PROUD hits the Berkeley Street Theatre

A Canadian Prime Minister attempts to move the country slightly right of centre …. Will he succeed? At what cost?

The third in a trilogy of award-winning plays (Generous, Courageous) about Canadian values by award-winning playwright Michael Healey. Proud is about what we actually want out of our politics, and our politicians. Set in the Prime Minister’s office in the Centre Block of Parliament, it is just after the spring 2011 election but the reality of the play is different from ours. In the play, all the seats won by the NDP in Quebec have gone to the Conservatives. This gives them not only an overwhelming majority in Parliament, but a lot of rookie MPs in the Tory caucus.

One such MP is Jisbella Lyth, from the fictional Quebec riding of Cormier-Lac Poule. A single mother who, up until getting elected was the manager at a St-Hubert franchise, Jisbella nonetheless displays traits that indicate to the Prime Minister that she will be a useful asset to his government. He and his Chief of Staff, Cary Baines, begin to train Jisbella in the various methods and strategies that have made the Conservatives so successful. Their lessons unleash an emotional component that none of them anticipate.

Starts: Sep 20, 2012 Ends: Oct 6, 2012 

Berkeley Street Theatre Upstairs, 26 Berkeley Street, Toronto
Monday - Saturday
Times: 2 pm matinee Saturday, evening perfs 8 pm
Cost: $25 - $40 -Monday PWYC
Ticket purchase URL: www.canadianstage.com

Preview: World Stage Presents The Wooster Group's Vieux Carre

The Tennessee Williams' classic Vieux Carre gets a new look in the Canadian Premiere, The Wooster Group's Version of Tennessee Williams' Vieux Carre.  This unique show is on, March 28th-31st, at the Fleck Dance Theatre.  Directed by The Wooster Group's founding member, Elizabeth LeCompte and stars long-time company members Ari Fliakos, Scott Sheppard and Kate Valk.  A bold re-imaging of Williams' story this experimental theatre company returns to Toronto for the first time since 1989.

If you are not familiar with the 30 plus years of work by the Wooster Group don't miss this opportunity to see one of New York's most radical companies in action.  The show stays true to Williams' original text, but takes the story in an inspired and new direction.  Art greatly influences Ms. LeCompte, particularly the work of Andy Warhol, and 70's film maker Paul Morrissey.  Supported by a layered sound score and inventive video use the play deftly translates to the 21st century.

Performance details:

Wednesday, March 28th: 8pm
Thursday, March 29th: 8pm
Friday, March 30th: 8pm
and Saturday March 31st: 8pm.
All performances are at the Fleck Dance Theatre, 207 Queens Quay West, Toronto.

Tickets are $45, $36 (seniors and artsworkers), $15 (CultureBreak - 13 to 25 years-old.) available at the Harbourfront Centre's Box Office.  Call 416.973.4000 or email tickets@harbourfrontcentre.com or visit the ticket link here.

Theatre 20 announces inaugural season

Press Release:

TORONTO, ON (Monday, Jan. 23, 2012) -- Theatre 20, Toronto's artist-led musical theatre company, today announced its inaugural season of production at a press conference and exclusive ticketed cocktail affair, "A Taste of 20: Sample the Season". The event launches a season which includes two workshops, two full productions, and a series of other events.

Speeches by Artistic Director and Founding Artist Adam Brazier, Theatre 20 Board Chair David Morris, Michael Rubinoff (Associate Dean Performing Arts, Sheridan College), Raindogs creator Andrew MacBean and Founding Artist Colm Wilkinson (Director of Theatre 20's first production) underlined Theatre 20's mandate to present story-driven musicals by developing new Canadian works and by re-imagining existing repertoire, nurturing the talent of writers and composers and fostering the development of young artists through mentorship and education programs. Preview performances at the event featured Theatre 20 Founding Artists and Emerging Artist Ensemble with guest artists including Jeff Madden, Tim Howar and Donnie Macphee.

First on the season roster is the Toronto premiere of Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare, by Winnipeg playwright Joseph Aragon. Theatre 20 Founding Artist and internationally renowned performer Colm Wilkinson makes his directorial debut with this delightfully dark true story of the 1829 West Port murders in Edinburgh.

Theatre 20 will workshop the show in April-May and the full production will run at the Panasonic Theatre from Oct. 16 through Nov. 11, 2012.

Next, Theatre 20 partners with Sheridan College's Canadian Music Theatre Project on the workshop of Raindogs by Canadian Andrew MacBean. This musical, based on Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead, features original music by MacBean, Paul Chant and Boko Suzuki, lyrics by MacBean and book by MacBean, Rose Martula and Wilson himself. The show, which was the last project Wilson worked on before his death in March 2011, centres on a young prostitute who meets a somewhat inept drug dealer. Like Balm in Gilead, Raindogs is a moving and gritty look at the junkies, pushers, prostitutes and other freaks that inhabit an upper West Side greasy spoon.

