Reviews of productions based in Toronto – theatre includes traditional definitions of theatre, as well as dance, opera, comedy, performance art, spoken word performances, and more. Productions may be in-person, or remote productions streamed online on the Internet.
Writer PJ Prudat’s 30-minute monologue is a cry from the heart. It’s family lore and cultural ode, storytelling and memory as rebellion, and, most importantly, a way to “no longer be invisible.” It is relevant, required viewing.
(Content warning: this show, and therefore this review, mentions violence against Indigenous culture and bodies by settlers and colonizers.)
Mangoes From the Valley, created by Aryana Mohammed and produced by Junebug Productions, is a heartbreaking portrait of Maria (Renee King), a Venezuelan woman in Trinidad, forced into sex work by circumstance.
Please note that this review discusses content (sexual assault, violence) that may be triggering to some readers.
For everyone who loves Twilight, The Hunger Games, Divergent and the host of other wildly popular YA trilogies and series comes Every Young Adult Novel Ever: The Musical, a charming, self-aware, little semi-improvised bit of fun playing at this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival.
Orange Chicken, by Send Noods Productions (“a pan-Asian collective of theatre & musical artists who don’t know how to not name a show after food”) is a combination of live-action and animated comedy sketches now playing at the Virtual 2021 Toronto Fringe Festival. Touching on topics from social media to online school to mixed-race angst to Communist propaganda, it’s a very funny 50 minutes that feels like it was made with the new hybrid medium of “digital theatre” firmly in mind.
Mangoes From the Valley
North of Smokey
