At the beginning of a Songbuster – An Improvised Musical, one of the performers solicits a suggestion from an audience member for an exciting place where one meets people. The genius in the front row for the opening of Next Stage Theatre Festival offered: “ComicCon,” and we were off to the races. The absolutely hilarious and completely improvised races, through which we galloped for a very funny hour.
Next Stage Festival
Everything to do with the Next Stage Festival which happens in January in Toronto
2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: My Big Fat German Puppet Show (Invisible Inc.)
My Big Fat German Puppet Show is, well, a German puppet show. Playing at this year’s Next Stage Theatre Festival in the Factory Studio, playwright and puppeteer Frank Meschkuleit performs an adults-only cabaret of musical puppetry and stand-up that is sometimes funny but still mostly entertaining. Continue reading 2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: My Big Fat German Puppet Show (Invisible Inc.)
2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Date Me (Ted&Lisa)
Date Me, currently playing in the Factory Antechamber at the Next Stage Theatre Festival, is an improvised comedy show where creators Ted Hallett and Lisa Merchant act out an imagined first date between two characters based on real life dating profiles. Often laugh-out-loud funny and appropriately awkward, this “different every night” 30-minute farce is one I would definitely see a second time!
Continue reading 2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Date Me (Ted&Lisa)
2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Two Truths and a Lie (Pressgang Theatre)
Each night of the Next Stage Theatre Festival , three Toronto theatre artists, Graham Isador, Helder Brum and Rhiannon Archer, will take over the Factory Theatre’s Antechamber and each will impart an outlandish tale. Two of them will be telling true stories from their lives and one will be telling a story that’s made up. The fun for the audience is in guessing which one is fiction. Hence, their new half-hour show Two Truths and a Lie.
Continue reading 2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Two Truths and a Lie (Pressgang Theatre)
2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Blood Ties (Edge of the Sky)
Anika Johnson and Barbara Johnston, members of the writing team behind some of the most-acclaimed musicals to come out of the Toronto Fringe in recent years (including Summerland and The Fence) bring the latest incarnation of Blood Ties, a darkly comedic musical the duo has been honing for several years, to the Next Stage Theatre Festival.
Keen-eyed observers may recall that the musical was featured as part of the storyline on season 2 of “Orphan Black,” the Toronto-based BBC America/Space cult hit science fiction thriller starring Tatiana Maslany. A musical about a bunch of friends tasked with cleaning up the bloody mess in a bathroom following a relative’s suicide on the eve of their friend’s wedding, Blood Ties is the kind of quirky dark comedy that has the potential to also achieve cult hit status some day but at this point I still think it needs some more work. Continue reading 2017 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Blood Ties (Edge of the Sky)