Jessica Salgueiro, Ben Irvine, David Christo, and Sochi Fried caught in each other’s mind games in The Charge of the Expormidable Moose. Photo by Yuri Dojc.

• Wheels: Attention cyclists! The 4th MEC Bikefest is here to offer you a full day to satisfy your inner cycling needs. There’ll be plenty of things here to keep you occupied, like group rides throughout the city, tune-up tents (these are the best), workshops, exhibitor booths, and more. Online registration starts on May 4th. Trinity Bellwoods Park (155 Crawford Street), Saturday at 11 a.m., FREE. Details
• Music: You don’t see too much of the Looney Tunes gang these days, so here’s a chance to take a trip down memory lane. Bugs Bunny at the Symphony projects classic cartoons onto a huge screen while the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony plays the original Carl Stalling score live. This one-night-only show follows the performances done here back in 2011. Sony Centre For The Performing Arts (1 Front Street East), Saturday at 7 p.m., $39 – $69. Details

Ongoing…

• History: Looking to brush up your cultural and history knowledge on all things Toronto? Heritage Toronto 2013 Tours offers you an enormous chance to learn tons and tons about the city you love via walking tours, bike tours, and more. Some of the events on the agenda of this weekly series include tours of Fort York, Korea Town, Don Valley, and Black Creek. It’s running all summer long so don’t miss out! Multiple venues, Saturday at 12 a.m. and Sunday at 12 a.m., FREE. Details
• Photography: David Kaufman’s Early Sunday Morning photography exhibit simultaneously celebrates the heritage of Toronto’s architecture, while pleading for its preservation, in the face of gentrification and condo development. The building facades and structures, rich in texture and colour, are each captured at their most beautiful—basking in the light of early morning. Twist Gallery (1100 Queen Street West), Saturday at 11 a.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m., FREE. Details
• Music: The Lula Music and Arts Centre’s annual Lulaworld festival kicks off on May 10 with Ethiopian jazz innovators Jay Danley and Fantahun Shewankochew. The festival travels around the world for the month of May, with performances most nights (and some afternoons) from local world music purveyors Uma Nota, Cuban player Bobby Carcasses, the Ukrainian Telnyuk Sisters, and more. (For a full schedule, prices, and reservations, visit the Lula Lounge website.) Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas Street West), Saturday at 12 p.m. and Sunday at 12 p.m., FREE–$25. Details
• Theatre: If you’ve been paying attention to musical theatre news over the past two years, you know that The Book of Mormon has a passionate and devout following of fans who swear it’s the long-awaited saviour of the artform. The show won nine Tonys in 2011, the cast recording reached number three on the Billboard chart, and tickets for its Broadway run are rare and expensive. Princess of Wales Theatre (300 King Street West), Saturday at 2 p.m.,8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., Prices vary. Details
• Theatre: It becomes clear rather quickly in the first scene of BEA, Actors Repertory Company’s North American premiere of British playwright Mick Gordon’s 2010 work, that the title character doesn’t live on quite the same level as the nervous young man she’s interviewing for a job. As Beatrice, a young but physically infirm woman, Bahareh Yaraghi begins by bounding around a bedroom set, swinging acrobatically from the four-poster bed frame and a somewhat mysterious ladder, and dancing circles around Brendan McMurtry-Howlett’s Ray, who is applying to be her caregiver. We soon learn all this physical exuberance is an outward manifestation of Bea’s busy mind, which has been confined in the bedroom, and in a bedridden body, for years. Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst Street), Saturday at 2 p.m.,8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., PWYC–$25. Details
• Theatre: David Yee examines life’s interconnectivity in Carried Away on the Crest of a Wave. The play follows an escort in Thailand, a housewife in Utah, and a Catholic priest in India, and how their lives are simultaneously brought together and torn apart by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue), Saturday at 2:30 p.m.,8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., $21-$53. Details
• Theatre: Ben and Gus are on a job, holed up in a basement, wondering who is in charge, and waiting for “the call” in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. Presented by Wordsmyth Theatre, the play ranges from tense and claustrophobic to ridiculous and surreal, while posing the question: how do you escape from a situation when there is no exit? Odyssey Studio (636 Pape Avenue), Saturday at 4 p.m.,8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m., $15-$25. Details
• Theatre: Fans of the seminal 1968 horror-film classic, Night of the Living Dead, will delight in Night of the Living Dead Live, a new theatrical production of the story. Despite a weak second act, it’s a fun black-and-white romp with some inventive deaths—and even a chipper musical number. Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace (16 Ryerson Avenue), Saturday at 7 p.m.,11 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., $20–$80. Details
• Comedy: Classic comedy series Theatresports is back for another season of improv hilarity. Now in its 30th year, this comedy tournament continues the tradition of allowing the audience members to choose the content of the scene and letting them judge the results; finals will be held at the end of May. Among the planned guests are comedic greats including Lisa Merchant and Craig Anderson (Canadian Comedy Award winners), Kerry Griffin (Second City alum), and many more. Comedy Bar (945 Bloor Street West), Saturday at 8 p.m., $12. Details
• Theatre: Delve into the world of dating, love, and marriage—sans commitment—with Angelwalk Theatre’s presentation of the off-Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Offered as a series of vignettes set to music, the show focuses on the disastrous, hilarious, and touching aspects of love and dating. Toronto Centre for the Arts (5040 Yonge Street), Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., $25-$45. Details
• Theatre: The 2012-2013 Buddies in Bad Times season goes out with a bang, and a growl, with the world premiere of Ecce Homo Theatre’s Of a Monstrous Child: a Gaga Musical. Bruce Dow plays legendary performer and master of ceremonies Leigh Bowery, with Kimberly Persona as Mother Monster herself. Using the music of Lady Gaga as a backdrop, the show is a crash course in the history of queer performance, celebrating everyone from Yoko Ono to Madonna, and Boy George. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (12 Alexander Street), Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., PWYC-$37. Details
• Theatre: Videofag, a performance venue in Kensington Market, has played host to a variety of events since it opened last November. It has transformed itself into a cinema, an art gallery, a nightclub, or whatever else has been needed. But its transformation for The Biographer, a new play from Daniel Karasik, is something else entirely. Videofag (187 Augusta Avenue), Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., $15-$23. Details
• Theatre: The experience of watching The Charge of the Expormidable Moose is a lot like the experience of reading the play’s title. At first, it’s a little strange, a little off-putting, and very ambiguous. But eventually, its oddness becomes its appeal. Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue), Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., $13-$28. Details

