Ilana Lucas has been a big theatre nerd since witnessing a fateful Gilbert and Sullivan production at the age of seven. She has studied theatre for most of her life, holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton and an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia, and is currently a professor of English and Theatre at Centennial College. She believes that theatre has a unique ability to foster connection, empathy and joy, and has a deep love of the playfulness of the written word. Her favourite theatrical experience was the nine-hour, all-day Broadway performance of The Norman Conquests, which made fast friends of an audience of strangers.
The BFF Variety Hour is “bright, bubbly and fun,” now playing at the Comedy Bar!
The BFF Variety Hour, Susan Waycik’s new rotating-guest show at Comedy Bar, is a mix of stand-up, solo sketch comedy, singing, dance and magic, all wrapped in a cozy cocoon of ‘90s friendship-necklace nostalgia and scored by a soundtrack including Britney Spears, the Spice Girls, and, of course, Vitamin C’s seminal “Graduation (Friends Forever).”
The company then took the 147 recorded interviews and cut excerpts of them together to create a performance piece, or “sharing,” for the last weekend of the festival. Interviewees received a ticket to the performance, booked separately, with limited tickets available to others. It’s fascinating to hear what other people are nervous about, and the “sharing” feels like just that – an attempt to make us feel less alone in our fears.
In Soulpepper‘s production of Art, Yasmina Reza’s 1994 one-act play which won the 1998 Tony for Best Play, friendships are threatened and the nature of art and creativity is questioned. Serge (Diego Matamoros) buys a very expensive painting that is the epitome of modern art: it appears to be, essentially, a blank, painted-white canvas, with a few white lines running across its expanse. Serge loves his painting, while Marc (Oliver Dennis) derides it. Yvan (Huse Madhavji) plays both sides, desperate to be the peacemaker and to be liked by both men.
Definitions of what and who are “criminal” or “insane” have historically been tailored to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and marginalized. This fact is readily apparent as one watches Audible Songs From Rockwood at the 2019 SummerWorks Performance Festival, a song cycle by Simone Schmidt (akaFiver) based on the case files of ten women incarcerated at Rockwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane between 1856-1881.
Gender Reveal Party, presented by Flamingo Rampant at the 2019 SummerWorks Performance Festival, is a work-in-progress, much like the gender identities of many of its participants. Created by Mooney on Theatre senior writer S. Bear Bergman, it riffs off the idea of the “gender reveal party” that has become a major social media fad in the past decade, starting with a fateful 2008 blog post -which the blogger reportedly now regrets. In these parties, as a baby sits in utero, its parents, via the inside colour of a cake, piñata, or some other intricate ritual, communicate to their guests the assigned gender of the child.
The BFF Variety Hour is “bright, bubbly and fun,” now playing at the Comedy Bar!
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