Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Stratford Festival Expands Toronto-Stratford Shuttle Bus Service


It's very good news for Toronto-area theatre lovers – especially those on a budget. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has announced it will be extending its existing shuttle bus service between Toronto and  Stratford. As of the 2013 season, the Festival will provide twice-daily "Stratford Direct" bus service on performance dates for only $10 each way, departing from the Hotel InterContinental Toronto Centre (Front and Simcoe).


For some time, there was no convenient way for a Toronto theatregoer who did not drive to see a play and return the same night. In 1999, the Festival launched a Saturday bus service, and it has now been expanded to give a much wider range of theatregoers access to the Festival. The 2013 schedule is as follows:

  • On performance dates between May 1 and 25, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 10 a.m., with return from Stratford at 5 p.m.
  • On dates when a matinee is running between May 27 and September 29, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 10 a.m., with return from Stratford at 5 p.m. 
  • On dates when an evening show is running between May 27 and September 29, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 3:30 p.m., with return from Stratford at 11 p.m. 
  • On performance dates between October 1 and 20, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 10 a.m., with return from Stratford at 5 p.m.

Bus reservations can be booked online or through the Festival's box office (800-567-1600) along with play tickets.


Photo credit: Erin Samuell, courtesy Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Les Fourberies de Scapin – Review


I've long been a fan of the Théâtre français de Toronto. In fact, when artistic director Guy Migneault addressed the audience before last night's season-opening performance, I was shocked to realize the company is now in its 45th season, since I so clearly remember writing about the 20th anniversary.

The TFT gives Toronto audiences a unique opportunity to hear French-language plays performed – and very capably so – in the original words. Whether the work is by Quebec's Michel Tremblay, a new Franco-Ontario playwright or some master of the classic stage, nothing beats hearing it in French. As a particular fan of Molière, I am always especially happy to see the TFT tackle one of his scripts, and last night I got to see his Les fourberies de Scapin (which translates, less mellifluously, as "The Deceits of Scapin"). Almost the last play the great playwright ever wrote, it sees the master joyfully working the business of traditional Commedia dell'Arte, with two sets of young lovers, a pair of disapproving fathers, a duo of scheming servants and a couple of long-lost children.

The company has pared the classical three-act comedy down to a lean one-acter by means of some clever strategems worthy of Scapin himself – such as turning one onstage character into a mere note delivered anonymously via a fishing line. A couple of other minor characters have been dispensed with entirely.

As a nod to the conventions of 17th-century production, which would generally have included original music and lavish dance numbers, this production includes several interpolated songs, ranging from opera to folk songs, and including some snippets of Molière's dialogue sung to familiar tunes. Although it doesn't add much of practical value to the storytelling, it's a pleasant touch, rather like powdered sugar on strawberries.

This trim amusement is no longer set in Paris of 1671, but on a beach in a dream world based on post-WWII France, with blue jeans and espadrilles; however, the elderly fathers wear clothes that suggest the 1600s (or 1700s) and antique white wigs (the work of Alice Norton, whose much more contemporary hairstyles for the other characters add a lot to the whimsical visual appeal of the production).

The tight pacing makes for a show that's over before you know it. In fact, it left me wishing I'd seen a bit more of a few characters, especially the tall, emotive and funny Phillipe Van de Maele Martin, who plays the anxious lover Octave like a cross between Danny Kaye and Tintin. Those characters who do get a lot of stage time (the fathers: Robert Godin and René Lemieux and especially the servants: Sébastien Bertrand as Sylvestre and Nicolas Van Burek in the title role) are consummate professionals who are a pleasure to watch. I dare say their portrayals will only improve as they get to fine-tune the timing and gesture in front of live audiences.

Important to note that the TFT started to use surtitling a few years ago, which means that certain performances show the text of the play projected unobtrusively over the acting area as each performer speaks his or her lines. Beginning with just a few nights of each production, the company has now secured enough financial support that about half the performances will be surtitled in this run. Combined with the expressive direction, the surtitles mean that even someone with no understanding of French at all now has access to enjoying this classic of the world stage in a short, sweet production with a great deal of charm.

Les fourberies de Scapin runs at 26 Berkeley Street (upstairs) until November 10. Tickets are available online or by telephone at 416-534-7303.

