The premise of Vangroovy (playing at the Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival) is best explained as the setup for a joke.
A jogger, a gorilla, a male prostitute and Santa Claus walk into Stanley Park. One of them looks like Placido Domingo.
There. That’s the joke. Did you laugh? Then Vangroovy is right up your alley.
I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t.
Continue reading Vangroovy (Theatre Ocean) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review
Every now and then, I get to see an amazing show. A show which is so outstanding, so perfect in every respect, that I want to shout it from the rooftops. I push out-of-town friends to visit just so they can bear witness to these chunks of theatre at its finest.
CALLAGHAN! & the Wings of the Butterfly is one of those shows. Don’t let the Fringe angle lower your expectations: there’s an hour of solid, consistent, awe-inspiring magic on that stage, and you’d be a fool to miss it.
Continue reading CALLAGHAN! & the Wings of the Butterfly (Sex T-Rex) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review
Life as a Pomegranate, which plays at a laundromat as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival, is an experience.
Yes, yes, okay, fine: you’re in a laundromat, with four strangers, all nervously avoiding eye contact while the denizens of the Annex attend to their socks and panties. It’s not what theatre usually feels like.
But more importantly, as Royzee Fudge (Dawna J. Wightman) explains, this is about you. She’s going to get on stage and “open her flap”: reveal something of herself to us. She’s going to tell us secrets, teach us songs, let us poke the big blue bouncing ball that resides somewhere near her heart–and hope that, in doing so, she’ll inspire us to open up ourselves.
This isn’t therapy, nor is it audience participation: you’re perfectly welcome to sit back and passively take it all in. But as a premise for a show, it’s damn ambitious–and damn successful.
Continue reading Life as a Pomegranate (Broadview Laundry Mat Theatre Company) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review
Just one more day until Fringe! Are you as excited as we are? (Because man, are we excited!) And as you may know, the best Fringe ticket is a free Fringe Ticket. At Mooney on Theatre, we like to spread the love during Fringe and invite our readers to participate in contests for a pair of FREE Fringe tickets to different shows every day of the festival. So enter a contest and Fringe for Free! Here are the FIVE shows that are we are giving away tickets for on Thursday, July 4th, 2013.
The shows are:
VGL 5’4″ Top – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:45 PM show at the Tarragon Solo Room (30 Bridgman Ave.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “VGL contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.
jem rolls ATTACKS THE SILENCE – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:00 PM show at the George Ignatieff Theatre (15 Devonshire Pl.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “jem rolls contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.
MSM [men seeking men] – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:00 PM show at the Randolph Theatre (736 Bathurst St.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “MSM contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.
My High-Heeled Life: Or, How I Learned to Keep Worrying and Love My Stilettos – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 6:00 PM show at the Tarragon Solo Room (30 Bridgman Ave.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “High-Heeled Life contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.
Love is a Poverty You Can Sell 2: Kisses for a Pfennig – To be entered into the draw for a pair of tickets to the 7:00 PM show at Bite (423 College St.), please send an email to contests@mooneyontheatre.com with the subject line “Love is a Poverty contest” by 7pm on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2013.
Below the jump: more more information on all of these shows, and our full contest rules.
Mooney on Theatre’s staff are, in general, a pleasant lot: there’s a reason people think we’re nice! But when Fringe rolls around, there are usually a good dozen assignments which have our writers climbing over each other and arguing like nine-year-olds.
“No fair! You got to review the decadent, juicy cabaret last season!”
“I never get to see Laura Anne Harris! Why can’t it be my turn?”
“If you don’t let me have the piece about gay pick-ups, I’m telling Wayne!”
Well, the dust has settled, the schedules have gone out, and Megan has sent four of us to the naughty corner. But wouldn’t you like to know which shows got our staff most excited? We’ve picked the top 6 most contentious Fringe shows from this summer’s festival and asked the lucky writer who landed the assignment to give us a short blurb on why they’re into it.
So: what are this season’s Mooney on Theatre Hot Tickets? Click the jump and find out!
Continue reading Mooney on Theatre’s Hot Tickets for Fringe 2013