Urban Planner: May 24, 2013

In today's Urban Planner: a food-and-beer festival at the Brick Works, Steam Whistle Unsigned has its 25th edition, and a retelling of the story of Marie Antoinette.

By Torontoist

Hussy plays Steam Whistle Unsigned on May 24. Photo by David Waldman.

• Food: Nearly two dozen food trucks and craft brewing companies will converge on the Evergreen Brick Works for CraveTO, a one-day outdoor food and drink festival that coincides with the start of the May 24 weekend. Your ticket gets you onto the grounds; all drinks and dishes will be $5 each, so bring dining money in one pocket, and drinking money in the other. A complimentary shuttle bus will run attendees to and from Broadview subway station; there’s also a complimentary UBER town car ride available. Evergreen Brick Works (550 Bayview Avenue), 5 p.m., $16.75. Details
• Music: To close out its 2012-2013 season, the Toronto Consort presents A Woman’s Life, a medley of music by female composers of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque period. Creator Alison MacKay has also enlisted actors Maggie Huculak and Karen Woolridge to join the ensemble in their professional capacity; they’ll bolster the presentation, along with projected images, in the acoustically pristine Trinity St. Paul’s hall. Trinity St. Paul’s Centre (427 Bloor Street West), 8 p.m., $18–$52. Details
• Music: Steam Whistle Brewing celebrates the 25th edition of its Steam Whistle Unsigned series with Beliefs, The C’Mons, and Hussy. As usual, the show takes place in the historic Roundhouse; it’s $5 at the door, and all money raised goes towards the Artist’s Health Centre Foundation. Steam Whistle Brewing (255 Bremner Boulevard), 8 p.m., $5. Details
• Theatre: As part of the Chic-A-Boom-Room’s performance art series The Box, Vancouver-based creative duo RiaToss present Marina Antoinette, a re-telling of the story of the doomed French queen. The show is set to the music of Marina and the Diamonds (who play a live show at the Sound Academy on May 23, but are in Montreal the next night), and boasts a wide assortment of collaborators from the fashion and visual art community. The Virgin Mobile Mod Club (722 College Street), 9 p.m., $15–$20. Details

