Results tagged “Daniel MacIvor”

ART: Some of the artists who recently turned their attention to a touch of tush are now having a go at "Bugs." Nancy Draws, Runt, Sam Ferrara, Vesna Mostovac, Fiona Smyth, Serge Fortin, and Joey DAMMIT! place our numerous nefarious nemeses under a microscope and examine our love-hate relationship with them. The exhibit, curated by Nancy Draws, continues to April 5. To attend tonight’s opening please RSVP to rsvp@steamwhistle.ca. Steam Whistle Gallery (255 Bremner Boulevard), 6–10 p.m., FREE.

Each week, Drama Club looks at Toronto's theatre scene and tells you which shows are worth checking out.

For years, SummerWorks has been kid sister to the Fringe. Smaller, shier, not quite as well-known (if often more reliable thanks to its policy of juried play selection as opposed to Fringe's random lottery). But there comes a summer in every kid sister's life when she starts going through some "special changes" and suddenly all her older sibling's friends turn their heads when she walks by the pool in her tankini. We already started to discuss the direction in which new Artistic Producer Michael Rubenfeld has started to take the festival, which has now been re-branded as "Toronto's Indie Theatre and Arts Festival."

Necessary Angel has just announced a totally cool event planned to take place on March 3, 2008. Three playwrights will be given the opening lines for a new play. Each playwright will have 4 hours in which to write said play, after which three different teams will have 5 hours to rehearse the works. When those 5 hours are up, the plays have to be performed at Necessary Angel's annual gala at the Capitol...

It's true. Torontoist fave Daniel MacIvor has given up doing those kinds of plays. You know, those one-man marvels directed by Daniel Brooks and chock-full of magic realism, gorgeous minimalist design, and MacIvor's own captivating performances? He's had enough of those and has moved on to "play plays." You know, linear narratives with multiple actors, realistic locations and resolvable conflicts? And that's exactly what we get with How It Works, which is being performed...

Last night at the beautiful Winter Garden Theatre, the winners of the 28th Annual Dora Awards were announced in a ceremony hosted by the hilarious Rick Miller (of MacHomer and Bigger Than Jesus fame). The Doras are basically Canada's version of the Tonies, except you can't watch them on TV and see Molly Ringwald and John Stamos jazz-hand their way through a radical new interpretation of Hello, Dolly! As one might expect, the whole affair is generally more sedate and even less people care about the results. But we do! It's also somewhat validating to see shows that Toronto reviewed positively get the respect they deserve (and occasionally shocking to see the same respect lavished on things we thought were crap). Now, there were a lot of awards being handed out last night, so let's be a jerk and ignore the hard work of all the behind-the-scenes people and focus on the flashier trophies.

It's the last day of Inside Out, and this afternoon, the gay and lesbian film fest presented a pretty exciting Q&A session with director Laurie Lynd. Lynd directed, among other things, gay-friendly fare like the film version of Torontoist-fave Daniel MacIvor's House as well as episodes of Queer As Folk, Degrassi: The Next Generation and Noah's Arc. But it was his latest project that brought him to the immediate attention of Inside Out. Lynd directed the upcoming film Breakfast With Scot, which is that "gay Maple Leafs movie" you may have been hearing so much about. The afternoon began, however, with a screening of two of Lynd's earlier short films, RSVP and The Fairy Who Didn't Want to be a Fairy. The former is a sad short about a man grieving for his partner who has died of AIDS and the latter is a musical fantasy with Holly Cole about (literally) a fairy who decides that he wants to have his wings surgically removed. Both star Daniel MacIvor, at his loveable, charming best. Torontoist gives him a hug!

When theatre "It Boy" Daniel MacIvor wrote Marion Bridge, a play which is finally getting its Toronto premiere after being performed out East, in New York City and being adapted into a film, he figured it would never be performed in the city. A big contrast to his edgy one-man shows, Marion Bridge is a family drama about three sisters reconnecting at their mother's deathbed that MacIvor supposedly wrote because he wanted to do something his mom would be able to enjoy. The play was supposed to be a rural drama meant for a rural audience, but The Company Theatre, lead by Artistic Director Allan Hawco, decided that if it was good enough for NYC, it was good enough for Toronto and got MacIvor to direct their production of his play.

What's that you say? You were out of town last fall when Daniel MacIvor's Here Lies Henry got remounted at Buddies and was the best thing since sliced bread? You were clinically dead in January when Monster, the second awesome remount of the one-man shows MacIvor created with Daniel Brooks went up? Well, cancel your trip to the Sea of Tranquility, because you have exactly 14 more chances to see the final remount, House, before it closes on April 1st and MacIvor, Brooks and Da Da Kamera officially retire these shows and disband their company forever.

Are you excited to see this fall's Hysteria Festival? Gearing up for Rhubarb! in February? Well, stop already, because they aren't happening. Buddies in Bad Times, Toronto's favourite theatre/gay dance party, has scrapped its entire usual season in favour a series of performance creations, put into groups called Wave One, Wave Two and Wave Three (reminds us a little of what Passe Muraille did last season with Stage 3). But don't worry! This is a good thing. Hysteria and Rhubarb! will return from their hiatuses next season (Torontoist is sad too, but we'll manage) and some pretty exciting things are happening in their place. Not least of which are the remounts of three of Daniel MacIvor's one-man Da Da Kamera shows, beginning with Here Lies Henry, running through this Sunday.