Urban Planner is Torontoist‘s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email us with all the details (including images, if you’ve got any), ideally at least a week in advance.

Today, as they do every May 17, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) held ceremonies internationally to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. The Toronto ceremony takes place at the flagpole on the rooftop podium at City Hall—today a more frantic place than usual. As the event unfolded PFLAG president Irene Miller spoke about love and acceptance; as she ended a moving address on acceptance of sexual and gender diversity, Miller urged those in attendance, “hug one another, do not leave without a hug today!”

Then she went directly over to Mayor Rob Ford and embraced him.

The mayor’s appearance at the flag raising ceremony was his first public event since news broke that Ford was allegedly filmed smoking crack cocaine and making homophobic and racist remarks. Ford has yet to respond to the story, except to characterize the reports as “absolutely ridiculous.”

After reading a proclamation to open the event, an extremely red-faced Ford stood off to the side, literally cornered near the flagpole on the east side of City Hall. Following his brief embrace with Miller, Ford marched back to a second floor entrance to the building, ignoring questions from the phalanx of reporters asking questions about his alleged drug use and discriminatory comments.

Miller had a message for people who face discrimination based on sexual identity: “You have people who love and support you. You have people who need to advocate for you…you never need feel alone again.” She also reminded the audience that the damage from homophobic and transphobic comments goes beyond their targets. “There’s a mum, a dad, a brother a sister, a friend somewhere in the vicinity who is also hurt by your ignorance and your homophobia and your bigotry,” Miller said to cheers.

Toronto Pride organizer TK, who is trans, also addressed the crowd, saying that the acceptance displayed at the event would have been unimaginable years ago. “Growing up, I couldn’t have imagined a day like today. I couldn’t have imagined so much love and support in a public square, at City Hall no less.” TK hoped that the million-plus number of attendees at annual Pride festivities would grow next year, as Toronto hosts World Pride 2014.

