Fringe for Free! Toronto Fringe ticket giveaway for shows playing on Thursday, July 4th.

Just one more day until Fringe! Are you as excited as we are? (Because man, are we excited!) And as you may know, the best Fringe ticket is a free Fringe Ticket. At Mooney on Theatre, we like to spread the love during Fringe and invite our readers to participate in contests for a pair of FREE Fringe tickets to different shows every day of the festival. So enter a contest and Fringe for Free!  Here are the FIVE shows that are we are giving away tickets for on Thursday, July 4th, 2013.

The shows are:

VGL  5’4″ Top – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:45 PM show at the Tarragon Solo Room (30 Bridgman Ave.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “VGL contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.

jem rolls ATTACKS THE SILENCE – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:00 PM show at the George Ignatieff Theatre (15 Devonshire Pl.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “jem rolls contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.

MSM [men seeking men] – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:00 PM show at the Randolph Theatre (736 Bathurst St.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “MSM contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.

My High-Heeled Life: Or, How I Learned to Keep Worrying and Love My Stilettos  – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 6:00 PM show at the Tarragon Solo Room (30 Bridgman Ave.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “High-Heeled Life contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.

Love is a Poverty You Can Sell 2: Kisses for a Pfennig  – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:00 PM show at  Bite (423 College St.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “Love is a Poverty contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.

Below the jump: more more information on all of these shows, and our full contest rules.

Continue reading Fringe for Free! Toronto Fringe ticket giveaway for shows playing on Thursday, July 4th. →

What is a Fringe Festival Anyway?

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A primer on fringe festivals and why they’re so important to Canadian theatre

It’s that wonderful time of year again; the Fringe Festival season is upon us and once again Mooney on Theatre will exclusively dedicate the first two weeks of July to coverage of the Toronto Fringe Festival.

The Fringe is really our flagship event of the year, we pull out all the stops and put in many sleepless nights to provide you with the most comprehensive coverage of the Festival. Those of you who are new to Mooney on Theatre, or to the Fringe Festival may wonder why we dedicate so much of our blood, sweat and tears to covering the Fringe.

What is a fringe festival anyway, and why do we think it’s so important? Continue reading What is a Fringe Festival Anyway? →

Urge For Going – Toronto Fringe 2013 Press Release

From press release:
Quality Slippers - Urge for Going Toronto Fringe Updated

Quality Slippers Productions Proudly Presents:

Urge For Going:
A multidisciplinary puppet play inspired by the songs of Joni Mitchell

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – In Joni Mitchell’s own hometown, we meet Carey Anderson a thirteen year old girl with long hair and a big smile. She never leaves home without her ukulele, and while she doesn’t have many friends is never lonely. Carey has a wild runaway imagination – her best friend is a fox, and dreams of moving to Toronto to be a busker, and later to California to follow in her idols footsteps. Conceptually this piece explores the nature of being an artist that is inspired by a place that often one must leave in order to succeed. As Canadians, why do we so often have to run away from the places we treasure, that inspire us most?

Urge For Going aims to transcend the boundaries of traditional theatre by incorporating projected animation, original songs, puppetry, and image based sequences to create live music videos. This piece is intended for an audience of all ages – from those who grew up listening to Mitchell on the radio, to younger audiences discovering the magic of this music for the first time. Developed with the assistance of a creation grant from The Canada Council for the Arts, the play is a wonderland / down-the-rabbit-hole tale for modern times.

Written by bekky O’Neil
Directed by bekky O’Neil & Keith Del Principe
Produced by Keith Del Principe
Dramaturged by Robin Sharp
Animations by bekky O’Neil &  Keith Del Principe
With Music by Ronley Teper & Ben Hermann
Puppets built by  bekky O’Neil & Keith Del Principe
Performed by bekky O’Neil, Cloe Verreault-Bouchard,  Sam Silversides, Justin Linds & Robin Sharp
Stage Managed by Claire Hughes

Toronto Fringe Festival
Tarragon Theatre Mainspace | 30 Bridgeman Ave

Thursday, July 4, 2013 – 6:30pm

Saturday, July 6, 2013 – 1:45pm

Monday, July 8, 2013 – 4:30pm

Wednesday, July 10, 2013 – 9:15pm

Thursday, July 11, 2013 – 4:00pm

Friday, July 12, 2013 – 5:15pm

Sunday, July 14, 2013 – 1:45pm

“This show is worth seeing for the incredible, magical design alone.”
Bloody Underrated (Blog), June 19, 2013

