All posts by Mike Anderson

Mike was that kid who walked into the high school stage crew booth, saw the lighting board, and went ooooooooooooh. Now that he’s (mostly) all grown up, Mike keeps his foot in the door as a community-theatre producer, stage manager and administrator. In the audience, he’s a tremendous sucker for satire and parody, for improvisational and sketch-driven comedy, for farce and pantomime, and for cabaret of all types. His happiest Toronto theatrical memory is (re) Birth: E. E. Cummings in Song.

Potosí – Toronto Fringe 2014 Press Release

Good Old Neon’s Best Play Winner to Premiere at Fringe 2014

Excerpted from Press Release

After a successful first outing at last year’s Fringe with “The Hystericon” (written and directed by Alexander Offord), good old neon returns with a biting satire on Canadian foreign policy – this year’s Fringe Best New Play: “Potosí”.

A young emissary from a Canadian mining corporation is sent to a remote country to investigate reports that local miners have been raped by Canadian forces. As the country explodes into civil war, she finds herself held hostage at gunpoint. A psychological game of cat-and-mouse ensues in this sometimes haunting, sometimes hysterical parable on race, colonialism, gender, and greed.

The play was chosen in November of last year as the 2014 winner of the Fringe Best New Play Contest and awarded a spot in the 2014 Toronto Fringe. Author Alexander Offord will also direct, marking his fourth directorial credit in the past year: the abovementioned “Hystericon”, “Or Be Eaten” (Silent Protagonist), and “Mature Young Adults” (Aim for the Tangent Theatre).

A stellar cast mixes new talent with Canadian veterans: Sean Sullivan (Wayne’s World, Back to the Future III – as well as his own international hit Fringe show; Baby Redboots Revenge), Montreal based Craig Thomas (NYPD Blues, Seinfeld, ER), and introducing Nicole Wilson (Nina in The Seagull – Berkley Street/Chekov Collective).

The controversial play will take the stage of the formidable Tarragon Mainspace where it will debut in a production designed by Fringe stalwart Joe Pagnan (“Polly Polly”, “MSM”) and produced byWesley J. Colford (“The Wakowski Bros.”, “Genesis & Other Stories”).

“Potosí” follows a string of highly successful “Fringe Best New Play” winners, including Kat Sandler’s “Help Yourself” and the national success story, “Kim’s Convenience”.

Performance Dates
Wed. July 2, 10:30 PM
Sat. July 5, 5:15 PM
Mon. July 7, 8:00 PM
Tues. July 8, 3:00 PM
Thurs. July 10, 12:00 PM
Fri. July 11, 8:45 PM
Sun. July 13, 5:15 PM

Venue
Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, 20 Bridgman Ave. (Bathurst & Bridgman)

Ticketing
Tickets are $10 (cash-only) at the door, $12 in advance. Advance tickets may be purchased online (visa/amex), or from the Fringe Club box office (cash/visa/amex), located in Honest Ed’s Alley during the festival. Money-saving passes are also available; see website for details.

Be advised that there is absolutely no latecomer seating at Fringe shows.

Vectors of their Interest – Toronto Fringe 2014 Press Release

Modern Feminism, Used Panties and Man-Children Collide in the Annex

Excerpted from Press Release:

The three young recessionistas of Viragon Capital Group and their thoroughly male, thoroughly unpaid intern have rented an Annex house for the night to carry out their primary business venture: selling used “panties” online.

By sunrise all four will undo each other in very unprofitable bouts of desperation in this darkly funny drama about gender, privilege, and dangerous optimism in the wake of the financial crisis.

SURPLUS-VALUE THEATRE is a radically-inclined company that produces colloquial and dark-comedic plays re: life in 21st-century North America. Founded and inspired by the 2012 student strike in Montreal, they are concurrently working on plays about memes, man-children, unpaid internships, power-suit feminists, and private manias of internet surveillance. They live precariously between Toronto and New York.

Performance Dates
Wednesday, July 2 – 7:00pm
Thursday, July 3 – 7:00pm
Friday, July 4 – 7:00pm
Saturday, July 5 – 7:00pm
Monday, July 7 – 7:00pm
Tuesday, July 8 – 7:00pm
Wednesday, July 9 – 7:00pm
Thursday, July 10 – 7:00pm
Friday, July 11 – 7:00pm
Saturday, July 12 – 7:00pm
Sunday, July 13 – 7:00pm

Venue
106 Albany Ave. (Near Bathurst Station.)

Ticketing
Tickets are $10 (cash-only) at the door, $12 in advance. Advance tickets may be purchased online (visa/amex), or from the Fringe Club box office (cash/visa/amex), located in Honest Ed’s Alley during the festival.  Money-saving passes are also available; see website for details.

Be advised that there is absolutely no latecomer seating at Fringe shows.

 

The Urinal Dialogues – Toronto Fringe 2014 Press Release

“Hey look at us. We’re acting like chicks do when they go to the can. We’re…like chicks with sticks.”