Photo credit: Marc Lemyre. Robert Godin as the foolish father Argante, standing above (left to right) Sébastien Bertrand (Sylvestre) and Nicolas Van Burek (Scapin) in the Théâtre français de Toronto prodution of Les fourberies de Scapin.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Playwrights Guild of Canada Award Winners 2012



Last Monday, the Playwrights Guild of Canada presented its awards to playwrights at the inaugural Tom Hendry Awards at Stage West in Mississauga. Here are the winners:

  • Carol Bolt Award (best work premiered by a member): Don Hannah for The Cave Painter
  • New Musical Award: Lorne Elliott for Jamie Rowsell Lives
  • New Comedy Award: Michael Grant for Shorthanded
  • Lifetime Membership: Norm Foster (pictured above)
  • Post-Secondary Playwriting Competition: Leah Jane Esau for Disappeared

Also,Theatre Ontario presented the 2012 Maggie Bassett Award, which honours "an individual who, over a number of years, has made a sustained and significant contribution to the development of theatre in Ontario", to Dave Carley.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Harbourfront Centre Announces World Stage 2013 Lineup


Harbourfront Centre today released the roster of international theatre and dance performances that will make up the 2013 edition of the annual World Stage series, which runs from February to May.
  • February 6 to 9: Othello, c’est qui / Othello, who’s that – Gintersdorfer/Klaßen (Germany | Côte d’Ivoire), a reinvestigation of Shakespeare's Othello from Africa, where the Moor of Venice is little known
  • February 19 to 23: Sem Mim & Ímã – Grupo Corpo (Brazil), two dance performances: "Without Me" and "Magnet"
  • February 28 to March 3: Dachshund UN – Bennett Miller (Australia); what if a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights were conducted by small, sausage-shaped dogs?
  • March 5 to 10: Lear – Philip McKee (Canada), with acclaimed Toronto actor Clare Coulter as King Lear
  • March 6 to 9: Everyday Anthems, choreographed by Heidi Strauss – Toronto Dance Theatre (Canada), exploring anthems as metaphor
  • March 20 to 23: Weight x3 & 2 – TAO Dance Theater (China), four works in one: a triptych about boundaries, plus a piece about the nature of language
  • April 10 to 13: A Dance Tribute to the Art of Football – Jo Strømgren Kompani (Norway), a loving dance deconstruction of the Beautiful Game
  • April 17 to 20: She She Pop & Their Fathers: Testament – She She Pop (Germany), a different take on King Lear
  • April 23 to 27: Still Standing You – Pieter Ampe & Guilherme Garrido/CAMPO (Belgium/Portugal), a dance duet about the gestures of love and friendship
  • May 23 to 26: what we are saying – Ame Henderson/Public Recordings (Canada) & The Power Plant, exploring language and movement in a gallery space 
  • May 23 to 26: KAMP (CAMP) – Hotel Modern  (Netherlands), a puppet-play recreation of Auschwitz
World Stage tickets and further details are available online or via the Harbourfont Box Office at 416-973-4000. World Stage is on Twitter (@WorldStageTO or #WSTO) and Facebook.

Photo credit: José Luiz Pederneiras. The "tattooed" artists of Grupo Corpo's Sem Mim.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Alumnae Theatre Seeks Directors for New Ideas Festival


The Alumnae Theatre Company has issued a call for directors (especially women) who wish to be considered to direct one of 15 short plays that make up the 25th annual New Ideas Festival, coming up from March 6 to 24, 2013. Candidates should be non-union directors who are interested in working with a playwright to develop a new script. The positions are not paid; however, all basic production costs and resources are provided.

Interested applicants are invited to email the New Ideas Festival a brief description of directing experience by Saturday, October 27 under the subject line “Director Application [name]". For further details, visit the New Ideas page on the company website.

Photo credit: SimonP, Wikimedia. Alumnae Theatre.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare – Review


Theatre 20's inaugural production of the new musical Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare by Joseph Aragon will inevitably call up comparisons to Stephen Sondheim's 1979 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Like Sweeney Todd, it draws its inspiration from a melodramatic pre-Victorian episode (a real-life one, in the case of Bloodless) with a gritty, grimy ambience in which equally gritty and grimy characters perform vicious deeds to a disturbingly dissonant score and wickedly witty lyrics, the witnessing of which is calculated to make the average audience member question his or her own state of morality, and that of our society at large.

