Results tagged “jordanpettle”

There's a certain kind of boy—and we're not saying it's every boy—who can recite all the words to the Will you go to lunch? scene from Glengarry Glen Ross from memory. Although the 1992 film, featuring an all-star, all-machismo cast filled with the likes of Alan Arkin, Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Jack Lemmon, and Kevin Spacey, was more of a cult-hit than a blockbuster, it has still inspired a pretty devoted (and probably pretty male) group of followers, who have nicknamed the cuss-filled real-estate-agent drama "Death of a Fuckin' Salesman." In the past couple of years, there has been a serious glut of popular (and in some cases, not-so-popular) movies finding their way onto the Toronto stage. CanStage has been a pretty serious offender this season, with one show based on a popular movie, and two others whose runs coincided with their Oscar-nominated adaptations' screen dates. Mirvish's upcoming season seems to be almost entirely populated with shows based on existing popular movies and TV shows. And last night, Soulpepper's stage version of Glengarry Glen Ross opened at the Young Centre. To be fair, David Mamet's Pullitzer Prize–winning play the film was based on debuted on Broadway almost a decade before the film was made, so it may not be entirely fair to include it as an example of this movies-on-stage trend. However, we're sure that more than one person in the crowd last night was wondering when Alec Baldwin's character was going to show up.

Each week, we take a look at Toronto's theatre scene and tell you which shows are worth checking out.

Words, words, words! Tongues get tied and language pulls a muscle in Terminating, a work by Tony Kushner (Angels in America), mounted in Toronto for the first time by Jordan Pettle. Inspired by Shakespeare's "Sonnet 75," this 30-minute play is classic Kushner in its robust tirades against everything from human ambivalence and existential paradoxes to window curtains and the smell of anal sex.

Brown leaves outside and it's suddenly colder than a witch's tit. Hello, fall! But besides meaning a death to sun and happiness, the fall brings in the new season of independant theatre! Yay! Tarragon has just opened its season with Generous, a new play by Michael Healey.

After a whirlwhind, SummerWorks-filled weekend (we saw nine shows in three days for Eye - whew!), Torontoist needed a couple of days to recover from the theatre marathon. But it was all worth the risk of brain implosion, for there are some really stellar pieces playing this at this year's festival, and you still have a whole weekend left to catch them. Here are our top three:

But what about the show? The first act of Small Returns -- a surreal my-worst-job-ever tale about debt and Dieppe that closes this weekend -- was decent with some really charismatic performances by Jordan Pettle and Rosemary Dunsmore. Alas, Torontoist can’t tell you how the second act was because Ghandi’s on Queen closes at 10 p.m. and we had a real hankering for some Saag Paneer and Butter Chicken.