Excerpted from Press Release

Inspired by the empowerment women found in The Vagina Monologues, THE URINAL DIALOGUES’ in-your-face innuendos mixed with the struggles of real relationships is the MANswer. Taking sound bites overheard in men’s washrooms and expanding them into full dialogues through a series of vignettes, THE URINAL DIALOGUES uses both humour and humility to prove that men all have a lot more in common than the need to pee – that perhaps when men find themselves in the most vulnerable place, they can find the most vulnerable places within themselves. There is plenty of bathroom humour but this is a place where everything can be “exposed”. (Note: There is no nudity in this show). Real words and real issues; this is a place for men to speak candidly about the things they may feel are unspeakable. A show that is not just “taking the piss”, THE URINAL DIALOGUES touches on real points of poignancy and what it means to be a man.


Spearheading this bathroom business is director Mario D’Alimonte whose Supperfesta at last year’s Toronto Fringe earned a Fringe Patron’s Pick. Other credits include Into The Woods (Steppin Out) and Tick, Tick… BOOM (Acting Up Stage). Representing the every-men are Holm Bradwell (The Heiress, Stage Centre; Much to Do About Nothing, Bard in the Park; Pen Pals, Atomic Johnson Productions Toronto Fringe 2009), Derrick Evans (Into the Woods, Steppin Out; The Laramie Project; Encore Entertainment; The Drowsy Chaparone, EMP), and playwright/actor Mark H. Albert (All My Sons, Scarborough Theatre; Diary Of Ann Frank, Encore Entertainment; My Name is Asher Lev, Teatron).

 

Performance Dates
Wed. July 2 @ 6:30pm
Fri. July 4 @ 10:30pm
Mon. July 7 @ 5:00pm
Wed. July 9 @ 7:30pm
Fri. July 11 @ 12:30pm
Sat. July 12 @ 12:30pm
Sun. July 13 @ 5:45pm

Venue
Al Green Theatre, 750 Spadina Ave. (Near Spadina station.)

Ticketing
Tickets are $10 (cash-only) at the door, $12 in advance. Advance tickets may be purchased online (visa/amex), or from the Fringe Club box office (cash/visa/amex), located in Honest Ed’s Alley during the festival.  Money-saving passes are also available; see website for details.

Be advised that there is absolutely no latecomer seating at Fringe shows.

The Art of Traditional Head-tying – Toronto Fringe 2014 Press Release

Dora-nominated performer Kanika Ambrose’s powerhouse one-woman show “The Art of Traditional Head-tying” plays July 2-13 at the Toronto Fringe

Excerpted from Press Release

When Rosemarie Jon-Charles Hicks goes back to the island of Dominica to teach a series of head-tie workshops, her idealism and optimism are tested by her two zany nieces, a lethargic boyfriend, a persistent old flame, and a class of workshop attendees who really aren’t that interested.

Creator/performer Kanika Ambrose (Binti’s Journey, Theatre Direct; Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Humber River Shakespeare; Obeah Opera, bcurrent/Theatre Archipelago) andco-director Virgilia Griffith (Honesty, Suburban Beast/Koffler Centre; Salome’s Clothes, Body Theatre) bring to life the story of Rosemarie’s awakening to the realities of the island she left behind. Through a series of trials, an uncanny clan, and six weeks of very trying head-tie classes, Rosie is ultimately faced with this question… “If the values, people, and traditions of the place I call home have changed, where is my home now?”

Kanika Ambrose is a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary theatre artist. Her short plays (My Umm Hmm, Sleep Country, and Aprés) have been produced in Toronto festivals including Paprika Festival, rock.paper.sistahz!, and New Voices. She is a Dora Mavor Moore nominee for her role in Binti’s Journey, and part of the Dora nominated Outstanding Production, Obeah Opera. Kanika is the founder of Mabouya Dance Company, where she teaches Dominican Bélé dancing.

THE ART OF TRADITIONAL HEAD-TYING had its World Premiere as part of Crow’s Theatre’sEast End Performance Crawl in May 2014 and opened to rave reviews.

Performance Dates
Wed, July 2 @ 8:45pm
Sat, July 5 @ 2:15pm
Mon, July 7 @ 3:00pm
Wed, July 9 @ 7:45pm
Fri, July 11 @ 2:15pm
Sat, July 12 @ 12:00pm
Sun, July 13 @ 9:00pm

Venue
St. Vladimir’s Theatre, 620 Spadina Ave. (Near Spadina and Harbord.)

Ticketing
Tickets are $10 (cash-only) at the door, $12 in advance. Advance tickets may be purchased online (visa/amex), or from the Fringe Club box office, located in Honest Ed’s Alley, during the festival. (cash/visa/amex) Money-saving passes are also available; see website for details.

Be advised that there is absolutely no latecomer seating at Fringe shows.

Review: UNSEX’d (Theatre Outré)

unsexd

UNSEX’d is raunchy, campy, vulgar queer theatre playing at Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto

UNSEX’d (playing at Buddies in Bad Times) is real, live psychobiddy. It’s impossible to watch this show and not think of Bette Davis in All About Eve, or Bette Davis in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, or Bette Dav–well, you get the point. If you know what I’m talking about when I name-check these films, you already know what to expect: a vulgar, frank, and deeply satisfying melodrama on aging, sanity, identity and gender.

But even if this world is new to you–if you don’t know All About Eve from Adam–if you have the stomach for moderately-raunchy queer theatre, UNSEX’d is a do-not-miss experience.

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