Many attendees had tears in their eyes during and after Miller’s remarks. Ford himself seemed agitated during the ceremony; he shuffled in place during speeches and whispered to his press secretary George Christopolous. As the ceremony ended and the media swarmed him, the sense of goodwill the event had generated quickly evaporated, and Ford was once again fleeing from cameras and questions.

In a conversation with us after the event, Councillor Kristyn Wong Tam (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) applauded the inclusion of two trans speakers, TK and well-known trans activist Enza Anderson. “It’s not often that trans people are able to share the stage publicly and express their pride,” Wong-Tam said. “They are really brave.”

Wong-Tam also expressed strong feelings about the mayor’s attendance at the ceremony. “I was fairly conflicted when I saw him,” said Wong-Tam. She said that while the queer community is constantly trying to reach out to Ford, he rarely responds. “It’s not good enough for someone to show up once a year and then just expect us to applaud him,” she said. “There’s more to being an ally than reading a proclamation prepared for you by staff.”

It was only yesterday that Mayor Rob Ford proclaimed proposals for a Toronto casino “dead.” In the wake of the province’s foot-dragging on the issue, and reluctance to commit to giving the city the $100 million Ford thought was a “fair share” of the gambling revenue any new facility would bring in, the mayor abruptly cancelled the special city council meeting that had been scheduled to debate the issue on Tuesday, May 21.

Twenty-four hours later, a majority of councillors have signed a petition that will overturn the mayor and reinstate the meeting, ensuring that council holds its debate after all. The goal: clearly vote the casino proposal down, rather than follow the mayor’s preferred course and hold off on making any decision at all. Councillor Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) called reporters together to announce the news late this afternoon. We haven’t seen the list of signatories, but he said the councillors on the list represent a range of political views on council, united by the desire to have a clear decision on the issue.

City council will meet as originally scheduled on Tuesday, starting at 9:30 a.m. The full text of Layton’s letter announcing the petition follows.

Councillor Reinstate Casino Meeting by Torontoist

Over 5,000 Toronto Zoo members, as well as members of the press, got a special sneak peak at giant pandas Er Shun and Da Mao earlier today. The pair is expected to be at the zoo, on loan from the Chinese government, for the next five years.

Zoo director of public relations Katie Gray said that the day was meant as a warmup for the pandas’ official unveiling on Saturday.

“Today is a learning opportunity,” she said. “We’re trying to manage the crowds and see how fast people move through the exhibit, but overall everyone’s having an amazing experience and the pandas are being amazing.”

The pandas, for what it’s worth, were remarkably unfazed by both the crowd—which included both children and adults squealing with delight—and the dozens of cameras being pointed at them. Four year-old male Da Mao lounged in the sun, eating bamboo, sitting in a remarkably human-like posture and staring back at the crowd, while five year-old female Er Shun avoided the heat and lay sprawled out in the indoor part of her enclosure. This seemed to be more than enough for the onlookers. That’s the great thing about pandas. They don’t have to do much to impress you. They’ll spend 16 hours a day eating, reject roughly 85 per cent of the bamboo you offer them, poop roughly 40 times, then go to sleep for eight hours, and you’ll love them for it.

The exhibit also features an information centre, where zoo-goers can read about pandas and their habitat, watch panda videos, and play panda-related touchscreen games. The space was designed by architecture firm Reich and Petch. Project coordinator Carolyn Smith said that the aim was to create something that was distinctly Chinese, but without resorting to cliched imagery.

“We wanted to create something that was fresh and informative and kid-friendly and modern,” said Smith. “There have been so many other panda exhibits that have done the old school, hokey kind of Chinese pagodas, and almost stereotyping China. China is very modern and forward thinking, and they’re making a lot of great efforts to save the pandas, and we wanted to tell that story.”

Overall, Gray said she was pleased with the day, both logistically and in terms of crowd response.

“I think the best thing I’ve heard is people referring to them as rock stars,” she said. “That’s sort of the hype around them…and they’re definitely acting the part. They’re just laid back and chilling out and having a great time.”

We don’t know whether he did it or not, but we do know this much: three reporters say they have seen a cell-phone video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack.

After the news broke on Gawker Thursday evening, the Twitter reaction was immediate and explosive. The silence in local media, meanwhile, was deafening. No Toronto outlet other than the Star had seen—or, at any rate, would admit to having seen—the video in question, which was recorded, supposedly, by a man believed to have provided Ford with the crack he allegedly smoked.