Raindogs was first workshopped as a full-length musical as part of the MAD Fringe Festival at Trafalgar Studios, London, England. It went on to have its first U.S. workshop at Sag Harbour, NY's Bay Street Theatre in October 2010.

The workshop will take place during the late spring at Sheridan in conjunction with a comprehensive mentorship program between Theatre 20 Founding Artists and Sheridan Music Theatre Performance Program students. Public performances of the workshop will take place in both Oakville and Toronto. The full production of Raindogs will follow in Theatre 20's 2013-2014 season.

The season wraps up with Company at Harbourfront Centre's Enwave Theatre considered by many the show that inaugurated the era of the modern musical. Theatre 20 Artistic Director Adam Brazier re-imagines this beloved show from the international musical theatre canon with Gary Griffin as Creative Consultant. Company, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, centres on Robert, a single man unable to commit to a steady relationship, the married couples who are his best friends, and his three on-again off-again girlfriends. Set in early-1970s, upper-middle-class Manhattan and told through a series of vignettes in no particular chronological order, each character and scene is linked by the celebration of Bobby's 35th birthday. It has been 25 years since a professional production of Company has been seen in Toronto.

For more information on Theatre 20 please click the header!

Preview: The Golden Dragon

The Golden Dragon  is on now until February 19th at Tarragon Theatre.  This one act play, is set at dinner at the bustling Golden Dragon restaurant. While diners enjoy their savoury meals the kitchen staff works frantically to hide an illegal young immigrant who is desperately searching for his lost sister.  Could the answer to his questions be just a few tables away?...

The Golden Dragon  is by Roland Schimmelpfennig
translated by David Tushingham
and directed by Ross Manson
set and costume design by Teresa Przybylski
lighting design by Thomas Ryder Payne
choreography by Heidi Strauss
assistant director Leora Morris
cast: David Fox, Lili Francks, Tony Nappo, Anusree Roy,  and David Yee

Roland Schimmelpfennig is a renowned playwright in Europe.  Originally from Germany, he received the Mulheim Dramatists Prize for The Golden Dragon.  This is the Canadian Premiere. Click here for ticket and showtime information.  The box office can be reached at 416.531.1827

Preview: American Idiot

Reviews are in, and American Idiot, the Green Day inspired musical, is a hit!  The Star gave the show four star, and called American Idiot, "the first great musical of the 21st century."  That is some heavy praise.  Justin and I can't wait to see it next week. The show is on now until January 15th, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.  Dancap Productions is having a fantastic season, with many of their shows receiving critical and audience acclaim.  Lets hope audiences agree on American Idiot.  


Photo courtesy of  Toronto.com, and features, from left, cast members, Scott J. Campbell, Van Hughes, and Jake Epstein.

American Idiot, book by Michael Mayer and Billie Joe Armstrong.
Music by Green Day
Lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong
Directed by Michael Mayer
At the Toronto Centre for the Arts
5040 Yonge Street
Call 416-644-3665 for ticket information.

Preview: Off Broadway On Stage

Angelwalk Theatre presents, Off Broadway On Stage, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.  This musical revue features selections from Off-Broadway classics like Alter Boyz, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, [title of show], and many more.  Conceived by Angelwalk creative team Brian Goldenberg, with musical arrangement by Anthony Bastianon, Off Broadway On Stage plays December 7-11. For tickets call 647.351.5055 or click here

Check out the cast here!
   647-351-5055       647-351-5055     

Preview: RED

There is a VERY exciting opening happening this evening and EAP is extremely excited to be apart of it!!! The Tony Award winning play RED is opening tonight! Another really strong and fascinating choice from the Canadian Stage Company.

Show Description:

RED is about Mark Rothko, the American abstract painter who, along with the equally eccentric Jackson Pollock, managed to shift the art world's centre from Paris to New York in the 1940s and 50s.

Alas, such astounding success always comes with its price, and RED is a brilliant examination of an artist torn apart by the outside forces of fame and commercialism - and the inside ones of ego and despair.

Along with the fast-moving story and fascinating depiction of an artist at work, you'll be caught up in Red's passionate exploration of ideas, art and relevance.

This is the Canadian premiere of RED, which swept last year's Tony Awards, and is sure to be one of Toronto's hottest tickets in 2011.

For tickets or more info please click the header!

RED
On now until Dec 17, 2011
Bluma Appel Theatre
WRITTEN BY
John Logan
DIRECTED BY
Kim Collier
COMPOSED BY
Andy Creeggan

Preview: IMPRINTS

Opening this evening in the Factory Studio Theatre is Theatre Garantua's World Premiere of IMPRINTS!

