Here's something to clear away your post-NYE doldrums: the Fringe, everyone's favourite early-summer theatre festival (don't worry, SummerWorks, you're our favourite late-summer theatre festival) has had a baby. Aw! Last Wednesday, something called The Next Stage Theatre Festival began at Factory Theatre. Next Stage really is like a baby Fringe: a smaller festival of only 8 shows running in rep at a single theatre, complete with a heated beer tent. The plays, which run......

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......

For those readers who do not happen to be massive Shakespeare geeks, it is worth noting that his high comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream finishes with a brief monologue delivered by the mischievous fairy Puck, which begins, "If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear." It is from this quotation that the SummerWorks play Offensive Shadows derives its titled.......

With gravel paths and ivy exterior all in shadows, Factory Mainspace at night is the intimate ideal home for Corrina Hodgson’s Simply Told. By turns both bold and fragile, this father-daughter dialogue explores the nature of truth (or truths) in family dynamics. Tense from the outset, the blunt emotional honesty on display builds until audience members are shifting in discomfort. Terrence Bryant is Joseph, a father who clings to his imperfect past. Lesley Dowey is......

Somewhere along the journey from being the achingly beautiful lead in John Greyson's Lilies, to guest spots on Train 48 and Relic Hunter, to his current stage work, Jason Cadieux has become a very talented actor. In Hard Ways, his new one-man show currently being performed at SummerWorks, he proves that he isn't a bad playwright either. The premise is simple: a man is detained by customs officers after attempting to enter the United......

Remember Thumbelina, the thumb-sized girl from folklore who suffered harassment from various garden creatures before flying away with a fairy prince? Ever wondered what followed "happily ever after"? Well, according to The Trial of Thumbelina—Gord Rand's postmodern, post-apocalyptic take on the fairy tale—our little nymph heroine would go on to suffer all kinds of slings and arrows over the centuries, only to end up at the Hague awaiting her trial for crimes against humanity. It's......

Nelly Boy is the story of of Nelson/Nelly, a genderqueer teen being interrogated by a mysterious man after a series of events that occurred at a shopping mall. The play is written by the talented Dave Deveau (pictured) who h-core fans will remember from his days on the sweet 90s spooky anthology series Are You Afraid of the Dark? Nelly Boy's production is very solid. Christine Horne's direction is topnotch, and combined with excellent......

Jasmine is the kind of show that's a perfect fit at SummerWorks. It tells the story of a working-class family that immigrated to Canada from Communist China and the strain that emerges between the son, who was raised in Canada and does not speak Cantonese, and his parents, who have never entirely left the old country behind. And what's more Canadian than a story like that? Jasmine is actually a sequel to Pu-Erh, a......

If one thing can be learned from the seedy-yet-tragic life of John C. Holmes, it's that bigger is not always better. So don't dismiss the SummerWorks Theatre Festival (which opens today) as a month-late, poor cousin of the Toronto Fringe simply because its complete playbill boasts only 40 shows, rather than Fringe's 140. There are a few reasons why SummerWorks is a grower and not a shower. For one thing, while successful Fringe applicants......

On Wednesday night, One Reed Theatre remounted last year's SummerWorks hit Nor the Cavaliers Who Come With Us. (Side salad: this year's SummerWorks line-up gets posted on their website this Sunday - who's excited?) Their run last summer was sold-out, and if opening night's full house was an indication, this looks to be another well-attended run. And with good reason. Nor the Cavaliers Who Come With Us is a collective piece created by the......

Starting today, the three-week long New Ideas Festival 2007 takes over the Alumnae Theatre. Week one and two feature six plays each while week three has five. Each night of the festival, you get to see them all. But they're short! So it's OK! Opening tonight are Gift Baskets by Siobhán Dungan, Job Descriptions by Peter Bloch-Hansen, Louise, Thelma and Something in the Middle by Julia Lederer, Poached by Emily Pearlman, and Tea on......

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: First off, pictured above is the cast......

Cirque du Soleil's much-anticipated new show, Corteo, opens tonight in that signature blue and yellow tent next to Ontario Place. If Torontoist's trusty informant (we're in with one of the ushers) is to be believed, Cirque's latest offering once again promises the usual suspension of the laws of physics, this time for a story involving a clown's funeral procession. But if Cirque's ticket prices stretch the purse strings a little too far, don't worry,......