After the Star‘s article went up, around midnight, it took until morning for much of the rest of the city—and the world—to catch up. And boy, have they.

Here’s what’s being said about Ford’s latest scandal.

Locally, various city councillors have begun to weigh in. Ford’s deputy mayor, Doug Holyday (Ward 3, Etobicoke Centre), had this to say, according to the Globe:

“I have not seen any indication of him using any substances like this, or anything else for that matter.”

Meanwhile, John Parker (Ward 26, Don Valley West), Ford’s deputy speaker, called on the mayor to address the allegations head on:

“We all hope that the inferences that are floating around are untrue and the only one who can set us straight on that is the Mayor.”

And the police are also aware of the situation. The same Globe article quotes TPS spokesperson Mark Pugash saying the following:

“…we are monitoring the situation closely.”

Whatever that means.

Ford isn’t the first big-city mayor to find himself in this position. In 1990, Marion Barry, who was then the mayor of Washington D.C., was videotaped smoking crack by the FBI. He was later convicted of drug possession.

In an interview with Washington Citypaper, Barry had this to say about the Ford case:

“Unless he was entrapped by the government, it’s not similar.”

It’s worth noting that although Barry lost the mayoral election following his arrest, he did win a city council seat after being released from prison. Then, in 1993, he was elected mayor again.

And that’s not the only international press the story has attracted. Spurred on by Gawker, lots of out-of-town outlets are starting to discover Mayor Ford.

The BBC has picked up the story on its website.

New York Magazine has something on one of its blogs.

NBC is running a wire story from Reuters, meaning Mayor Ford’s name could start appearing in lots of other places fairly soon.

And, naturally, there’s a Taiwanese animation of the story now making the rounds on YouTube:

Another thing to come out of this whole affair was a Twitterfight between a Gawker editor and a reporter at the Toronto Star. The main bone of contention was the fact that the Star is referring to its story on the crack video as an “exclusive,” despite the fact that Gawker had reported on the video hours earlier.

Granted, it was a pretty one-sided fight. Let’s take a look, shall we?

And finally, let’s not forget the several Indiegogo campaigns that have sprung up in an attempt to pay for the crack video’s release. The owners are reportedly asking for six figures. There’s one semi-legit one that was set up by the Vancouver Province, and then at least one other whose legitimacy we can’t vouch for.

And, in the past hour, Gawker has launched its own Indiegogo campaign. It probably stands the best chance of succeeding, but that’s not an endorsement of spending your money on this. We all want to see the video, but do we really want to pay off the guys who took it?

Toronto mayor Rob Ford is denying allegations that a video seen by reporters at two outlets—Gawker and the Toronto Star—shows him smoking crack cocaine. After brief encounters with reporters outside his home and his office earlier this morning, Ford held a scrum at City Hall at about 12:25 p.m. that lasted no more than a few seconds. His remarks in full: “Anyways, like I said this morning these allegations are ridiculous. It’s another story with respect to the Toronto Star going after me. That’s all I have to say.”

Flanked by security, Ford then got into the elevator outside his office and went down to the City Hall roof, for an appearance at the rainbow flag raising to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

UPDATE: May 17, 2013, 10:50 AM Earthquakes Canada is now reporting that the quake was 5.2 magnitude and occurred near Shawville, Quebec. There was a 4.1-magnitude aftershock.

Once a week, Vandalist features some of the most interesting street art and graffiti from around Toronto. Find something great? Email vandalist@torontoist.com.

Last night Gawker published a lengthy post by its editor, who wrote that he had seen a video that apparently showed Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, and that said video was being offered for sale by those who shot it. A couple of hours later the Toronto Star published their own article, in which two reporters write that they saw the same video two weeks ago, and confirm the description of the tape outlined in Gawker. The mayor and his office have yet to respond publicly to the allegations.

Also yesterday, a strike at the LCBO was averted just a day before the start of the long weekend. A tentative deal between the LCBO and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union was announced at 10 p.m. last night, just two hours before the strike deadline; details of the deal have not yet been released as it awaits ratification. “Did we get everything we were asking for? No. Did the LCBO get everything they were demanding of our members? No,” said OPSEU president Warren “Smokey” Thomas.

