December is a pretty loaded month, especially with the impending arrival of the holidays. Between family visits to plan and gift-giving conundrums, sometimes it’s just a little bit easier to get in touch with your inner Scrooge. With all the holiday-themed action happening, there’s plenty of cheer and wintery humour to stumble across this time of year. It’s the moments of relief from the holiday rush that are few and far between, so we’ve Scrooged out a bit and rummaged up a few less holiday-centric options that won’t break open your wallet (at least, not as much as finding that perfect present might).
Here is what’s going on in Toronto theatre this week. There are several great shows to catch for the week of December 10th, 2012: ** Shows marked with the double asterisks and in red are the ones that make Wayne, our Managing Editor, wish he could exist in multiple parallel universes so he could check them all out.
Laid-back improvised comedy show Egg Zeppelin returns to Comedy Bar in Toronto
There’s not much that’ll get me to venture out and about on a chilly Wednesday evening, but the promise of laughs and the possibility of bacon – the other Mooney editors know very well how much I enjoy bacon – certainly did the trick at the most recent installment of Egg Zeppelin, an improvised musical variety show that’s taken up residence at Comedy Bar.
Unsure of what to expect, I nabbed my fellow Mooney assistant editor, Katharine to accompany me. The space at Comedy Bar is a cozy one, and the audience, while not packed in to the rafters, was a fair size for a Wednesday night.
Prehistoric puppet show explores happiness at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto
Walking out of Old Trout Puppetry Workshop‘s opening performance of Ignorance, I can say with perfect certainty that I was definitely pretty content with the hour and twenty minutes I’d spent in the Berkeley Street Theatre watching the show.
Ignorance is an exploration of how we came to understand happiness, how we seem to have lost it and how we might be able to find it again. It’s presented as a documentary, omniscient narrator included (and brought into being by the robust timbre of Judd Palmer, one of Old Trout’s co-founders). Through the deft skills of a trio of puppeteers, imaginative set design, and an enticingly clever script, the story of our prehistoric ancestors and their emotional evolution is easy to get immersed in.
Laid-back improvised comedy show Egg Zeppelin returns to Comedy Bar in Toronto
