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.
Last night, I reviewed three of the twelve plays being presented at The Social Capital Theatre as part of The Short Short Play Festival. It’s a great idea: present four different groupings of three plays twice each over four nights in a casual setting with a bar.
As the adorable, tiny shorts hanging from a clothesline on the ceiling indicate, these are short works of theatre, twenty minutes tops, that don’t often get to see the stage. After my second night, and having seen half of the festival, I’m inclined to agree that good things come in small packages.
The Short Short Play Festival delivers bite-sized plays on stage in Toronto
The Social Capital Theatre serves up a buffet of short plays in an intimate Toronto setting in The Short Short Play Festival — a perfect evening for those who find hour-long plays to be taxing. It’s snack-size theatre, full of variety; a 20-minute play has to make its point quickly, and leave us with one indelible impression.
Plays of this length rarely get a chance at performance and so an appetizer menu of 12 plays over four days is a treat. As Shakespeare might say, though, they be but little, they are fierce.
I’m not sure if The Dinner Table (Fail Better Theatre) entirely needs a review. There are only twelve seats at this site-specific Toronto Fringe Festival production that promises dinner and a show, with a rotating cast of two storytellers, so the run is a sell-out, save a stray ticket here or there. The two storytellers change every night, so no two shows are at all alike, except thematically. Even dinner, freshly cooked and served to all guests, is different each time. Was my reviewing presence superfluous? Possibly. Am I glad I had a chance to be there? Absolutely. Continue reading The Dinner Table (Fail Better Theatre) 2015 Toronto Fringe Review→
Judy Merril, pioneering female science fiction writer of the 1950s, anthologist, and dissident, seems like a fascinating thinker who is unfairly being forgotten after her death in 1997. Unfortunately, I felt I learned more about her from the attractively-designed program than I did from