If you've watched Global at all recently, you've probably seen the promos for their new series Da Kink in My Hair, which premieres tomorrow night, October 14 at 7:30 p.m. The show is being billed as a sitcom, but that's not actually the most accurate description. It's a funny show set mainly inside a West Indian hair salon in Toronto called Letty's, which sounds like it could be a very sitcom-ish premise, but it's......

The grand dame of Toronto's performing arts venues, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, celebrates its 100th birthday tomorrow. To mark the event, the Mirvishes have organized a free open house from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., during which you can go on a self-guided backstage tour, eat free grub at the BBQ in front of the theatre (weather permitting), or catch a tribute performance from the original members of the 1969 Canadian cast of Hair.......

The late 1960s were a time of throwing off the shackles of traditional societal gender norms, including the rules surrounding who could wear lace pants. Unisex clothing popped up on runways mid-decade, reaching suburban malls by the time today's ad appeared. Opened in the winter of 1964, Yorkdale's original anchors included Eaton's (recently converted into the H&M/Old Navy wing), Simpson's (now The Bay), Dominion (now Holt Renfrew) and Kresge's (the five-and-dime progenitor of K-Mart;......

Canstage's heavily-hyped season-ending production of The Rocky Horror Show has finally opened at the Bluma. Last season, they finished things off with "revolutionary" 60s musical Hair, and this year they have opted for one of the 70s' key "revolutionary" musicals. Fortunately for the audiences, Rocky is an infinitely superior show to Hair in almost every way: the songs are catchier, the characters more memorable, the plot more engaging and Canstage's production, helmed by Ted......

Every weekday, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Some highlights: ROM Crystal's sharp edges cut Miller's Hair (104 - 101): In the closest and most depressing match of the tournament so far, a napkin sketch gone wild shears the mayor's golden locks from atop his head. The late game upset may qualify for a recount......

Each weekday for the next two weeks, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Today's matches, Region I + II, 2nd Round: The Giambroney vs. St. Clair ROWCN Tower Ice vs. ParkdaleThe Beaches vs. Toronto IslandsJane Jacobs vs. Gas-Fired Power PlantWest Side Lofts vs. Condo Boom416 vs. Queen WestYonge Street vs. Anagram MapMiller's Hair vs. ROM......

Each weekday for the next two weeks, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Some highlights from Saturday's matches: 416 trounces 905 (95-12): In perhaps the most dramatic victory of the evening, the Toronto area code showed up the surrounding suburbs in a true show of telecommunications muscle. Miller's Hair buries Zombie Walks (59-47): The closest......

Each weekday for the next two weeks, Torontoist is facing off local memes and blog drama in a tournament-style ladder and you, the reader, decide the outcome. View the full ladder here. Some highlights from yesterday's matches: Jane Jacobs makes Yonge-Dundas look square (107-95): The usually untouchable Jacobs was thrown off her game early on by anti-gun rallies, massive video billboards and a late-game PR stunt by a chewing gum company, but pulled ahead......

Last night's star-studded 17th Annual Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP Awards brought prestigious wins for local play 'Da Kink In My Hair and playwright trey anthony. The play started as a one-woman Fringe Festival production and enjoyed multiple sold-out runs in Toronto until expanded by the Mirvishes at the Princess of Wales Theatre last year. Set in a West Indian hair salon on Eglinton Avenue, the production involves the stories of multiple women who pass through......

By now, following the blog and mainstream media firestorm, almost everyone has seen this week's most discussed web clip involving a bride from hell and a bad hair day. The Star covered the buzz today with comments from Norman Jewison(!), the viral video was discussed this morning on NBC's Today show and it's been viewed almost 2.5 million times on YouTube. The big debate: it it real or fake? Entitled "Bride Has Massive Hair......

Last year, Mirvish Productions took an intriguing chance on actor/playwright trey anthony's "'da Kink in my Hair", with little evidence that a production about Black women's experiences would have wide commercial appeal. Tickets at the Princess of Wales theatre often sold-out and anthony [capitalization sic] would see 'da Kink get extended multiple times. The strength of 'da Kink was in its everywoman vignettes, mixing comedy with gut-wrenching reality that was at times almost unbearable to......

Now that you can't hide your hair underneath a thick wooly touque a new haircut is of the utmost importance. This makes the timing of playwright and actor Darren O'Donnell's latest project very appropriate. Haircuts By Children gives a couple of Parkdale elementary school children some shears and an opportunity to go at the hair of strangers at various salons around Toronto during the month of May. O'Donnell sees HBC as a critique on......

SFist commeters pose for before and aftershocks when the mayor commemorates a 1906 earthquake...at 4:30 in the morning. A hot tip on the Chronicle vending machines comes in and the SFist war correspondent risks life and limb to post this dispatch from the frontlines. Houstonist announces their new Cops spinoff "World's Funniest Tazer Videos" and the possible cancellation of their pervs' "World's Grossest Bathroom Videos" and PBS trains cams on cows at, uhg, Mootube. Also,......

We finally got around to seeing CanStage's anachronistic (and possibly mid-life crisis-induced) production of Hair last night. As the photos in the adverts promise, the cast is young, gorgeous, and sometimes scantily clad. The tagline in the adverts ("Now More Than Ever") is less accurate, however. Hair is very much a product of its time, a reaction to the draft and the Vietnam War, and a celebration of the free-lovin' hippy lifestyle. And while there......

March is moving out like a lamb and Toronto is up for a double shot of groovy spring feelings this week with the re-mounting of Hair, the Tribal Love Rock musical and the return of strawberries. It's the time of the season for these plump, glossy red berries to be making their appearance at fruit stands all over the city. Pair them with a creamy honeyed yogurt cheese straight from the Age of Aquarius and......

The National Basketball Association's MVP and super cute BC native Steve Nash could very well be approaching superhero status in Toronto. Over the weekend, millions (or thousands) of Nashophiles were speculating whether the camera phone picture below, courtesy of Gawker, was really Hair Canada playing an impromptu game of pick-up in NYC. The Gawker reportage, which posted at least three pictures of Nash balling with non-NBA players, have since been confirmed. What a guy! Along......

Cast Iron, a one-woman show about an elderly Barbados-born woman in a Winnipeg nursing home reliving her early life, opened last night at the Tarragon Extra Space. One of the noteworthy things about Lisa Codrington’s first play, produced by Nightwood Theatre in association with Obsidian theatre company, is that it is written and performed in the Bajan dialect. [You can see what it looks like written in this Eye article.] Don't let that scare you......

Don’t look now, but the Toronto Raptors are only 2 games out of third place in the Eastern Conference. Currently sitting 10th, and three and a half games back of the streaking Chicago Bulls for the final playoff spot, the Raps can thank the NBA playoff structure and their abysmal Atlantic division for their opportunity at a home court playoff series. Despite how poor a record, the division leader is guaranteed a top-three seed. With......

In the insular world of fashion, it's old ideas that are thought to be new, and new ideas that are always old. This post-modernist approach to what we wear has fueled some of the industry's worst ideas, with sales of trucker hats and retro Converse shoes leading the charge. This seemingly never-ending cycle of new/old trends (ie. "80's are out, 90's are in") has finally reached its limit. Instead of turning to the last......