Week one of Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival encourages some emerging Toronto talent
New Ideas at Alumnae Theatre is a festival of new plays, a starting place for playwrights and directors to experiment, to try out their works-in -progress.
So it is always an uneven night; the shows are of varying quality and are mostly in a nascent state. But by attending you may get to see a roughly cut gem and you do get to help develop new working – there is a feedback form in the program where each audience member can provide constructive criticism on each script. There are three weeks, each with a separate lineup of plays.
Humour that “kills” in Rock, playing at Toronto’s Storefront Theatre
I’ve been meaning to check out the Storefront Theatre on Bloor Street before it even opened. I walk by it everyday on my way to and from work and couldn’t wait for my little neighbourhood filled with artists, actors and musicians to have its very own theatre. This little gem located in the Bloor/Ossington neighbourhood is the kind of place you want to stick around for a drink after the show. It’s so cozy and inviting that if I didn’t have a ride waiting outside I would have definitely stayed for a post-show drink, something I rarely do.
The fact that I could watch Kat Sandler’s Rock there as my first experience was perfect. I saw LOVESEXMONEY last year and was pretty sure this show would have the same fun-filled spirit while exploring some pretty dark subject matter, but never not having fun! In fact, I was so positive about the show that I even took my friend who I lovingly call the “show jinx”. And, success…even she had a great time! Continue reading Review: Rock (Paper Scissors Collective)→
Factory Theatre’s Iceland is praise-worthy Toronto art
Iceland is “the perfect volcano”. It has exceptional writing, directing, acting and venue. Toronto’s Factory Theatre is once again ground zero for a great night of challenging and rewarding art.
Iceland is comprised of three intersecting monologues from three very different and intriguing people.
Kassandra is a young Estonian working her way through college as a prostitute. Anna is an uptight and self-righteous woman who just can’t win, even with God on her side. Halim is a Pakistani real estate agent who tells the dirty truth. Continue reading Review: Iceland (Factory Theatre)→
Something for everyone in Second City Toronto’s latest Mainstage Revue, The Meme-ing of Life
I am not someone who gets Internet jokes. I know a little about grumpy cat, I’ve seen a few of those talking dog YouTube videos, but a lot of internet humour goes over my head. That poptart kitty? I don’t get it. I still have to mentally correct myself from saying me-me whenever I read the word meme.
But if you are as out of the e-loop as me, fear not! Turns out the show, save one skit, is really less about Internet jokes and more about how – as the title suggests – comedy memes life by imitating it. Continue reading Review: The Meme-ing of Life (Second City)→
LEAR gets new life thanks to Philip McKee and Harbourfront Centre World Stage in Toronto
‘A show built out of moments’ is the first method I could think of to describe World Stage’s latest production of LEAR at the Harbourfront Centre Studio Theatre. An adaptation of Shakespeare’s irreverent drama King Lear, brought to the stage with great care by director Philip McKee, and performed with gentle power by three women. That’s right, King Lear is a she.
To flesh out my explanation of this piece, I’d further posit that it’s an intricate performance of subtleties, built upon the success of moments of interaction between characters. Basically, what you can expect to occur on the Harbourfront Centre Studio’s mostly barren stage is a closer inspection of the singular moments within Shakespeare’s text as opposed to the whole story arc itself. McKee takes the story of Lear and, in a way, puts it under a microscope –or in this case, a microphone- amplifying the relationships between Lear and his daughters and cutting out the extra bits of story.
