Nominees for the 29th annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards were announced yesterday morning at the Sony Centre. Over muffins and coffee, various TAPA members, politicians, and mainstays of the Toronto theatre scene presented three awards and read off a long list of those eligible for taking home the coveted (if heavy) jesters come June 30th. This year’s nominee list, for the most part, is a rich cross-section of the Toronto theatre-going scene over the......

The Eco Show is a new Necessary Angel co-pro currently playing at Buddies. It's also the latest work written and directed by Daniel Brooks, so it would seem to go without saying that it's one of the most visually striking plays of the season, with masterful use of sound, lighting and A/V. It tells the story of a mysterious, insular family presided over by the sanctimonious and wheelchair-bound patriarch Hamm (yes, ha ha). Put-upon......

Happy: A Very Gay Little Musical is the latest show to open at Buddies and also the first musical by Sky Gilbert the theatre has produced in 17 years. And what a tricky little number it is. Essentially a musical about people writing a musical about people writing a musical, Happy tells the story of Bob and Dave, a married gay couple writing a musical about themselves, and Sue, Bob's dramaturg/faghag extraordinaire. Some scenes......

Pity sex may have gotten some of us through university, but Loree Erickson, a York University PhD candidate and photographer/filmmaker, is determined that it’s not a phrase which should be associated with the disabled. Concerned about the sexual stigmatization of people with disabilities, she’s put together an evening of film and live performance intended to open minds and shatter stereotypes about sex and disability. Reclaiming the Gaze will feature two short films by Erickson,......

Photo of Post Porn Modernists Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens by Julian Cash. It must be nice to write a column for The Globe: you can pass judgment on artists’ work without attending to pesky trivialities like seeing their shows, and project your own insecurities and feelings of lack onto people who are actually changing the world. Herein is a review of a recent show by Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens at Buddies in......

Sex-positive feminists are all atwitter! Annie Sprinkle Ph.D., prostitute/porn star turned sexologist/performance artist, is coming to our great city for a run of her her newest show, Exposed: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. While in town, Dr. Sprinkle will also be hosting two workshops at Come As You Are on ecstasy breathing and energy orgasms. Each workshop will also feature a screening of her upcoming documentary, Annie......

For Toronto's Kids On TV, it's been a long road to get their debut album completed, one that has lasted the better part of three years. For those waiting to hear Mixing Business With Pleasure, released last week by the Blocks Recording Club, there has been the lingering question of how the music would translate from the live show onto tape. For a band that is so infamous for its high-energy, explicit performances, how would......

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,......

A lot of the Big Ticket shows in town these days are shows that we've had the chance to see before. This is not a bad thing. There's nothing more exciting than seeing a brand new play that blows your mind, but it's also good to know that if a play is good enough, it can have a life that extends long after its initial run. Probably the highest-profile of these remounts is John......

Wave Two of Buddies' experimental 2006/2007 season is called Audience Relocation and starts this weekend. As the name suggests, this part of the season is dedicated to finding new ways of defining what an audience is - and where it is. Don't expect to sit in a chair watching a Well-Made Play. Kicking off Audience Relocation is a show called Connect the Dots by theatre company Small Wooden Shoe. Connect the Dots is the......

Carnival enthusiasts unite this evening at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre for The High Fashion Show, touted as a "runway cabaret" with the spirit of an antiquated midway. Part fashion show, part indie rock concert and part charity gala, all proceeds go to Camp Ten Oaks, a one-week summer camp for children with LGBTQ parents. Admission to this big top is $7, or $5 with the donation of warm hats and scarves for youths in......

Another month, another Daniel Brooks show at Buddies. Technically, this remount of the Daniel Brooks/Guillermo Verdecchia-written show that last appeared in Toronto in 1998 is directed by Chris Abraham, but it has Brooks' fingerprints all over it. And what that means is a masterful use of lighting and sound that is almost worth the price of admissions alone. Insomnia is a strange sort of show. The plot centres on John F., played by Brooks,......

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......

Salvatore Antonio is everywhere these days. He’s one of the three actors in Léo at Tarragon Theatre. He’s a regular on Ken Finkleman’s new series At the Hotel. And his first full-length play, In Gabriel’s Kitchen, opened last night at Buddies in Bad Times. Torontoist recommends Léo, a taut one-act play by up-and-comer Rosa Laborde, wholeheartedly. Antonio is excellent as the title character, a charismatic poet caught in a love triangle and the currents of......

Poor Jimmy can't get a good night's sleep. Born in a dream of an American army general, Jimmy the gay hairdresser is at the mercy of other people's subconscious imaginations. When the general dies, Jimmy is left in limbo, until his life begins again in the dreams of a Montreal actress whom he loathes. Marie Brassard's exploration of the frustrating inner life of a character who has no agency in his world is the most......

And where else would their headquarters be but a bathroom stall at Buddies in Bad Times?......

Seems like it's just bad news piled upon bad news for the city's small theatres this fall... - First, falling closely on the heels of the closings of the Tim Sims Playhouse and the Poor Alex, Artword Theatre is told to vacate the premises of 75 Portland St by March (Hello condos!); - Then, the Great Hall at Dovercourt and Queen went on sale, putting the Theatre Centre's future in doubt (Hello condos?); - Now,......

In Volcano's new production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler at Buddies in Bad Times, the first half of the play is set in 1905 and the second half takes place in 2005. And then the Daleks descend and shoot everybody's heads off! Okay, that last part isn't true. I'm just messin' with your Hedda... The time-travelling is all about making Ibsen relevant again, according to director Ross Manson who asked Toronto playwright Judith Thompson to adapt......

Last night, before catching the opening night of Darren O'Donnell's A Suicide-Site Guide to the City at Buddies in Bad Times, Torontoist stopped in Kathmandu (417 Yonge St., 416 924 5787) for a little Indian/Nepalese pre-theatre dining. While we were chowing down on some Lamb Saag and reading a day-old Metro -- oh, Enza the Supermodel, will your antics never stop? -- who should walk in to the eatery but Da Vinci himself: actor Nicholas......

It's Rhubarb time! Buddies in Bad Times' new works festival kicks off tonight with some 22 new plays for your consumption. Check out the full schedule of event on the Rhubarb website. Meanwhile, over in Yorkshire, England, the seventh Wakefield Festival of Rhubarb, a festival dedicated to actual rhubarb, begins tomorrow. No joke! Among the plays premiering tonight back in Toronto are: Getting Lucky by Christian Lloyd, Ruby the Clown in... Flood by Becky Johnson......

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is playing host to Hysteria, a Festival of Women, this week. And while Torontoist tries not to flog events that cater to narrow sectors of our readership (ie- left handers, people with three legs, Albanians), we're shouting up this event, because, well, it's really cool. All week you take an Intro to Breakdance class with Montrealer K8 (Give us a break!) Austerland, for the low, low price of fifty bucks.......