Results tagged “michaelhealey”

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

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

The artists hate Stephen Harper. And it's not hard to understand why. His recent cuts to important arts funding have shocked and frightened the arts community (if you were fooled by his claims made at the Leadership Debate and elsewhere that his government actually spent more on the arts than the Liberals, check out former Torontoist Arts and Culture editor Karen Whaley's excellent explanation of how that is a big lie).

It's almost August, and some of us know that means it's almost SummerWorks. The juried theatre festival has taken a bit of a different turn this year, under the new artistic leadership of Michael Rubenfeld, and is branching out into music and performance art. In a shockingly tech-savvy move for the Toronto theatre community, it also has a blog. Last week, the blog started posting viral videos, including one where veteran Canadian actor/playwright Michael Healey yells for someone to "fuck his wide ass," and the video featured in this post, titled "Expression." In the video, playwrights Hannah Moscovitch, Tara Beagan, Claudia Dey, Rose Laborde, and Linda Griffiths discuss the travails of being "hot playwrights." The video, which culminates in a pillow fight, has already sparked a comments war on the fest's blog about its feminist implications.

Look at how cute the cast of The Drawer Boy is! And yes, that is the much-ballyhooed inflatable cow in the background. Have you continued to miss your chance to catch this new Canadian classic? Well, somebody must keep seeing it, because it's already been extended a couple of times and now plays until December 2. But if that somebody wasn't you, don't despair! The lovely people at Passe Muraille have decided to give back to the community, and tonight's performance of The Drawer Boy is going to be completely free for all those who attend. This is a great chance to see Michael Healey's poignant and funny rural drama on the cheap-as-free. It's a good idea to show up early, though. Tickets become available at 6 p.m. and are strictly first come, first served.

Passe Muraille has been pushing its remount of the hugely popular Michael Healey hit The Drawer Boy with considerable fanfare, including leaving giant, inflatable barnyard animals outside the theatre for a few days last week. And why not? It's the most successful play to ever come out of that theatre this side of The Drowsy Chaperone, which has definitely grown a bit too gigantic for a return trip. But The Drawer Boy, with its Farm Show-inspired plot and its allusions to Rochdale College, remains a perfect fit at Passe Muraille, even if its last major appearance in Toronto was at the considerably swankier Elgin. It could be just the hit the place needs.

This weekend, Passe Muraille kicks off its new season by remounting one of its most successful shows ever: Michael Healey's The Drawer Boy. To celebrate the seminal piece of theatre's homecoming, Passe Muraille will be displaying a two-story-high inflatable cow outside the theatre tomorrow at noon.

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.

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.

Some biggish news announced this week in regards to two of this city's major theatres: Passe Muraille and CanStage (oh, I'm sorry, I mean "The Canadian Stage Company"—more on that later). Let's start with Passe Muraille, the plucky underdog.

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.