This week’s selections feature some racy Valentine’s Day shows for you and your sweetie. If you’re more of a revolutionary, check out one of the Black History Month appropriate shows. There is much to choose from, so here to help you chose is our Managing Editor Wayne, with a few of his top picks in red. Check them out below the cut:
Continue reading Playlistings in Toronto for the week of February 12th
Stephen Karam’s Tony award winning play, The Humans, opened at the Bluma Appel Theatre on Thursday evening. It’s a comedy/drama, funnier earlier on and more dramatic later, about a family Thanksgiving dinner that unfolds in real time, at just under two hours.
We’ve probably all experienced special occasion family dinners like this. Mom, Dad, Grandma (in this case Momo), and the adult kids get together. There’s joking and teasing and bickering and unsolicited advice and sometimes real tension. People talk over each other, little groups form, break apart, and form new groups; people laugh, sometimes they yell, sometimes they cry. They did in my family. And that’s what my friend Patricia and I loved about The Humans; they seemed like a real family. Continue reading Review: The Humans (Canadian Stage and Citadel Theatre)
The Canadian Opera Company’s remount of Rigoletto in Toronto garners new relevancy in #metoo eraThe Canadian Opera Company’s remount of Rigoletto (Giuseppe Verdi, 1851) has all the sinister opulence and dark thrills of the original 2011 production, but has a very different atmosphere in the #metoo era. Continue reading Review: Rigoletto (Canadian Opera Company)
“You’ve probably never seen anything like this before,” says Tapestry Opera‘s general director Michael Hidetoshi Mori, also the director of Tap Ex: Forbidden, the latest in the company’s series of new, experimental operas. Although it’s uncommon for a director to appear on stage prior to a performance to explain their creative rationale, it’s an unusual show, and a little bit of encouragement makes it more accessible and rewarding.
A new play by Bilal Baig in Toronto explores the intersections between queerness and Islamic cultureSeeing Acha Bacha on opening night at Theatre Passe Muraille was a study in contrast, from beginning to end. In moments I found it so bright and beautiful that I could barely stand to blink, and in other moments I struggled with wanting a different kind of experience. Overall I found this a promising work by a playwright who obviously holds tremendous potential. Continue reading Review: Acha Bacha (Buddies In Bad Times & Theatre Passe Muraille)