The name “Mesopotamia” derives from a Greek term meaning “land between the rivers.” The Royal Ontario Museum’s latest major exhibit, which opens on June 22, takes this literally, as visitors flow between painted representations of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on the floor.

Presented by the British Museum and rounded out with pieces from institutions in Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World covers 3,000 years of human development in the cradle of urban civilization. Most of the 170 artifacts on display have never been shown in Canada.

There are a lot of chefs in the kitchen for the Canadian premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, a triptych set in three time periods that tells the stories of amateur actors (played by real actors) involved in staging performances of the story of Christ. Three different Toronto independent theatre companies, all with reputations for innovative staging and creation in their past work, each tackle one of the three acts. Ordinarily, such a complicated arrangement would be to a show’s detriment, but not in this case. While you need to be prepared for a marathon of theatre (the show runs four hours, incluing two intermissions), you’re certainly going to get your money’s worth.

“A cross between Woodstock and the Algonquin Round Table,” is what Michael Redhill called it. Dorothy Parker grinding out an electric cover of “The Star Spangled Banner”? Well, not quite. Rather, Redhill, the literary curator for Luminato 2013, was describing A Literary Picnic, the annual festival’s celebration of storytelling, creativity, and the written word.

The 2013 Toronto Jazz Festival descends on the city this Friday with a huge “free for all” event. That means all of Friday’s programming at every Jazz Festival venue is, yes, completely free of charge. There will be concerts from local favourites Molly Johnson and Mary Margaret O’Hara, plus a show by Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves, who will be launching the fest from its epicentre, Nathan Phillips Square.

Here’s a rundown of some of the shows worth checking out on Friday—and during the rest of the festival, when you’ll actually have to pay.

Folks who are planning on having a swim in the pool at Scadding Court Community Centre over the next few days may find themselves a little disappointed. Those who want to go fishing, however, will probably be ecstatic.

For the rest of the week, the Community Centre will be holding its annual Gone Fishin’ event, meaning its indoor pool will be an indoor fish pond. The pool has been drained, dechlorinated, and refilled with 2,000 rainbow trout, to be caught by local children and families.

The SummerWorks 2011 opening party. Photo by Stephanie Tonietto/SummerWorks.

Earlier today, the SummerWorks Festival announced that they’d been granted $90,000 in funding over two years—for this August’s upcoming festival, and next year’s as well—from Heritage Canada. It’s wonderful news, as the funding seems to indicate bridges have been mended between the influential multidisciplinary theatre and performing arts festival, and the federal government’s arts and culture funding body.

After last year’s funding was pulled with little explanation, many speculated it was due to the controversy over Homegrown, a play in the 2010 festival that was prematurely and mistakenly criticized as being supportive of terrorism.

“This will allow us to develop the festival and its culture in an organic, sustainable way, instead of having to scramble for funds,” a relieved Michael Rubenfeld, the artistic producer of the festival, told us over the phone. “Unlike last year, when we had to increase our fundraising capacity by over 400%.” That hastily organized effort, which kicked off immediately after Heritage Canada confirmed there would be no federal funding less than a month before the festival, was successful in replacing most of the funding, and so last year’s festival was able to proceed as planned. That huge emergency fundraising push would be unsustainable over the long term, however. The multi-year funding, explains Rubenfeld, means “[w]e can support our national series properly, for instance. We’ll continue to fundraise, of course, but organically. And we’ll be able to support our artists more, and our volunteers, with basics—like T-shirts.”

The festival is announcing the line-up for its 2012 music series this Saturday at a big launch party, as well as plans for their new live art series and more. “This money allows us to support all that programming,” says Rubenfeld, “instead of asking companies to cover their costs—to ‘pay to play.’”

That’s particularly important with regards to the national series, which brings work from across Canada to Toronto, giving those shows heightened exposure. For Victoria-based company Atomic Vaudeville and their musical Ride The Cyclone, which was just nominated today for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Touring Production (and last week for three Toronto Theatre Critics Awards), the SummerWorks exposure has been invaluable, for instance. Based on the exposure from their initial SummerWorks run, “they’ve been able to build a second national tour, a five-city tour starting in January 2013,” notes Rubenfeld: an example of how SummerWorks continues to benefit Canadians across the country.

