This week features more than a few Christmas and Holiday themed shows, a Broadway-bound musical, Burlesque, and Peter Pan… in a Brewery! This week our publisher Megan is here to pick out a few that caught her eye in red text. Check them out below the cut:
Continue reading Playlistings in Toronto for the week of December 5th
Ross Petty’s Sleeping Beauty at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre is a grand crowd-pleaser. You’ll see a creative variation of this classic fairy tale that includes ninja dance moves, groan-worthy puns and a huge amount of audience participation, mostly in the form of laughter and booing. If you’re looking for a festive family outing for the holidays, see Sleeping Beauty! Continue reading Review (Kid +1): Sleeping Beauty (Ross Petty Production)
The LOT performs tony-award winning musical Avenue Q in TorontoBeing about seven months out of university myself, I wasn’t sure whether I was ready to go see the Lower Ossington Theatre’s production of Avenue Q this weekend. It’s a poignant satire of children’s television programming that pokes fun at the struggles of adult life after graduation. The catchy tunes like “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” and “I Wish I Could Go Back to College” were written by Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez (co-creator of Book of Mormon and composer for Frozen), and they certainly rang true to me. You know you’re watching biting satire when a part of you dies each time you laugh.
But don’t let this cynical twenty-something discourage you: the LOT’s production of Avenue Q is a very fun show. Continue reading Review: Avenue Q (Lower Ossington Theatre)
Peter Pan plays across Toronto breweries in this charming musical rendition of J.M. Barrie’s classic taleThe scene at the Henderson Brewing Co. was an oddball one: lost boys tumbling around, playing music on box-drums and guitars, while folks out for a Saturday evening drink chattered away in the background.
With giant silver vats all around and no real backstage to speak of, the scene was set for a unique theatrical experiment: putting on J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in various breweries across the city, dubbed by Bad Hats Theatre as the “Toronto Brewery Tour.”
There’s no real thematic link between beer and Peter Pan that I can think of—but it was a nice bonus for many of the parents in the audience. Continue reading Peter Pan: The Toronto Brewery Tour (Bad Hats Theatre)
Who Killed Spalding Gray? takes a look back at the popular actor and writer, on Toronto stagesWith Daniel MacIvor, one always leaves wondering: “how much of that is fact and how much is fiction?” Who Killed Spalding Gray?, at Canadian Stage until 11 December, is much the same — there are all manner of threads about loss and grief and imagination that get knotted up and smoothed out in this production.
When the show was over, it felt like I’d been served some very lovely window dressing that almost, but not entirely, concealed how very much this show is about neither the facts or the fictions, but the Truth.
Continue reading Review: Who Killed Spalding Gray? (Canadian Stage)