Shortly after Mayor Ford called a deal for a Toronto casino “dead,” Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. chair Paul Godfrey was ousted and the corporation’s entire board resigned in protest, warning that Godfrey’s dismissal threatens the OLG’s planned modernization. Godfrey and Premier Kathleen Wynne had clashed over their differing visions for the corporation, including plans to build more casinos—in particular one in downtown Toronto. “I can totally understand why she would want someone she’s more comfortable with,” Godfrey said at a news conference last night. “I didn’t accept that there is a different direction, because I don’t think this government can afford to go in a different direction.”

Two trustees from the Toronto Catholic District School board are moving to have gay-straight alliances eliminated from the board’s schools in the city. Trustee Garry Tanuan (Ward 8, Scarborough), plans to introduce a motion at a May 23 board meeting that states that TCDSB schools are not allowed to have gay-straight alliances (GSAs) or similar clubs; trustee John Del Grande (Ward 7, Scarborough/North York) seconded the motion. Ontario law states that students can’t be prevented from setting up a GSA in any Ontario school.

Home sales in Toronto dropped 10 per cent in the first half of May, but prices in the city continue to rise. The 5.4 per cent jump in prices, compared to last year, was largely due to the sales of detached homes, though even condo sale prices rose by 1.1 per cent overall in the GTA despite a 13 per cent drop in sales. Price increases were highest in the 905—up 7.5 per cent—and held to just two percent in the 416 due to lower inventory.

Ryan G. Hinds, host of Comedy, Cabaret, and Coffee Talk. Photo by Tristan Harris.

• Offbeat: New Adventures in Sound Art is co-presenting the Trans X Transmission Art Symposium, a four-day meeting of artists who use sound as their medium. You may not be so intrigued as to join for the full four days, but for the layperson, there are also public exhibits launching at Theatre Direct at the same time, as part of the Deep Wireless Festival. Eleanor King’s Barns opens Friday, as do weekend installations of works by Csenge Kolozsvari, Alyssa Moxley, Robert Mackay, and more; admission for these installations only is set at $15 ($10 for students.) Artscape Wychwood Barns (601 Christie Street), 9 a.m., $10–$15/$40–$70. Details
• Comedy: Comedians Dylan Gott and Bryn Pottie are teaming up with filmmaker Dustin MacLean to make a comedic web series about conspiracies entitled Truth X-Posed. But to fund their weird “research,” they’re going out on some weird limbs. At their comedy show fundraiser, the two have committed to all manner of embarrassing tasks, including the cinnamon challenge, a make-out session, and if they hit their target of $1000, getting “tramp stamp” tattoos. (Some of Gott’s friends have already declared they’ll pay big money to ensure this happens.) Also performing and making fun of the two: Todd Graham, Freddie Rivas, Brian Ward, and more. Comedy Bar (945 Bloor Street West), 8 p.m., PWYC fundraiser. Details
• Comedy: Cabaret performance artist Ryan G Hinds hosts Comedy, Cabaret, and Coffee Talk monthly at the Flying Beaver Pubaret. This month, Hinds welcomes musically talented guests Bobby Hsu, Kiki Moritsugu, and El Toro. The Flying Beaver Pubaret (488 Parliament Street), 9 p.m., $10 in advance / $15 at the door. Details
• Performing Arts: Trading on some nostalgia for “the golden age of television,” TV PARTY has paired musicians like Rae Spoon, Laura Barrett, and Vanessa Fischer (of Lioness) with filmmakers, and the collaborative works will be presented live in front of (and “on”) a 30-foot mock-up of a wooden CRT television, recalling the Saturday morning cartoons, early ’80s MTV heyday, and groundbreaking programming on cable before the rise of the world wide web. SPK Beverley Halls (206 Beverley Street), 9:30 p.m., $12 in advance, $15 at the door. Details