Inspired by current theories of genetic memory – and taking them further in a fascinating mix of science and fantasy – playwright Michael Spence explores the ghosts of our ancestral past by imagining them as existing within our genes. IMPRINTS speculates about the thousands and thousands of intimate strangers that make up our lineage and how their experiences are manifested in our instincts, fears and dreams.

Lily is haunted. Her body is overrun with ghosts. They surreptitiously influence all aspects of her life. She does not even know they are there, until she meets them face-to-face.

IMPRINTS tells the fantastical tale of Lily, a woman haunted by the ghosts of her ancestors. While undergoing an experimental procedure for an incurable disease, she is inadvertently transported down a very peculiar rabbit-hole. There she encounters the ghosts of her genealogical past - and discovers alarming keys to her present.

For tickets and for more info please click the header!!!

Theatre Gargantua
in association with Factory Theatre presents the WORLD PREMIERE of
IMPRINTS
A new play by Michael Spence
Directed by Jacquie P.A. Thomas
The acting ensemble for IMPRINTS features Stephanie Belding, Cosette Derome, Conor Green, Ron Kennell, Kat Sandler and Michael Spence
Opens November 11 and runs to November 26, 2011
Factory Studio Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street

Preview: Romeo and Juliet

Opening November 16th, for a very special world premiere performance, and running until November 27th is Romeo and Juliet. This iconic ballet has been part of the National Ballet Company since 1964. But this year the company will present a new version choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky.

Romeo and Juliet is much beloved by Ballet fans for Its powerful score by, Sergei Prokofiev, and traditionally romantic and beautiful choreography. It will be a thrill for both ballet fans and novices to see this new production.

And don't forget, young people can get day of, rush ticket pricing by going to the box office at the Four Seasons Centre. Click the header for general ticket information. See you at the ballet!

*Image courtesy of the National Ballet. Dancers featured are Elena Lobsanova and Guillaume Coté. The photo is by Christopher Wahl.

Preview: The Sankofa Trilogy

Opening to VERY strong reviews at Tarragon in the Extra Space is The Sankofa Trilogy. The sankofa trilogy features three extraordinary stories of three powerful women—Mugdu Sankofa, her daughter Sekesu and her granddaughter Benu—and their resolute belief in blood and truth. One of North America's most celebrated storytellers, d’bi.young anitafrika is an award-winning afrikan-jamaican-canadian playwright, actor, educator and dub poet. d’bi.young weaves together pieces of her own life with the herstory and mythology of her Jamaican heritage. The performer describes her work as biomyth monodrama, where the term biomyth represents biography—pertaining to the accounting of one’s own lived experience—and mythology pertaining to the poetic reinterpretation of a lived experience, as well as the use of orature, folklore, myth and magic in the process of reinterpretation. “Biomyth is the poetic space between what we interpret as real and what we deem make-believe. It is magic making!” says d’bi.young.

d’bi.young will host an informal question and answer period after each of her performances.

the sankofa trilogy
written and performed by d'bi.young anitafrika

featuring word!sound!powah!
in repertory with blood.claat, and benu
TRILOGY PREMIERE
On until December 4th
For tickets or for more info please click the header!

Angelwalk Theatre Season 2011/12 Launch

Our friends at Angelwalk have announced their 2011/12 season. And they are kicking things off with a musical-revue entitled Off-Broadway On Stage. This revue was conceived by Angelwalk's Artistic Producer Brian Goldenberg, and is a musical journey through the off-Broadway archives. From The Fantasticks to Alter Boyz this off-Broadway musical revue will charm and delight audiences, while exposing them to some lesser known musical masterpieces. Award winning Musical Director Anthony Bastianon returns to Angelwalk Theatre at the musical helm of Off-Broadway On Stage.

Off-Broadway On Stage runs December 7-11

Next up, is the Canadian Premiere of I Love You Because. I Love You Because is a modern musical twist on Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice, with music by Joshua Salzman and book and lyrics by Ryan Cunningham.

"Set in New York, a young, uptight greeting card writer's life is changed when he meets a flighty photographer." (Press Release) With an eccentric cast of friends and siblings providing the supporting cast, these two learn to love each other, not in spite, but because of their differences. The New York Times called I Love You Because "infectiously entertaining," while Talkin' Broadway said, "[it's] the perfect date musical."

Making his Angelwalk debut is director Darcy Evans. Darcy is perhaps best known for his work as the Associate Director for the Broadway production of Little Women, starring Sutton Foster. He has also worked extensively with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Also making her Angelwalk debut as the Musical Director for I Love You Because is Lily Ling. She was recently involved in Soulpepper's The Fantasticks, (which was phenomenal.) She is also distinguished as the first woman to conduct a Shaw main stage production, for her work on Kurt Weill's One Touch.

I Love You Because runs March 28 - April 15th.

Subscription tickets or individual tickets are available by clicking the header. Special early-bird pricing is available now until October 31st.