Results tagged “rickmiller”

Rick Miller has made a name for himself through his explorations of two of our society's most important (and ever-present) icons: Jesus Christ and Homer Simpson. MacHomer, his one-man version of Shakespeare's Scottish play as performed by the cast of Matt Groening's yellow-skinned dysfunctional family, has toured the world to great acclaim. His follow-up to that show was Bigger Than Jesus, a collaboration with accomplished director Daniel Brooks, which examined everyone's favourite carpenter from several different angles. In the duo's latest co-creation, HARDSELL, familiar cultural figures are absent. Instead, they give us an entirely new face. Literally.

Gossip no longer, culture vultures. We've finally got confirmation on CanStage's upcoming season. Like it or not, it looks like the rumours are true. As we reported before, the Bluma Appel Theatre's rather commercial lineup is entirely free of any Canadian-written shows, which has some folks in quite a tizzy. And as we suspected, CanStage is getting its CanCon through co-pros at the Berkeley Street Theatre. They're calling it The Berkeley Street Project, and it seems intended to supplement the Bluma's playing-it-safe season with "edgier, more provocative works." The first show, Wild Dogs (a co-production with Nightwood Theatre), is a stage adaptation of Helen Humphreys' eponymous novel. Up next, Studio 180 co-produces the Canadian premiere of Blackbird, a West End and off-Broadway hit by British (and consequently not Canadian) playwright David Harrower. The final co-production (with Necessary Angel) is the Toronto premiere of HARDSELL, a new work by Bigger Than Jesus team Daniel Brooks and Rick Miller. (Although, the only reason CanStage can claim "Toronto premiere" status is that the workshop presentation Brooks and Miller were going to present at Passe Muraille a month ago was cancelled due to illness.)

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...

Living Tall is basically an entirely perfect one man show, and it's only playing at the Tarragon Extra Space until Sunday, so you'd better get your act in gear. The script by Mike Geither is tight, hilarious and fascinating, Karin Randoja's direction is focused and inventive and Ker Wells' performance is astounding and completely compelling. The show, which was quite successful at this year's SummerWorks festival, is structured as a pop psychology sales seminar delivered by a man who seems slightly unhinged, if shockingly energetic. The seminar details a multi-step plan to become a more successful salesperson based on the concept of "living tall," even if you aren't tall yourself. Wells prances around the stage like an acrobat who's had a few too many Red Bulls, using hilariously unhelpful transparencies on an overhead projector as visual aids.

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.

The Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations were announced yesterday at the top of First Canadian Place. And for once, there is little to argue with… (Well, there's always something to argue about, so feel free to go at it in the comments here.)

Questions we suspect are not answered in include: “Why does every theatre artist who had a strict Catholic upbringing have to write a play about the religion he/she has left behind?” and “But is it bigger than Dick Cheney?"