To say Bloodless is not as strong a work as Sweeney Todd would be to miss the point; Sweeney Todd was a full-scale Broadway musical created by some of the greatest of music theatre proponents (Hal Prince, Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, Sondheim himself). To see it when it debuted, as I was lucky enough to do, was an unforgettable experience. Bloodless isn't Sweeney Todd, but it may be something even more interesting: the birth of a Toronto company founded by a remarkable group of seasoned musical theatre performers "to create a unique voice for modern musical theatre" while developing new works, re-imagining older ones and advocating "for Canadian composers and their unsung work".

We haven't had anything quite like that before, and in the year that Dancap Productions has called it quits, and Mirvish Productions has announced that the Princess of Wales Theatre is worth more as a condo development than as a performing arts space, this is good and timely news.

Bloodless is a taut two-hour production with a tight, focused, simple storyline about two married couples who drift into the unsavoury profession of murdering people so they can sell their bodies for medical research. The four main characters, who could have been shown as heartless ghouls, are rendered as distinct and believable human beings, with varying degrees of greed, reluctance, compassion, selfishness and stupidity at play in each one.

Eddie Glen in particular gives a noteworthy performance as William Hare, who's never more than a half-hearted assassin. Most often seen as a jovial comic sidekick, in this show Glen evokes real pathos as he finds himself the only active participant in a marriage to a woman he loves, and struggles to maintain his dignity, if not his honour, while participating in 16 murders.

Set in Scotland, with several Irish characters, the script poses accent challenges to its cast, which are mostly handled with aplomb.

There are plenty of songs, though mainly not of the type that later becomes a standard outside the show. Much of the singing takes the form of recitative rather than ballad; the few exceptions are largely parodic: a Gilbert-and-Sullivan patter song, a Scottish folk tune (perhaps the most lyrical number in the show, and sung by a pair of "prossies"), a pub ditty.

As with Sweeney Todd, one of the most crowd-pleasing numbers (and one with the cleverest rhymes) covers the difficult-to-write moment when two people decide they'll become professional killers. In Sweeney Todd it's "A Little Priest"; here, it's a song that's probably titled "Better Off Dead" (there was no song list in the program.) In general, however, the harmonies and arrangements are more interesting than the lyrics or melodies. The strongest musical moments come when the chorus assembles for stirring, jarring ensemble numbers in many parts.

There's no dancing to speak of, although the performers move adroitly around the smallish stage. The costumes are not literal interpretations of the late 1820s setting; only a couple of dresses have the appropriate lines for the period; others have the characteristic bustles that didn't appear until after 1870. Instead, most of the characters wear an assortment of clothing that fits the mood and theme rather than the precise time and place; this is not after all a BBC television adaptation.

Bloodless continues at the Panasonic Theatre until October 28. In January, Theatre 20 will present Stephen Sondheim's classic Company. An auspicious first season for Toronto's newest theatre.

Photo credit: Riyad Mustapha. Theatre 20's production of Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare by Joseph Aragon. Oct 2012. Top (left to right): Jan Alexandra Smith (Margaret Hare), Eddie Glen (William Hare), Evan Buliung (William Burke) and Trish Lindstrom (Helen McDougal).

Thursday, October 11, 2012

New Home for The Theatre Centre Breaks Ground


The Theatre Centre today celebrated the groundbreaking of its new home at 1115 Queen West, the elegrant and historic Carnegie library building at Queen and Lisgar (pictured above). After renovation, its new permenent residence will house a 225-seat theatre, a rehearsal hall, a design workshop and office space. The federal government marked the occasion by announcing its contribution of $1.8 million to the project through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The Theatre Centre has made a home for innovative theatre in several different buildings over the past 33 years. Current resident companies include Project: Humanity, The Sixth Man Collective, Philip McKee and Tanja Jacobs. Until the building is ready to receive it, The Theatre Centre is operating from a pop-up space at 1095 Queen West.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Factory Theatre Announces Revised Season


Factory Theatre has announced its plans for a reconfigured season to replace scripts by George F. Walker, Judith Thomson and Michel Marc Bouchard that were withdrawn by the playwrights in protest over the dismissal of  former artistic director Ken Gass last June. The new season is designed by the interim artistic team of Nina Lee Aquino and Nigel Shawn Williams (pictured above), who were appointed in September.