Ongoing…

• Photography: David Kaufman’s Early Sunday Morning photography exhibit simultaneously celebrates the heritage of Toronto’s architecture, while pleading for its preservation, in the face of gentrification and condo development. The building facades and structures, rich in texture and colour, are each captured at their most beautiful—basking in the light of early morning. Twist Gallery (1100 Queen Street West), 11 a.m., FREE. Details
• Music: The Lula Music and Arts Centre’s annual Lulaworld festival kicks off on May 10 with Ethiopian jazz innovators Jay Danley and Fantahun Shewankochew. The festival travels around the world for the month of May, with performances most nights (and some afternoons) from local world music purveyors Uma Nota, Cuban player Bobby Carcasses, the Ukrainian Telnyuk Sisters, and more. (For a full schedule, prices, and reservations, visit the Lula Lounge website.) Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas Street West), 12 p.m., FREE–$25. Details
• Theatre: Fans of the seminal 1968 horror-film classic, Night of the Living Dead, will delight in Night of the Living Dead Live, a new theatrical production of the story. Despite a weak second act, it’s a fun black-and-white romp with some inventive deaths—and even a chipper musical number. Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace (16 Ryerson Avenue), 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., $20–$80. Details
• Theatre: David Yee examines life’s interconnectivity in Carried Away on the Crest of a Wave. The play follows an escort in Thailand, a housewife in Utah, and a Catholic priest in India, and how their lives are simultaneously brought together and torn apart by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue), 8 p.m., $21-$53. Details
• Theatre: Delve into the world of dating, love, and marriage—sans commitment—with Angelwalk Theatre’s presentation of the off-Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Offered as a series of vignettes set to music, the show focuses on the disastrous, hilarious, and touching aspects of love and dating. Toronto Centre for the Arts (5040 Yonge Street), 8 p.m., $25-$45. Details
• Theatre: The 2012-2013 Buddies in Bad Times season goes out with a bang, and a growl, with the world premiere of Ecce Homo Theatre’s Of a Monstrous Child: a Gaga Musical. Bruce Dow plays legendary performer and master of ceremonies Leigh Bowery, with Kimberly Persona as Mother Monster herself. Using the music of Lady Gaga as a backdrop, the show is a crash course in the history of queer performance, celebrating everyone from Yoko Ono to Madonna, and Boy George. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (12 Alexander Street), 8 p.m., PWYC-$37. Details
• Theatre: If you’ve been paying attention to musical theatre news over the past two years, you know that The Book of Mormon has a passionate and devout following of fans who swear it’s the long-awaited saviour of the artform. The show won nine Tonys in 2011, the cast recording reached number three on the Billboard chart, and tickets for its Broadway run are rare and expensive. Princess of Wales Theatre (300 King Street West), 8 p.m., Prices vary. Details
• Theatre: Videofag, a performance venue in Kensington Market, has played host to a variety of events since it opened last November. It has transformed itself into a cinema, an art gallery, a nightclub, or whatever else has been needed. But its transformation for The Biographer, a new play from Daniel Karasik, is something else entirely. Videofag (187 Augusta Avenue), 8 p.m., $15-$23. Details
• Theatre: The experience of watching The Charge of the Expormidable Moose is a lot like the experience of reading the play’s title. At first, it’s a little strange, a little off-putting, and very ambiguous. But eventually, its oddness becomes its appeal. Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue), 8 p.m., $13-$28. Details
• Theatre: It becomes clear rather quickly in the first scene of BEA, Actors Repertory Company’s North American premiere of British playwright Mick Gordon’s 2010 work, that the title character doesn’t live on quite the same level as the nervous young man she’s interviewing for a job. As Beatrice, a young but physically infirm woman, Bahareh Yaraghi begins by bounding around a bedroom set, swinging acrobatically from the four-poster bed frame and a somewhat mysterious ladder, and dancing circles around Brendan McMurtry-Howlett’s Ray, who is applying to be her caregiver. We soon learn all this physical exuberance is an outward manifestation of Bea’s busy mind, which has been confined in the bedroom, and in a bedridden body, for years. Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst Street), 8 p.m., PWYC–$25. Details
• Comedy: Comedy and life partners Matt Baram (CityTV’s Seed) and Naomi Snieckus (CBC’s Mr. D) are workshopping a new show format (“come see it get built right before your eyes!”) in a weekly residency in April and May at Second City’s Training Centre. The master improvisers and co-creators of Script Tease have been busy touring and on television of late, and these Baram and Snieckus shows will be a rare opportunity to see our 2010 hero nominees in a back to basics comedy format. John Candy Box Theatre (70 Peter Street), 8:30 p.m., PWYC. Details
• Theatre: Ben and Gus are on a job, holed up in a basement, wondering who is in charge, and waiting for “the call” in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. Presented by Wordsmyth Theatre, the play ranges from tense and claustrophobic to ridiculous and surreal, while posing the question: how do you escape from a situation when there is no exit? Odyssey Studio (636 Pape Avenue), 9 p.m., $15-$25. Details

Urban Planner is Torontoist‘s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email us with all the details (including images, if you’ve got any), ideally at least a week in advance.

