Solid Improv Company Offers an All-New Musical at Each Performance

From press release:
After numerous sold out monthly shows at Bad Dog Theatre, as well as being dubbed one of Toronto’s Top Five Summer Improv Shows, Songbuster – An Improvised Musical is taking on the Toronto Fringe Festival. During each performance, the cast of incredible, award winning improvisers creates a brand new musical on the spot, where each night is opening night. The collection of misfit cast members are the best that musical improv can garner.

You’ve seen the cast on TV (Orphan Black, Degrassi, RAW, The Other Kingdom) but you’ve never seen them like this! Created in the summer of 2015 by Stephanie Malek (Bad Dog’s Final Frontier) and Josh Murray (Second City Education Company), this improvised musical is directed by Tom King and Carly Heffernan. Joining Malek and Murray in the cast are Kristian Bruun (Orphan Black), Ashley Comeau (Second City Mainstage), Tricia Black (Sketchersons), Matty Burns (Second City Naughty Listers), Alexandra Hurley (Edinburgh Fringe), Nug Nahrgang (Evil Dead! The Musical) and Connor Thompson (Second City Mainstage).

Audience suggestions are transformed into all singing, all dancing shows with surprising and hysterical results. Fast paced, ridiculous and always entertaining, the cast is endlessly ambitious creating an hour long musical from a series of suggestions provided by the audience. Not only do they create the music from thin air, but they also create a world full of engaging characters and captivating stories.

Songbuster likes to do the unusual. Take things outside the box. Their characters are solid, their voices refined and their humour meters are striking off the chart. They require the whole world as their stage and aren’t afraid to take it there.

Details

• Songbuster – An Improvised Musical plays at the Randolph Theatre. (736 Bathurst St)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.
• Content Warning: Mature Language.
• This venue is wheelchair-accessible through a ramp at the building’s northwest corner. Please arrive early and ask to speak with the House Manager.

Performances

• Wednesday June 29th, 10:00 pm
• Saturday July 2nd, 08:00 pm
• Monday July 4th, 02:30 pm
• Tuesday July 5th, 08:30 pm
• Friday July 8th, 05:45 pm
• Saturday July 9th, 08:00 pm
• Sunday July 10th, 01:45 pm

Avast, ye swabs! Therrrrrrrre be pirrrrrates and plunder at the Georrrrrrge Ignatieff Theatrrrrrrrre!

From press release:
The buzz is growing for “Pirates Don’t Babysit!” At the Toronto FringeKids Festival. With one performance already sold out, it is sure to be a FringeKids audience favourite. Tickets are available now, so don’t miss out.

“Pirates Don’t Babysit!” tells the story of 9 year old Jenny and a band of Pirates who show up at her door, looking for buried treasure. She agrees to help them if they help take care of her baby sister. Of course the bumbling Pirates mess everything up, but finally manage to succeed in making the baby happy. In fact, in the end, the baby helps them and their treasure! This hilarious, rollicking show is fun for the whole family.

The rowdy band of Pirates will be played by Carl Bauer, Jamie Johnson, Jesse Perreault and Hilary Wilson. The Mom will be played by Carina Cojeen, and the part of the “baby” will be played by Jaclyn Nobrega. Cristina Hernandez is the stage manager and Jenny will be played by actual 9 year old Olivia Harms!

Playwright Barb Scheffler and director Michael Harms have written and produced several shows together including “Road to Muskoka” at the Toronto Fringe, “Marjorie’s Wedding” an interactive musical comedy, and most recently “Chelsea Moor Castle (or the Contract to Marry)” – a new Gilbert and Sullivan operetta with an original book and new lyrics created for the North Toronto Players 50th anniversary. With “Pirates Don’t Babysit!” they get to indulge their life-long love of all things Pirate!

Details

• Pirates Don’t Babysit! plays at the George Ignatieff Theatre. (15 Devonshire Pl)
• Tickets for FringeKids shows are $5 for kids (age 12 and younger); adults pay $10 at the door or $12 in advance.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• The George Ignatieff Theatre is wheelchair-accessible, and has wide aisles for easy mid-show exits.
• Don’t miss the FringeKids club located on the lawn adjacent to the venue! Free activities for children (3-12) and caregivers run every day of the festival: see website for details.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.

Performances

• Wednesday June 29th, 02:30 pm
• Friday July 1st, 03:15 pm
• Sunday July 3rd, 10:00 am
• Tuesday July 5th, 11:30 am
• Wednesday July 6th, 04:15 pm
• Saturday July 9th, 01:30 pm
• Sunday July 10th, 02:30 pm

Production photograph provided by the company.

La Cucina takes the immigrant story in a new direction, looking at what gets left behind

From press release:
The romantic notion of purchasing one’s ancestral home, in Elio Scorsini’s case, in northern Italy, conjures up dreams of an idyllic lifestyle of extended vacations, perhaps even retirement. But family histories and closet skeletons can easily get in the way of even the best laid plans. This is the story of a young man who emigrated from war-ravaged Italy in 1950 to provide a better future for his family in Canada, and the events that befell the people he left behind. It reminds us of the thousands of Italians who came to this country seeking their fortune, only to realize that they would never move back to their beloved, but damaged homeland.

The title, La Cucina, means “the kitchen” which represents the heart of every home, no matter your origin. The kitchen is where all the action takes place, as the play moves back and forth between the 1980s and the years from 1945 to 1950. Although it is set mostly in the past, this four act play will resonate with anyone whose family has left their place of birth to come to Canada in search of a better life.

