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.
Powerful, complex remount of Dora-winning play arrives in Toronto
***NOTE: The rest of run has been cancelled to respect social-distancing requests around COVID -19
In The Runner, a remount of the 2019 Dora winner for Outstanding New Play presented by Tarragon Theatre, Jacob (Gord Rand) wakes up in a liminal space of shadow and spotlight, confused, unable to remember what has happened to him. As the pieces fall back into place, the space appears more and more to be one of judgment. Jacob attempts to remember, and to justify his life and actions, while constantly in motion on the eerie white stripe of a treadmill that bisects the darkness.
Site-specific Sunday in the Park arrives on the Toronto stage in a “beautiful canvas”
Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s brilliant, century-spanning musical meditation on the place and value of art, gets a site-specific production from Eclipse Theatre at The Jam Factory for six short days.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning show celebrates the magic of the process of creation, which fits nicely with Eclipse’s ethos; professional actors are supported by fourth-year Sheridan students in a ten-day rehearsal process, to fashion something between a staged reading and full production. The result here is closer to the latter than the former.
A cathartic and hopeful delving into the philosophical questions about who we are at our core
Lucid Ludic’s devised production of Brain Storm, a hit at the 2017 Toronto Fringe (winning that year’s Tosho Knife Cutting Edge Award) returns in a production at Dancemakers Studio in association with Why Not Theatre. The show shares vignettes from a young woman’s frustrating attempts at recovery from the literal cutting edge of brain surgery. Kate (Shayna Virginillo) was a playwright; now she can’t read, and the simplest tasks, like riding the subway, are fraught with discomfort and peril.
One phrase plays on repeat in Kate’s mind, linking her to her deceased spirit medium grandmother (Hayley Carr), who acted as a writing vessel for the words of spirits. One of these spirits, fittingly, is that of renowned Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (Alexandra Montagnese and Maïza Dubhé) – yes, the Heritage Minute gets a reference – who proclaims his belief that death is not the end, but consciousness on a different frequency.
Vivek Shraya’s How To Fail As A Popstar, now at Canadian Stage, is about confronting failure, showing that it’s not the end of everything, but also not downplaying the disappointment and significance of the experience. It’s about living a life that refuses to conform to an expected narrative arc, and the second-guessing that can occur when that happens. It’s about a love of music that can never quite die, even when it’s in question. It’s about grooving to a ‘90s and 2000s musical nostalgia trip. And it’s about being fabulous and singing your heart out.
Improv comedy show highlights the best and worst of the dating scene
Many of us, on Valentine’s Day, go the traditional route of flowers, chocolate, and a fancy dinner for two. But, for the more adventurous, the lovelorn, or the anti-V-Day iconoclast, there was a different option this year: a Super Hot Date Night of improv comedy based on stories of our worst or strangest dates.
Several of Toronto’s best-known comics and improvisers, including Guled Abdi (Tallboyz), Andrew Phung (Kim’s Convenience) and Second City’s Tricia Black, Andrew Bushell, and Devon Henderson, gathered at the Paradise Theatre to create sketches from our greatest romantic foibles.
Powerful, complex remount of Dora-winning play arrives in Toronto
Site-specific Sunday in the Park arrives on the Toronto stage in a “beautiful canvas”
Improv comedy show highlights the best and worst of the dating scene