While Rubenfeld is happy that Heritage Canada has had a change of heart, he’s quick to credit supporters of the festival, both financial and moral, for this favourable turn of events. “We really want to express our gratitude to everyone who supported the festival. All that sent a clear message about the value the SummerWorks Festival has for Canadians. And we’re grateful that the federal government agrees with them.”

Rob Ford and his co-star, Councillor Michelle Berardinetti. A regular Baryshnikov! Photo courtesy of the National Ballet of Canada.

What are the holidays if not for the traditions that go along with them? Not least among these: the National Ballet of Canada’s annual production of The Nutcracker—which has its own traditions as well, including rollerskating bears, dancing horses, and celebrity cameos in the roles of the two Cannon Dolls, appearing for about two and a half minutes during the Act I battle scene.

This year, local journalists, musicians, sport figures, and TV personalities will festoon themselves in the bright clownish costumes throughout The Nutcracker‘s run, but all were overshadowed (and we mean that in a symbolic sense) by one guest in particular who appeared in the season’s opening performance Saturday afternoon: His Worship, Mayor Rob Ford.

Since the first announcement of his dance debut, the jokes have been a little too easy: stuff about “being light on his feet,” “playing the clown,”—and the biggest knee-slapper of all: that he would make any kind of gesture that’s friendly towards the arts.

Ford isn’t exactly an arts organization’s biggest ally, even an international force like the National Ballet of Canada. As he hopped around rambunctiously onstage according to James Kudelka’s choreography, eagerly urging Councillor Michelle Berardinetti at his side to fire the cannon and spew streamers towards the audience, his proposed 10 per cent budget cuts were taking similar aim at the NBC, which stands to lose $114,860 in funding from the City.

But just like trips to the family cottage, we all know that Ford is a stickler for tradition. So while he tends to ignore other invitations to smaller, independent shows (of which there have been, and continue to be, quite a few including another holiday show that’s on right now), it is interesting that he has chosen to participate in The Nutcracker. Because while it is still a holiday favourite for little girls in puffy party dresses, their parents, and their grandparents, it is exactly what you would call “safe.” Audiences will always chuckle when the robotic rat flies across the floor, gasp when the tree magically grows, melt when tiny little lambs bounce in disorganized unison, and sigh when the Sugar Plum Fairy has her final pas de deux with The Nutcracker Prince. And they will definitely always shell out for a ticket.

Karen Kain herself has said “If we do not make the revenue we need in Nutcracker, we’re really in big trouble and we can’t keep the company afloat.” While the NBC prefers to fill the rest of their season with alternative, challenging pieces, it relies on the annual holiday cash cow (a brutish term, really, for such a lovely show) in order to survive. But in the era of Rob Ford, where every dollar counts even more than before, the appeal to “play it safe” for the box office’s sake could be fatal to Toronto’s artistic edge.

The idea of artistic risks versus conventional productions has arisen in the local theatre arts media as of late, with several articles coming down on the new direction of Canadian Stage under the helm of artistic director Matthew Jocelyn (who is on the verge of announcing the line-up for his third season with the company). While other outlets have piped up in support of Canadian Stage’s mostly-acclaimed 2011–2012 season, it’s now in a rather sticky position with its home, The St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, up for sale by the City. Many have said that the size of the Bluma Appel Theatre just isn’t the right fit for the company anymore, now that they’ve switched their box-office friendly seasons of big-budget, post-Broadway names for more challenging, conceptual works.

Soulpepper Theatre, known for remounting theatrical icons in a classical style, is also trying something new in 2012 by kicking off its season with Kim’s Convenience, the 2011 Toronto Fringe runaway hit that will be the company’s first original production. Though it might not draw in Soulpepper’s customary audiences, the season is also bolstered with other well-known names like The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, and A Christmas Carol—choices that could also fall under the realm of good, but also safe.

Moves by both of these companies are examples of efforts to draw in new and younger audiences, efforts that are poorly timed with an administration like Ford’s. And even with the arts sector cheerleading for the new Culture Plan (drawn up by a committee co-chaired by Kain), it’s worth noting that it too advocates for large scale, international artistic events—not necessarily those that seek to push boundaries or experiment extensively.

This may seem to be very Torontoist-y of us to take what might be a genuine gesture of goodwill towards a theatrical production on behalf of Ford and still find something to criticize, but if there was ever a point that an artist or arts supporter was content in saying “at least it’s something,” then we are in a very, very bad place.