There are two remaining productions from the Ken Gass-designed roster. The first is Every Letter Counts by Aquino, which will be directed by Williams. It runs from January 26 to February 24. Next up is Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata by composer Veda Hille & CBC's Bill Richardson. Co-produced by Acting Up Stage, it runs from January 30 to March 3.

New additions to the season are Iceland by Nicolas Billon, which runs from March 2 to 24, and Stopheart by Amy Lee Lavoie (May 4 to 26).

Photo credit: Jonathan Heppner.

This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show – Review


Theatre Passe Muraille's production of This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show is not so much a play about the CN Tower as a look at the evolution of the urban area illuminated by that distinctive beacon. It makes up part of an innovative fall season for the theatre that examines the social fabric and geography of Toronto in a series of performances that happen not only inside the theatre, but also on the 501 streetcar, on the sidewalks of Queen Street West and in other unexpected locations.

This show is composed of a series of vignettes based on personal interviews with Toronto residents (both famous and obscure), interspersed with  short song performances and a few interactive games with the audience. It's cleverly set in a space furnished with bits and pieces of Toronto infrastructure: a pedestrian crosswalk, a tree planter, a post-and-ring bike parking stand and overhead cables that resemble streetcar wires, among others.

The production is full of equally clever, specific and appealing sound effects, both taped and produced by the actors: the ding of streetcars, the bells of the City Council chambers, birdsong, the distinctive tones of the TTC public address system, and so on. In fact, a great deal of the audience's pleasure in the show derives from recognizing these familiar details transposed to the stage.

The songs (except the last one) are perhaps the weakest element of the show, as they deviate a little from the  forward-moving energy of the rest of the production. However, some of the vignettes are remarkable, such as Greg Gale's intense and beautifully realized portrayal of a Mississauga construction worker who rediscovers the wonders of the city in a week of outings with his young daughter via subway ("first time in 30 years!"), or Ingrid Hansen's subtle delineation of a Scarborough social worker's ambivalent devotion to the place she serves. A few, though effective in themselves, don't add much to the gradually accruing narrative.

What does the play tell us about our city, where it's come from and where it may be headed? It suggests that our greatest danger, and also our greatest hope, may be that cities are inherently "self-organizing and surprising", in the words (apparently) of the great urban theorist Jane Jacobs, who spent the second half of her life in Toronto (and can it already be six years since she died?)

These words, mentioned early in the play, reoccur at the end, and their repetition pulls the structure of the play into focus. It's not just a series of cabaret turns, but – because it is shaped by random encounters with interview subjects, as well as by unscripted audience contributions during the performance – the play itself is also "surprising" (even to the actors) and "self-organizing".

All in all, This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show is a fine addition to Theatre Passe Muraille's noble four-decade history of collaborative creation based on observation of life. It runs in the Mainspace until October 27.

Photo credit: Aviva Armour Ostroff. (L-R) Greg Gale, Georgina Beaty, Ingrid Hansen and Thomas Olajide in This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show at Theatre Passe Muraille.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Stratford Festival on Film but Canadian Opera Company Off the Airwaves


The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is going on tour... sort of. In October and November, the Festival will present screenings of films based on its 2011 production of Twelfth Night and its 2010 production of The Tempest, starring Christopher Plummer as Prospero.

Twelfth Night, which features Ben Carlson, Brian Dennehy and Stephen Ouimette, will be shown in Toronto at the exciting new Daniels Spectrum space in Regent Park (585 Dundas Street East) on Wednesday, October 10 at 7 p.m. Admission is free, and a post-film question-and-answer session with actors Cara Ricketts and Mike Shara follows at 9:45.

Twelfth Night will also be screened in Detroit on Sunday, October 14 at 3:30 p.m. at the Detroit Institute of Arts. A month later, the DIA will show the film version of The Tempest (Sunday, November 11, at 2 p.m.)

In addition, Stratford veteran Lucy Peacock will deliver a lecture titled "Prayer, Carnival: My Journey with Shakespeare" on Thursday, October 25 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 232 of the Leacock Building at Montreal's McGill University.

While the Stratford Festival will be able to extend its viewing audience beyond the walls of its own theatres this fall, the current season's productions by the Canadian Opera Company, formerly broadcast on radio via CBC Radio 2 and Radio-Canada's Espace Musique, will not be made available. The COC announced today that negotiations with the two unions representing the performers – Canadian Actors' Equity Association and the Toronto Musicians Association – have not come to a successful conclusion.

