Results tagged “tonykushner”

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.

It's the last day of Inside Out, and this afternoon, the gay and lesbian film fest presented a pretty exciting Q&A session with director Laurie Lynd. Lynd directed, among other things, gay-friendly fare like the film version of Torontoist-fave Daniel MacIvor's House as well as episodes of Queer As Folk, Degrassi: The Next Generation and Noah's Arc. But it was his latest project that brought him to the immediate attention of Inside Out. Lynd directed the upcoming film Breakfast With Scot, which is that "gay Maple Leafs movie" you may have been hearing so much about. The afternoon began, however, with a screening of two of Lynd's earlier short films, RSVP and The Fairy Who Didn't Want to be a Fairy. The former is a sad short about a man grieving for his partner who has died of AIDS and the latter is a musical fantasy with Holly Cole about (literally) a fairy who decides that he wants to have his wings surgically removed. Both star Daniel MacIvor, at his loveable, charming best. Torontoist gives him a hug!

American playwright Tony Kushner is one of the most important playwrights of contemporary theatre. He also remains conspicuously under-produced in our fair city. His landmark play Angels in America (since adapted into a popular HBO miniseries) has received only one Toronto production in CanStage's 1996 season, noticeably absent from any season at Buddies. It's unsurprising then, in a way, that Mercury Stage's production of Homebody/Kabul at the Berkeley Street Theatre, a play that caused quite a stir in New York and London about six years ago is its Canadian premiere.

The 17th Annual Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival Continues! Last night, the festival presented its centrepiece gala screening at the Isabelle Bader Theatre of King and Clown (reviewed by Torontoist at last year's TIFF), a movie about a Korean monarch who falls in love with his cross-dressing jester that also happens to be the top-grossing Korean film of all time (OK, so at least it was until this happened).