All posts by Megan Mooney

Megan loves being in the thick of all things theatre, but her ultimate goal is to promote theatre to the world of non-theatre people. It was the same when she was the theatre writer for blogTO, or the Fringe Correspondent for CBC Radio One‘s Here and Now, as it is as the founder of Mooney on Theatre. Her basic belief is that there is theatre/performance out there for everyone to love, they just need to find it. This is not to be confused with the idea that everyone should love theatre for theatre’s sake, in fact, as obsessed as she is with theatre, even *she* doesn’t love all types of theatre.

Bring awareness to the Arts cuts – Gone in 30 seconds video contest

By Megan Mooney

Yes, I realise something that is a video contest isn’t particularly theatre-like, but the state of arts funding in this country can’t be held within the confines of specific genres.   So, on that note, let me tell you about Gone in 30 Seconds, a video contest being put on by the Department of Culture.

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Late | Black Medea – Obsidian Theatre Company

By Megan Mooney

This review is cross-posted with blogTO

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Sometimes you are lucky enough to get two for the price of one. You get that with Obsidian Theatre’s double bill of Late and Black Medea playing at the Berkeley theatre.

The two plays have completely different tones – although they have similar thematic feeling with discussions of loss and family and identity – which makes it a great evening.  The first show, Late, is funny and heartwarming with moments of sadness alternated with great guffaws.  The second, Black Medea, is an intense exploration into the characters’ psyches that drew me in with symbolism, dance and mischievous spirits.

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How to get people out to the theatre…

Unfortunately I have no magic answers, but getting bums in seats is certainly a challenge.

Grinder’s Grumblings has a piece about just that.  Since Grinder is talking about theatre in Canada in general (but mostly outside of Toronto – with a focus on smaller and community theatres) it can be an even more difficult challenge.  Although, that said, when I used to work with Guelph Little Theatre we often had bums in seats, and the theatre operated in the black with no gov’t funding at all, so, there is also something to be said for being the only game in town. 

Anyway, I like a lot of what Grinder says.  All too often, with smaller productions (not things from established houses like Tarragon or Factory etc) it seems like the philosophy is ‘if you build it, they will come.’  Unfortunately this is, as you know, a flawed philosophy in this day and age.  So, I’m going to ramble about this for a bit, and then give folks some of my tips on marketing their shows…

Continue reading How to get people out to the theatre… →