Dana Ewachow is too shy to order a pizza over the phone, but has no problem writing on the internet. She keeps herself busy and artistically poor by writing news articles, rants, and fiction for the internet. As you may have noticed, she also writes theatre reviews. She enjoys sketch comedies, dark comedies, light comedies, and burlesque. When she isn’t writing, her odd hobbies include: martial arts, throwing hatchets, and trying to cook food that won’t send her to the hospital. Armed with questionable diplomas and a second degree blackbelt, she will surely take over the world.
Sexy striptease meets a unique history lesson in The Firecrackers Present: Bad Girls of History, a cheeky and sensual burlesque show at Toronto’s Club 120
History is an important subject to study, but sometimes it is easy to drift away from the tomes and documentaries that seem to repeat the same stories. If only there was a way to spice up a history lesson, so that your eyes popped instead of drooped down with boredom. Club 120 may have found the perfect solution that stimulates that brain, among other things.
I would apologize for the spoiler, but this play has been public for a while and ancient Roman history has been public for longer. I found that knowing the answers ahead of time didn’t ruin the experience of the play. The enjoyment doesn’t begin with knowing how the play ends, but seeing how the play reaches the end. The UC Follies took the same old story and made it new. Continue reading Review: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (UC Follies)→
We Can be Heroes at Toronto’s Second City is a hilarious sketch comedy romp about all the everyday unsung heroes who don’t wear spandex to save the day
We Can Be Heroes is the Fall Mainstage Revue presented by The Second City. The sketch comedy show is a collection of stories about everyday heroes that don’t don spandex and are never given credit for their deeds. We Can Be Heroes gives those unsung heroes the credit they deserve, along with a lot of laughs.
The songs and sketches encouraged some actual heroism in a piece about the tense homophobic situation in Russia. The injustice enforced by an entire country will not stop one brave lesbian figure skater from competing in the Olympics. The passion and courage was best expressed in the skateless skating routine to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer”. Continue reading We Can Be Heroes (The Second City) Review→
The show on August 12th, Miss Shakespeare, placed itself back in the times of the great bard when women were not welcome on stage. Instead, male actors would dress as the female characters in place of having flesh and blood women play those parts. Miss Shakespeare has Shakespeare’s daughter Judith take up the task of bringing a female voice to theatre by having secret meetings with her friends at the Cage Tavern. Together they show women can write, act, and be just as good as anything Mister Shakespeare penned.
Zero Visibility by the AMY Project is a chilly production in the middle of SummerWorks 2013. The show, playing at Lower Ossington Studio, is a cross-stitching of multiple characters’ stories during a bad snowstorm in Toronto. The show weaves playful humour with serious topics like self esteem, suicide, and being shunned from a community.
The cast of the AMY Project demonstrates strong versatility with the art of story-telling. Each cast member plays a multitude of characters, transforming into someone new with the switch of hat or scarf. The show is filled with monologues, songs, flashbacks, and even a little bit of Shakespeare. And if that isn’t enough, simple props like fans and fake snow make the performance come alive. The ladies of the AMY Project show they have quite a few tricks up their sleeves.