Since 2009, 21 COC productions have been broadcast over the airwaves and streamed internationally via the internet, earning about $200,000 per season in fees for the artists. The issue under debate was the COC's request to reduce fee payments to $150,000 for the current season.

Photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann. From left: Tom Rooney as Malvolio, Cara Ricketts as Maria, Brian Dennehy as Sir Toby Belch and Juan Chioran as Fabian in the 2011 Stratford Festival production of Twelfth Night that was captured on film.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

2012 Drama Finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards


The finalists for the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Awards were announced today. The awards, which come with a $25,000 cash purse, a special edition of the winning book and a $3,000 promotional grant grant, recognize English- and French-language fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, children’s book writing and illustration and translation.

The winners will be announced on November 13 in Montreal; a presentation ceremony follows on November 28 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Here are this year's nominees in the drama categories:

English-language Drama
  • Catherine Banks, It is Solved by Walking (Playwrights Canada Press)
  • Trina Davies, The Romeo Initiative (Playwrights Canada Press)
  • Karen Hines, Drama: Pilot Episode (Coach House Books)
  • Cathy Ostlere & Dennis Garnhum, Lost: A Memoir (Scirocco Drama)
  • Anusree Roy, Brothel #9 (Playwrights Canada Press)

French-language Drama
  • Geneviève Billette, Contre le temps (Leméac Éditeur)
  • Simon Boudreault, D pour Dieu? (Dramaturges Éditeurs)
  • Fabien Cloutier, Billy [Les jours de hurlement] (Dramaturges Éditeurs
  • Evelyne de la Chenelière, La chair et autres fragments de l’amour (Leméac Éditeur)
  • Philippe Ducros, Dissidents (Éditions de L’instant même)
Photo credit: Izabel Zimmer. Evelyne de la Chenelière, nominated for the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Awards; in 2006, she received the Governor General’s Award for French-language drama for her play Désordre public.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Playwrights Guild of Canada Announces Shortlists for Inaugural Playwriting Awards Celebration



On Monday, October 22, the Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) will announce the winners of its annual playwriting awards at its first-ever awards ceremony at Stage West in Mississauga. Today, the Guild announced its shortlist. Guests will be able to board a shuttlebus in downtown Toronto to attend the event, hosted by Damien Atkins, which begins at 6:30 p.m.

The Carol Bolt Award is presented annually in recognition of the best work premiered by a PGC member in the past year. This year’s shortlisted entries are:

  • After Jerusalem by Aaron Bushkowsky, a dark comedy set in Israel about a teacher masquerading as an actress and a soldier with scriptwriting ambitions.
  • The Happy Woman by Rose Cullis, a play about a performance artist that explores "the nature of happiness, the desire to be normal, and the tension between truth and lies".
  • The Cave Painter by Don Hannah, a one-woman show about a visual artist facing a life crisis at 60.

The Best New Musical Award is presented to a musical by a PGC member that has not yet premiered publicly. This year’s shortlisted entries are:

  • Hersteria by Sharon Bajer and Joseph Aragon
  • Jamie Rowsell Lives by Lorne Elliot
  • Tom Pinkerton: The Ballad of Butterfly's Son by Hiro Kanagawa and composer David MacIntyre

The Best New Comedy Award is presented to a comedy by a PGC member that has not yet premiered publicly. This year’s shortlisted entries are:

  • Michael Rising by Damien Atkins
  • Shorthanded by Michael Grant
  • Aftershock by Evan Tsitsias

At the awards event, PGC will also present the winners of its Post-Secondary Playwriting Competition: Leah Jane Esau (Disappeared) and runner-up Maureen Gualtieri (The Green Man), as well as the winner of Theatre Ontario's 2012 Maggie Bassett Award, the generous and prolific Dave Carley and the winner of PGC's Lifetime Membership Award.

Theatre community members or media who wish to RSVP for the event should contact executive director Robin Sokoloski at 416-703-0201 or via email.

Photo Credit: Guntar Kravis. Maria Vacratsis, Martin Happer, Maev Beaty, Ingrid Rae Doucet and Barbara Gordon in the Nightwood theatre production of The Happy Woman by Rose Cullis, among the shortlisted plays for this year's Carol Bolt Award.