Photoist is the first post we publish every weekday morning, featuring an image (or two) by a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Two publications—the New York-based site Gawker, and the Toronto Star—report that they have seen a video that allegedly shows Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. Both say they were approached with the video by a man who was seeking a six-figure sum in exchange for the footage; both report that they did not pay money to obtain the video, but were able to meet with the tipster and view the video on a cellphone.

As soon as the news broke a great many people started saying a great many things—about how this shouldn’t be surprising given the Ford’s known history, about how his mayoralty is clearly finished, about how they were excited to see him fall. The jokes about addiction came in a torrent, some wry and many gleeful.

Most of those things are both wrong and wrong-headed.

The truth is that right now we know almost nothing. We know that there is a video, that some reporters have watched it, and that they agree about what they saw in it: that Rob Ford appears to be smoking out of a crack pipe, and also making some fairly offensive remarks. Neither outlet was able to independently verify if the events that appear to be shown in the video took place. Neither was able to confirm when the events that appear to be shown in the video took place. (Gawker’s editor says the man who got in touch told him it was within the last six months.) Neither was able to confirm that if Rob Ford was smoking out of that pipe, he was smoking crack. Neither was able to confirm whether there is a larger pattern of behaviour in question.

Rumours about Rob Ford’s drug use have been swirling around City Hall for almost as long as he’s been mayor. More publicly, his long record of making off-putting, erratic, and sometimes detestable statements has made many wonder—sometimes idly, sometimes less so—about his judgment, and whether it might be impaired. Rob Ford has driven drunk, has been kicked out of a hockey game for drunken rowdiness, and most recently was asked to leave a public event apparently because he was drunk. For almost everyone hearing about this video, surprised though they might be by its gravity, there’s also an extent to which it seems to fit into a larger narrative, and to that extent, it is widely being accepted not only as plausible but as unquestionably true.

That context may certainly incline us to believe the story, but it isn’t actually decisive. The allegations, not just about drug use, but about the remarks Ford made—that he called Justin Trudeau a “fag” and that he said, of the players on the high school football team he coaches, that they are “just fucking minorities”—are serious. If true they would render Ford unfit for public office by almost any standard, but especially in a city which is widely known as one of the most diverse in the world, and which prides itself on its leadership in this regard. Toronto cannot and should not abide an elected official who says such things.

If he said them.

The allegations are serious, and they need to be treated as such. We can’t sacrifice evidenciary standards just because the story sounds right, or because it comes on the heels of other lapses, or because we disagree with Rob Ford’s politics and would be glad to see him forced out of City Hall. And we should not, no matter our politics, and no matter how fed up we are with a mayor whose term of office has been a long sequence of fiascoes and failures, stoop to the level of celebrating this ending, if an ending it proves to be.

Consider what it would all mean, if the allegations turn out to be true. We’d have one man, a drug dealer, secretly making a tape to either extort a large amount of money from one of his customers or to sell, paparazzi-style, to the highest bidder. We’d have another man, our mayor, in the midst of utter collapse, and possibly battling serious drug addiction. And we’d have an entire city left even more rudderless than it already is, the past two years of bad governance compounded by personal tragedy.

Whatever reasonable relief many Torontonians might feel if and when Rob Ford ceases to be the mayor—and we have been among his staunchest critics since well before he assumed that office—the vindictive delight with which many first met the news needs to end.

We don’t know yet if these allegations are true. We do know that if they are, Rob Ford is a man who more than anything needs help. So will the city he’s supposed to be leading. If we’re all to overcome the worst of Rob Ford’s tenure as mayor, the divisiveness and the ignorance and the failures of due process that he—regardless of what may be on this video—can justly be charged with, it can only be through demonstrating other values. Now would be an excellent time to start.