The cast is comprised of varied performers, some of whom will be on stage for the first time, (Marisa and John Bressan) and some who have participated in Festival productions in the past (Gregory Willmot, Robert Morgenhauser, and Valentyn Korotkevych).

This is the first play written by John Bressan, and it is based on the experiences and reality faced by his parents, Ottorino and Lina, when they emigrated to Canada. John wrote this play in their honour, and to memorialize his parents in the hearts and minds of his children and grandchildren whom they never lived to get to know. Although the details are fictional, the story is filled with memories from John’s childhood, and impressions gathered from his family’s friends and relatives. John hopes that Festival-goers will find something in it that speaks to their own family histories… whatever they might be.

Performances

• Friday July 1st, 07:00 pm
• Saturday July 2nd, 01:45 pm
• Monday July 4th, 04:45 pm
• Tuesday July 5th, 06:30 pm
• Thursday July 7th, 12:00 pm
• Friday July 8th, 10:30 pm
• Sunday July 10th, 05:45 pm

Details

• La Cucina plays at the Factory Theatre Studio. (125 Bathurst St)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.
• Content Warning: Mature Language.
• This venue is NOT wheelchair-accessible.

A Thousand Kindnesses re-imagines gentleness: why do we think of it as “wimpy” when it can be defiant, dissident and heroic?

From press release :

“A Thousand Kindnesses, part of Refugee Festival Scotland (2015), is an unassuming and gentle protest against the atrocities of war. Jury’s thoughtful performance blurs the lines between the self and the other, highlighting an important message for Refugee Week: we are all human, after all.” – Lesley Brown, TVBomb.co.uk

“Rachel Jury, bathed in a single spotlight, is on a mission: ‘to bad-ass up kindness.’ She elucidates that kindness has a ‘saccharine, happy-clappy image,’ and she wants to make it cool, not cruel, to be kind. Jury’s stories are absorbing and powerful, harrowing and hopeful accounts alike brought to vivid life.” – Lorna Irvine, AcrossTheArts.co.uk Blog

Toronto, ON, June 2, 2016 – At the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival, award-winning Scottish artistic director, writer, producer Rachel Jury premiers her one-woman, critically acclaimed evolving theatre project ‘A Thousand Kindnesses’. Seven performances are set at the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace (30 Bridgman Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5R 1X3), with showtimes running on various dates starting on June 29 to July 10 (see ticket information and detailed show dates and times below).

‘A Thousand Kindnesses’ is a collection of personal accounts of micro-acts of kindness from across the globe by people who have recent, first-hand experience of conflict. It recognises and celebrates these acts as acts of defiance that challenge the annihilation and inhumanity of war.

Exploring migration, asylum and kindness based on interviews with people with personal experience of these issues, it is also the story of how Jury’s Dad was kind, but she didn’t want to be like him. ‘A Thousand Kindnesses’ is a work in progress as Jury gathers more stories and understands more about what kindness meant in her life and during her own childhood.

Rachel Jury, who won the Jackie Forster Memorial Pride Award for Outstanding Contribution to Culture in Scotland in 2006, states, “I am so thrilled to have the chance to promote and celebrate kindness at the Fringe Festival in the fabulous city of Toronto, especially as it has the third largest English theatre district in the world. With such a rich history of people from all over the world and a reputation for kindness in the city, I can’t wait to share stories with people there!”

Kindness as a concept has been sugar-coated in mainstream culture, but Rachel Jury seeks to show that it is a vital power that emerges through the way we choose to behave towards each other. While working with arriving immigrant communities in Glasgow, Scotland, including many who had fled conflict in their homelands, she was introduced to the work of holocaust survivor and Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and founder of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis Viktor Frankl. His work inspired her to investigate the idea that people who had experienced kindness during their ordeals were better able to recover.

As she gathered stories of kindness from all over the world, Jury realised that these micro-acts are not mentioned in the prevailing narratives of war and heroism. Grand famous gestures – including the Christmas truce football match in World War I and Schindler’s List in World War II – are not the only form of kindness that are a challenge to war. The smallest gestures between people with nothing else to offer are also heroic acts.

Facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/492975214219943.

Preview video:
https://www.facebook.com/athousandkindnesses/videos/1209942442350829

Details

• A Thousand Kindnesses plays at the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace. (30 Bridgman Ave)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.
• This venue is wheelchair-accessible.

Performances

• Wednesday June 29th, 06:15 pm
• Saturday July 2nd, 12:15 pm
• Sunday July 3rd, 03:15 pm
• Wednesday July 6th, 05:30 pm
• Thursday July 7th, 11:15 pm
• Saturday July 9th, 01:45 pm
• Sunday July 10th, 07:45 pm

Photograph of Rachel Jury by Karen Gordon.

The Mousetrap is a “delightful little murder mystery” on the Toronto stage

The Mousetrap is almost more famous as a phenomenon than it is as a play: the original London production of this Agatha Christie murder mystery is still running, 60 years after it opened in 1952. Straight out of Christie’s own golden age, fans of the genre will get exactly what they paid for — but even those who aren’t predisposed towards detective fiction will find a lot to like about this tense and lively production.

Continue reading Review: The Mousetrap (Lower Ossington Theatre) →