Wayne Leung (1981-2019)
Wayne was the Managing Editor of Mooney on Theatre from 2012 - 2019 and will be sorely missed. His death from an apparent heart attack was a loss not just to Mooney on Theatre, but also to the Toronto Theatre Community at large. You can read our publisher Megan Mooney's tribute to him here here.
Wayne was a writer, editor and corporate communications professional who was thrilled to be a part of the Mooney on Theatre team. Wayne loved theatre ever since his aunt brought him to a production of Les Misérables at the tender age of ten . . . despite the fact that, at that age, the show’s plot was practically indiscernible and the battle scenes scared the bejeezus out of him. Wayne’s current list of likes ran the gamut from opera, ballet and Shakespeare to Broadway musicals, circus and Fringe theatre. Outside of the theatre Wayne’s interests included travel, technology and food.
Cellar Hotel is a very ambitious production; perhaps a little too ambitious in scope and scale for Fringe. Billed as a rock-musical adaptation of the Faust legend, the production boasts a cast of 24 performers; one of the largest I’ve ever seen for a Fringe production.
The Cellar Hotel is staffed by a saintly hotel manager (later revealed to be God, herself) and the overly courteous, tip-refusing Seven Saintly Virtues. On the ground floor of the Cellar Hotel sits Auerbach’s Lounge staffed by a guileful bar tender (who turns out to be Mephistopheles) and the Seven Deadly Sins. Continue reading Cellar Hotel (Chicken Coop Theatre) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review→
Suicide(s) in Vegas is the story of two women; the successful, larger-than-life, Suze Orman-like author and self-help guru Lydia (Elinza Pretorius) and the ho-hum, average-Jane toll booth collector Jane (Amber Green).
Jane is struggling with the loneliness and isolation of being “invisible” while Lydia’s world is about to fall-apart as she is revealed to be a fraud in a plot line that mirrors the scandal of author James Frey whose memoir was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club then later revealed to be almost completely fabricated.
The 2011 Dora Mavor Moore Awards were held last night at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. The Doras are held annually by TAPA to honour excellence in Toronto’s performing arts industry.
I once had a conversation with a theatre producer who had produced shows in New York, L.A. and Chicago as well as Toronto in which he observed, “Toronto is unique in that it’s a city that’s large enough to have a theatre industry but still small enough to have a real theatre community.”
The Doras also provide an opportunity for that theatre community to come together to celebrate the achievements of the Toronto performing arts industry as a whole. In a time when government cutbacks are threatening to stifle the growth of Toronto’s thriving theatre scene, coming together to boldly celebrate their achievements and their collective passion for creating art is almost an act of defiance. Continue reading 32nd Annual Dora Mavor Moore Award Winners→
SummerWorks, Toronto’s Indie Theatre and Arts Festival, posted the following message on their blog today.
Heritage Canada has chosen not renew its partnership with SummerWorks for this year’s festival leading to a loss of 20% of the festival’s budget.
Mooney on Theatre strongly believes that SummerWorks provides an invaluable contribution to the development of the theatre and arts scenes in Toronto and nationally.
Please consider lending your support so SummerWorks can continue to do its important work in developing emerging theatre and arts in Canada.
Toronto’sLuminato Festival presents the world-premiere of a two-part epic staging of One Thousand and One Nights by director Tim Supple at The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Opera Centre (Canadian Opera Company) through June 19.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the Dash Arts production ofOne Thousand and One Nights commissioned by Luminato ever since it was announced last year. I was absolutely floored by director Tim Supple’s previous production at Luminato in 2008; the stunning, avant-garde re-imagining of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring an Indian/Sri Lankan cast performing in English, Hindi, Bengali, Sinhalese, Sanskrit and a host of other Indian dialects.
Supple’s production of Dream was so dynamic, vibrant, gorgeous, sexy and utterly breathtaking that I couldn’t wait to see what he’d come up with for his re-imagining of another classic story.
Cellar Hotel is a very ambitious production; perhaps a little too ambitious in scope and scale for Fringe. Billed as a rock-musical adaptation of the Faust legend, the production boasts a cast of 24 performers; one of the largest I’ve ever seen for a Fringe production.
