I should be clear from the start – my relationship to the famous French playwright Antonin Artaud prior to seeing the SummerWorks play Artaud was limited to the Wikipedia article you’ll be taken to if you click on his name.

This is slightly problematic as the play is entirely about peering into his brilliant, tortured soul, and admiring the space where his poetry (which you assumedly also admire if you are seeing this play) was cultivated. Continue reading Artaud: un portrait en décomposition (TheatreRUN) 2012 SummerWorks Review →

I think if there’s any SummerWorks show you should take your grandma to, it’s Les Demimondes. Your mother as well – your sister, your great aunt! Heck, your father and brother should be there too (although depending on how old your brother is you may want to sit a few seats away from him for this one).

The show is narrated by Prostitution herself (Alexandra Tigchelaar), a 3000 year old woman who is intelligent, clever, and comfortable naked in front of an audience of strangers. With equal parts humour and didacticism, Prostitution both entertains and chastises her audience into an exploration and subsequent dismantling of the various historical, cultural, and contemporary ways sex workers are perceived. Continue reading Les Demimondes (Operation Snatch) 2012 SummerWorks Review →

Hold For Applause was a cute little production, an unrehearsed (well, only two previous read-throughs the day of) and one-show workshopping of the winner of this year’s Ontario Sears Drama Festival, selected to receive professional development as part of SummerWorks.

The young writer, Sam Godfrey, was in the audience and the director, Michael Wheeler, took notes throughout. It felt very communal, very friendly, a nice way to include the next generation of writers in SummerWorks, and to provide them with feedback and guidance. Continue reading Hold For Applause (Sears Festival Partnership) 2012 SummerWorks Review →

There are a number of reasons why Outside the March’s SummerWorks production of Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus makes me want to start this review with some infatuated ooze like, oh boy, I love this one!

I want to gush about this new play-crush, but Terminus is too smart to be wrapped up with inflated exclamations, so I should attempt to keep this theatre talk deep. Continue reading Terminus (Outside the March) 2012 SummerWorks Review →

“That was really great” are the first words Cara Spooner offered the slightly anxious group gathered in a Gladstone Hotel hallway for her show Invitations/Into/Traces, part of this year’s SummerWorks.

These are also the words I would use to describe how I left the show feeling – like I’d been a part of something that was, simply put, really great. Continue reading Invitations/Into/Traces (Cara Spooner) 2012 SummerWorks Review →