Ongoing…

• Photography: David Kaufman’s Early Sunday Morning photography exhibit simultaneously celebrates the heritage of Toronto’s architecture, while pleading for its preservation, in the face of gentrification and condo development. The building facades and structures, rich in texture and colour, are each captured at their most beautiful—basking in the light of early morning. Twist Gallery (1100 Queen Street West), 11 a.m., FREE. Details
• Music: The Lula Music and Arts Centre’s annual Lulaworld festival kicks off on May 10 with Ethiopian jazz innovators Jay Danley and Fantahun Shewankochew. The festival travels around the world for the month of May, with performances most nights (and some afternoons) from local world music purveyors Uma Nota, Cuban player Bobby Carcasses, the Ukrainian Telnyuk Sisters, and more. (For a full schedule, prices, and reservations, visit the Lula Lounge website.) Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas Street West), 12 p.m., FREE–$25. Details
• Photography: Canadian indie music label, Arts & Crafts, are celebrating their tenth anniversary. As part of the celebrations, they’re showing a new exhibition from Toronto photographer, Norman Wong. The exhibition features images of various artists over the years including Feist, Kevin Drew, Emily Haines, and many more. You’ll be able to buy a book of photography there and a portion of the proceeds from the event will go to Testicular Cancer Canada and MusiCounts. 1093 Queen Street West, Unit 2 (1093 Queen Street West), 7 p.m., FREE. Details
• Theatre: One of the Fringe Festival’s greatest successes, and definitely Soulpepper’s biggest post-millennial hit, Ins Choi’s corner store comedy Kim’s Convenience returns for another extended run into the the summer season. Most of the principal cast, including Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as larger-than-life patriarch Appa, are back. Here’s our review of the first Soulpepper remount. Young Centre for the Performing Arts (50 Tank House Lane), 7:30 p.m., $5–$68. Details
• Theatre: David Yee examines life’s interconnectivity in Carried Away on the Crest of a Wave. The play follows an escort in Thailand, a housewife in Utah, and a Catholic priest in India, and how their lives are simultaneously brought together and torn apart by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue), 8 p.m., $21-$53. Details
• Theatre: Delve into the world of dating, love, and marriage—sans commitment—with Angelwalk Theatre’s presentation of the off-Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Offered as a series of vignettes set to music, the show focuses on the disastrous, hilarious, and touching aspects of love and dating. Toronto Centre for the Arts (5040 Yonge Street), 8 p.m., $25-$45. Details
• Theatre: The Accidental Mechanics Group presents an evening of dark comedy, storytelling, and confessional theatre, all rolled into one solo performance. During El Camino or The Field of Stars, Stewart Legere assumes the role of the unnamed protagonist, recanting tales of a failed relationship, a disastrous trip to Italy, love, and the complexities of a young queer couple struggling with internalized homophobia. Videofag (187 Augusta Avenue), 8 p.m., $15. Details
• Theatre: If you’ve been paying attention to musical theatre news over the past two years, you know that The Book of Mormon has a passionate and devout following of fans who swear it’s the long-awaited saviour of the artform. The show won nine Tonys in 2011, the cast recording reached number three on the Billboard chart, and tickets for its Broadway run are rare and expensive. Princess of Wales Theatre (300 King Street West), 8 p.m., Prices vary. Details
• Theatre: The experience of watching The Charge of the Expormidable Moose is a lot like the experience of reading the play’s title. At first, it’s a little strange, a little off-putting, and very ambiguous. But eventually, its oddness becomes its appeal. Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue), 8 p.m., $13-$28. Details
• Theatre: It becomes clear rather quickly in the first scene of BEA, Actors Repertory Company’s North American premiere of British playwright Mick Gordon’s 2010 work, that the title character doesn’t live on quite the same level as the nervous young man she’s interviewing for a job. As Beatrice, a young but physically infirm woman, Bahareh Yaraghi begins by bounding around a bedroom set, swinging acrobatically from the four-poster bed frame and a somewhat mysterious ladder, and dancing circles around Brendan McMurtry-Howlett’s Ray, who is applying to be her caregiver. We soon learn all this physical exuberance is an outward manifestation of Bea’s busy mind, which has been confined in the bedroom, and in a bedridden body, for years. Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst Street), 8 p.m., PWYC–$25. Details
• Theatre: Hold Mommy’s Cigarette is a one-woman show written and performed by Shelley Marshall (who was also nominated for Best Female Stand Up by the Canadian Comedy Awards). It tells an autobiographical tale of a street kid who grew up to be a world-renowned comedian. Directed by Linda Kash. Alumnae Theatre (70 Berkeley Street), 8 p.m., $20-25. Details
• Theatre: In 1996, Theatre Columbus premiered playwright Michael O’Brien’s “freely adapted” take on the famous Beaumarchais play The Barber of Seville, which was written in 1775. O’Brien’s version mixed in music from the 1816 opera of the same name by Gioachino Rossini, as well as original tunes by composer John Millard. The adaptation also propelled the story forward a couple centuries, with pop culture references galore. With Theatre Columbus co-founder Leah Cherniak at the helm, the musical ended the season with six Dora Award nominations (it won three) and plenty of critical acclaim.

  Seventeen years later, Soulpepper Theatre is remounting this zany reimagination of The Barber of Seville, updated once again by O’Brien, Millard, and Cherniak. But, for some reason—the change in decade, or company, or sense of humour—whatever had made the original so magical, has faded, save for a few key performances. Young Centre for the Performing Arts (50 Tank House Lane), 8 p.m., $32–$68. Details

• Theatre: Despite the fact that the last show in Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2012/2013 season is titled Of a Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical, Lady Gaga herself takes a secondary role. There are no homages to raw-meat dresses and gold-plated wheelchairs here. Instead, writer and director Alistair Newton uses the House of Gaga as a pathway into the history of the notable performance-art stars that came before her in the pantheon of queer iconography, and how she is and isn’t a construct of all of them put together. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (12 Alexander Street), 8 p.m., PWYC–$37. Details
• Comedy: Comedy and life partners Matt Baram (CityTV’s Seed) and Naomi Snieckus (CBC’s Mr. D) are workshopping a new show format (“come see it get built right before your eyes!”) in a weekly residency in April and May at Second City’s Training Centre. The master improvisers and co-creators of Script Tease have been busy touring and on television of late, and these Baram and Snieckus shows will be a rare opportunity to see our 2010 hero nominees in a back to basics comedy format. John Candy Box Theatre (70 Peter Street), 8:30 p.m., PWYC. Details
• Theatre: Ben and Gus are on a job, holed up in a basement, wondering who is in charge, and waiting for “the call” in Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. Presented by Wordsmyth Theatre, the play ranges from tense and claustrophobic to ridiculous and surreal, while posing the question: how do you escape from a situation when there is no exit? Odyssey Studio (636 Pape Avenue), 9 p.m., $15-$25. Details

Urban Planner is Torontoist‘s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email us with all the details (including images, if you’ve got any), ideally at least a week in advance.