ production gives the script the sensitive treatment it deserves, resulting in an experience that feels both sorrowful and healing.

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Café Sarajevo, by performance collective bluemouth inc., explores the concept of divided cities and the internal hatred that can lead to civil war. Playing at Progress Festival at The Theatre Centre, it follows the story of Lucy Simic and her partner Stephen O’Connell (of bluemouth), who travel to Simic’s father’s homeland of Bosnia to find out more about the ethnic conflict in the 1990s that tore the area apart.

For our purposes, the conceit is that they’re recording a podcast, and we’re helping as both audience and participants. Audience members participate as people the couple met on their journey, and play an opening “scarcity” game as Team Chomsky vs. Team Foucault. As the journey to Sarajevo takes place, we move around the space, simulating a feeling of travel. We listen to everything on Bluetooth headphones with adjustable volume; instead of binoculars or a camera, we carry around our necks 360-degree VR glasses, so that we can literally follow in Simic and O’Connell’s footsteps.

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The Second City Totally Likes You is the longstanding revue troupe’s new Valentine offering, themed around love and relationships from Tinder ‘til death do us part. The sprightly touring company brings together a combination of new material and sketches previously performed in Chicago and Toronto. As a skewering of our desperation for human connection and the conflicting desires to let others in and keep them at arm’s reach, it’s often spot-on.

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