Always a theatre lover Sam realized in middle age that there's more to Toronto theatre than just mainstream and is now in love with one person shows, adores festivals, and quirky venues make her day.
The Rez Sisters is another one of those iconic Canadian plays that I hadn’t seen until last night. It was first produced in Toronto 25 years ago and hasn’t been produced here since apparently because of casting issues. Should the cast all be native actors or is it alright to have a cast that includes non-native performers.
Director Ken Gass has cast both in this production.
The Buzz Festival is a work-in-development festival that is presented 3 times a year by Theatre Passe Muraille. It showcases excerpts of new work from Toronto artists. The festival runs for 5 evenings and each evening there are 2 to 4 pieces performed as well as live music by different musicians each night.
The point of the festival is for artists to get feedback from the audience rather than developing the work in isolation. If you haven’t been to see work in development before, you might be wondering how it works.
Two Pianos Four Hands (or 2P4H) opened yesterday for one last encore run in Toronto. If, like me, you somehow haven’t seen it, go. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it. How could you not? The theme is universal, masquerading as a play about piano lessons.
Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt created, directed and performed the show. They developed it about 15 years ago and it’s based on their individual piano lesson experiences. Both are very talented pianists. And very talented actors. I’d go see either of them read the phone book – and pay to do it. Continue reading Review: Two Pianos Four Hands – (Mirvish)→
The show’s in a garden shed and the audience meets beforehand at a secret location. That’s all I needed to know in order to decide to see Litmus Theatre’s Matchbox Macbeth. Promptly at 7pm our guide led 15 of us off across College Street in Little Italy, along a side street and into an alley. Our guide’s flashlight beam bounced off walls and she whispered the occasional comment. Suddenly a man wandered out in front of us, walked over to a garage and said “Is this a dagger…”. The performance had begun.
Chess The Musical, now playing at Mirvish’s Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, was written in the mid 80s and is set in 1979 when the Cold War was still raging. The book and lyrics are by Tim Rice and the music is by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson.
I first saw Chess The Musical produced in Guelph at least 10 years ago and what I remembered about it is that the music was great and the story was weak – even for a musical. Tonight I saw the show with my son-in-law and fellow Mooney on Theatre writer, John Bourke. He played Freddy Trumper in the Guelph production I saw all those years ago. This review owes a lot to his input. Continue reading Review: Chess The Musical (Mirvish)→
