S. Bear Bergman has great faith in the power of theatre to make change, and has been putting his money where his mouth is on that one for some time. A writer, performer, and lecturer, Bear works full time as an artist and cultural worker and loves to see as much live performance as possible – making this a fantastic gig for him.
Great drag lives on in Toronto at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
Three minutes into Miss Conception‘s show at Buddies In Bad Times last night, I leaned over to one of my dates and murmured “Thank Maude there are still queens in sequins on rollerskates.” As she sang, and twirled, and mugged for the audience and gestured rudely with her microphone I settled into the deeply satisfying queer cultural ritual being expertly, lavishly performed in front of me. I sipped my drink and held hands with my sweetheart and sang along to Xanadu in great good cheer.
Fairy tales come to life thanks to Role Your Own Theatre in Toronto
Reviewing a children’s theatrical production like Fairy Tale Ending is a spectacularly subjective undertaking, and rarely is that more true than when reviewing with a child. Never do factors like “mood” and “seating” (to say nothing of “snack” and “nap”) come into play more than when your show partner is three-and-a-half. That said, attending the theatre with a small person provides information that’s difficult to come by any other way. For example, I learned at Wychwood Barns on Friday that Fairy Tale Ending is for older kids than mine.
Get lucky and see some good Toronto theatre with Videofag’s El Camino or The Field of Stars
A warning at the outset: this is not going to be a balanced review. I unreservedly and unabashedly loved everything about El Camino or The Field of Stars, and I am going to use my allotted pixels to gush about exactly why. If you are in the mood for prickliness or point-by-point critique in the name of professionalism, this review is not for you.
There’s a moment in gay history that I once heard a slam poet describe as “half past herpes and five minutes before AIDS,” – the late seventies, when the Gay Liberation Front was starting to gain some cultural footholds and the stigma of HIV hadn’t yet settled in. It’s this moment in which the first of the two plays of Falsettos presented – in a collaboration between Acting Up Stage and the Harold Green Jewish Theatre – is set, with the second one being set a scant two years later, even though they were written ten years apart. They’re rarely staged as original one acts, since they were later combined into the Broadway musical Falsettos, but this staging offers theatregoers such a lot of both emotion and history in this marvelous co-production.
Salome returns to the stage as part of the Canadian Opera Company’s latest season in Toronto
After seeing the opening of Salome at Canadian Opera Company, I headed home just in time to make our family’s regularly scheduled Skype date with my parents in the States. Upon hearing that we’d been to see Salome, my father asked what it was about. “Well,” I said, “If you leave out all the parts I don’t care to discuss in front of a three year old, they ate fruit.”