“This is a story of trying to grow up too fast that hits the right notes.”
Chris Zacchia, Forget The Box, June 20, 2013

“Go with Carey ‘into the blue’ and see what you can stir up to make your own dreams come true, right here.”
Janis Kirshner, Charlebois Post Canada, June 19, 2013

“Mitchell fans won’t want to miss this poignant mix of music, visual art, puppetry (a friendly fox) and storytelling.”
Pat Donnelly, Montreal Gazette, June 21, 2013

www.qualityslippers.ca

@qualityslippers

#urgeforgoing

Mooney on Theatre’s Hot Tickets for Fringe 2013

Our top picks for Toronto’s hottest theatre festival

Mooney on Theatre’s staff are, in general, a pleasant lot: there’s a reason people think we’re nice! But when Fringe rolls around, there are usually a good dozen assignments which have our writers climbing over each other and arguing like nine-year-olds.

“No fair! You got to review the decadent, juicy cabaret last season!”
“I never get to see Laura Anne Harris! Why can’t it be my turn?”
“If you don’t let me have the piece about gay pick-ups, I’m telling Wayne!”

Well, the dust has settled, the schedules have gone out, and Megan has sent four of us to the naughty corner. But wouldn’t you like to know which shows got our staff most excited? We’ve picked the top 6 most contentious Fringe shows from this summer’s festival and asked the lucky writer who landed the assignment to give us a short blurb on why they’re into it.

So: what are this season’s Mooney on Theatre Hot Tickets? Click the jump and find out!

Continue reading Mooney on Theatre’s Hot Tickets for Fringe 2013 →

Here – Toronto Fringe 2013 Press Release

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From press release:

FULCRUM THEATRE announces Here, an original multi-media dance theatre piece.

Some of the girls say Emily threw herself in front of a bus. And some of them say she did it for attention. Either way, she’s never going to dance again. Here combines multimedia and dance elements to tell the story of a dancer who shreds a major ligament in her knee, forcing her to cope with a world where her dreams will never be realized. Surprisingly, it’s a comedy.Here is the third original piece by writer/director Aaron Jan produced by Hamilton youth company Fulcrum Theatre. Fulcrum was formed in May 2011 by five undergraduates who felt seperate from the theatre scene in Hamilton. Together, they pooled what little money they had, rented a venue and began rehearsing their very first show. This is Fulcrum’s third year of production and Here is their first production outside of Hamilton.

Here features performers Jacqueline Byers, Erica Charles, Jessie Cox, Farhang Ghajar and Greg Solomon, and is directed and written by Aaron Jan. Last year, Aaron participated in the Paprika Festival at Tarragon Theatrewith Drafts, a play that Fulcrum remounted at the Hamilton Fringe Festival, winning the Best of Fringe. Past productions by this company have had cast members as young as fifteen, and the creative
team as always been twenty-five and under. For more information, visit fulcrumtheatre.wordpress.com!

Here will be here soon. Don’t miss your chance to see some of Hamilton’s most ambitious young artists.

FULCRUM THEATRE
in association with The Toronto Fringe Festival presents
Here
written and directed by Aaron Jan
dramaturged by Lucy Powis
choreography by Cassandra Bowerman
featuring Jacqueline Byers, Erica Charles, Jessie Cox, Farhang Ghajar & Greg Solomon
with original compositions by Spencer Creaghan and Jake Butineau
stage managed by Ndola Hutton & Logan Cracknell

Opens JULY 3rd and runs to JULY 14th
Randolph Theatre – 736 Bathurst. St.

Performances:
July 3, 6:30pm July 9, 1:00pm,
July 5, 3:00pm July 11, 5:15pm
July 7, 1:15pm July 14, 7:00pm
July 8, 8:15pm

Here is approximately 90 minutes long and contains mature language and subject matter. Please note that there is absolutely no latecomer seating.

Tickets:
At-the-door tickets: $10
At-the-door tickets are available at the Randolph Theatre starting one hour prior to show time – cash sales only.
Advance tickets: $11
50% oftickets are available for sale in advance.
Advance tickets go on sale June 17th, 2013.
Purchase online: fringetoronto.com.
By Phone: 416-966-1062, ext 1.
In Person: During the Festival Box Office in the parking lot behind Honest Ed’s (581 Bloor St W)