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Live Theatre in Toronto

Mirvish 2010 Season- Revised

From Mirvish Press Release:



"THE SOUND OF MUSIC will end its record-breaking run on January 3, 2010, but the Princess of Wales Theatre won’t stay dark for long. There is a yearlong season of familiar and new musicals planned for this popular theatre in 2010.

RAIN – A Tribute to the Beatles

February 26 to 28, 2010
5 Performances Only: Friday 8 PM; Saturday 2 & 8 PM; Sunday 2 & 7:30 PM

The award-winning Beatles concert, RAIN – A Tribute To The Beatles, comes to the Princess of Wales Theatre after past Toronto triumphant runs at the Sony Centre and Massey Hall. RAIN boasts a repertoire of nearly 200 Beatlemaniac favorites, ranging from such beloved songs as Yesterday and Hey Jude to classic hits including Revolution and Come Together.

The show covers the Fab Four from their very first Ed Sullivan Show appearance through the Abbey Road album, through the psychedelic late 60s and their longhaired, hard-rocking rooftop days. RAIN is a multi-media, multi-dimensional experience...a fusion of historical footage and hilarious television commercials from the 1960s lights up video screens and live cameras zoom in for close-ups.

For the four longtime band members – Joey Curatolo (Paul McCartney), Joe Bithorn (George Harrison), Ralph Castelli (Ringo Starr) and Steve Landes (John Lennon), with a little help from their friend Mark Lewis (keyboards, percussion) – the music is first and foremost. For more than two decades in performances around the globe, RAIN has distinguished itself by focusing on details, always being faithful to The Beatles with the ultimate goal of delivering a perfect note-for-note performance. All the music is performed live, with no pre-recorded tapes or sequences. Like The Beatles, the onstage members of RAIN are not only supreme musicians, but electrifying performers in their own right.



The New Mel Brooks Musical

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

March 16 to April 18, 2010
Part of the 2009-10 Mirvish Subscription Season

The classic Mel Brooks movie is ALIVE...and it's headed to the Princess of Wales Theatre! You'll have a monstrously good time at this spectacular new production, winner of the 2008 Outer Critics Circle Award and the Broadway.com Audience Award for Best Musical.

Don't miss the sensational cast delivering all your favorite moments from the classic film, plus brand-new show-stopping numbers for the stage, including Transylvania Mania, He Vas My Boyfriend and Puttin' on the Ritz.

This wickedly inspired re-imagining of the Frankenstein legend follows bright young Dr. Frankenstein (that's Fronkensteen) as he attempts to create a monster--but not without scary and hilarious complications. The brains behind the laughter is mad genius and three-time Tony(r) winner Mel Brooks himself--who wrote the music and lyrics and co-wrote the book- along with his record-breaking team from THE PRODUCERS: five-time Tony-winning director and choreographer Susan Stroman and three-time Tony-winning writer, Thomas Meehan.



MAMMA MIA!

April 27 to June 27, 2010
Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ MAMMA MIA!, the smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, returns to Toronto, where it began its North American life in 2000 and played for five years.

Seen by over 40 million people around the world, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ global smash hit musical MAMMA MIA! is celebrating 7 sold-out years at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway, and is currently playing a record-breaking engagement on its National Tour in the United States. The original West End production has played more than 4,000 performances, an international tour has played in more than 40 foreign cities, and the blockbuster feature film adaptation, produced by Judy Craymer and Gary Goetzman, is the most successful movie musical of all time grossing $600 million worldwide.

An independent, single mother who owns a small hotel on an idyllic Greek island, Donna is about to let go of Sophie, the spirited daughter she’s raised alone. For Sophie’s wedding, Donna has invited her two lifelong best girlfriends—practical and no-nonsense Rosie and wealthy, multi-divorcee Tanya - from her one-time backing band, Donna and the Dynamos. But Sophie has secretly invited three guests of her own.

On a quest to find the identity of her father to walk her down the aisle, she brings back three men from Donna’s past to the Mediterranean paradise they visited 20 years earlier. Over 24 chaotic, magical hours, new love will bloom and old romances will be rekindled on this lush island full of possibilities.

Inspired by the storytelling magic of ABBA’s songs from Dancing Queen and S.O.S. to Money, Money, Money and Take a Chance on Me, MAMMA MIA! is a celebration of mothers and daughters, old friends and new family found.



LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL

July 6 to August 8, 2010
Part of the 2009-10 Mirvish Subscription Season
It's coming to Toronto next summer, and it's "AN ELLE OF A SHOW" (TIME Magazine). The hilarious MGM film is now the smash hit LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL. Legally Blonde follows sorority star Elle Woods, an underestimated blonde who doesn't take "no" for an answer. When her boyfriend dumps her for someone more "serious," Elle puts down the credit card, hits the books, and sets out to go where no Delta Nu has gone before: Harvard Law. Along the way, Elle proves that being true to yourself never goes out of style. After turning Broadway and MTV hot pink, this “Feel-Good Song and Dance Juggernaut” (New York Magazine) is “The Best New Musical Around!” (WOR).

Sorority star Elle Woods doesn't take "no" for an answer. So when her boyfriend dumps her for someone more “serious,” Elle puts down the credit card, hits the books, and sets out to go where no Delta Nu has gone before: Harvard Law. Along the way, Elle proves that being true to yourself never goes out of style.

In its first year on Broadway, LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL earned seven 2007 Tony Award nominations, ten 2007 Drama Desk Award Nominations, a 2007 Outer Critics Circle Award and the chorus of the musical was honored by Actors’ Equity Association’s Advisory Committee on Chorus Affairs (ACCA) with the first ever ACCA Award. The musical also ranked in the top ten list of the most requested Ticketmaster “Arts & Theatre Events” for 2007. LEGALLY BLONDE THE MUSICAL received three 2009 Touring Broadway Awards in New York City on May 4, 2009. The show won awards for Best New Musical, Best Production Design and Best Choreography of a Touring Production. The Awards, presented by The Broadway League, honor excellence in Touring Broadway. It is the only such national award.




PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT THE MUSICAL

Begins October 2010

Part of the 2010-11 Mirvish Subscription Season

The North American premiere of one of the hottest new musicals. PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT THE MUSICAL, written by Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott, and directed by Simon Phillips, will take over the Princess of Wales Theatre October 2010 for a limited pre-Broadway engagement.

Based on the Oscar® award-winning film, PRISCILLA tells the story of a glamorous Sydney-based performing trio: Tick, Bernadette and Adam. Travelling across Australia in a battered old bus (nicknamed Priscilla), the three agree to take their show to the middle of the Australian outback.

In a heart-warming, uplifting adventure, these three fish out of water who are searching for love and friendship … end up finding more than they could ever have dreamed.

PRISCILLA features a dazzling array of spectacular and colourful costumes and a score of dance-floor classics, including: I Will Survive, Don’t Leave Me This Way, Finally, I Love The Nightlife, Colour My World and Shake Your Groove Thing, all brought to life by the big sound of the live PRISCILLA band.

This new musical is a funny, moving and sensational journey to the heart of fabulous.

Currently playing to ecstatic audiences at London’s legendary Palace Theatre, PRISCILLA began its stage life in Australia, where it broke box office records in Sydney and Melbourne, with more than $90 million taken at the box office, making this the biggest Australian blockbuster in stage history.

In addition Mirvish formally announced that RENT will be extended at the Canon Theatre, now running January 12 to 23. And AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AN MANDY PATINKIN will be at the Royal Alex from Feb 9 to 14. "

http://www.thestar.com/entertainmen...0--princess-of-wales-to-resound-with-musicals
 
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August:Osage County-Canon Theatre

"August:Osage County won the 2008 Pulitzer and the Tony Award for Best Play. Its author, Tracy Letts, deserved them and every other prize this has gone on to win. The play, about a family that gets together to bury one of its own (and eviscerates each other while doing it), is full of secrets, lies, revelations and laughs. There are thirteen cast members, all of them excellent, and two who are great: Estelle Parsons, as the drug-addicted matriarch, Violet Weston, and Shannon Cochrane, as her eldest daughter, Barbara Fordham. To see these two women go at each other (and every one else who comes into their sights) is riveting. Was mother-love ever so destructive? There are two other daughters to destroy, and a few more relatives that need to be roughed up. Ah, family life!

This play clocks in at about three and a half hours, including two intermissions, and I’ll be damned if I’d edit out a single word (not even the many “F” and “C” words) to make it shorter. A packed house stayed to the “bitter” end and then stood up, applauding.

With the special deals that Mirvish is offering on rush tickets, this play is not only one of the best I’ve seen in a while but also one of the real bargains.
http://www.mirvish.com/august/
 
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Rocking The Cradle - The Tarragon Theatre

“Rocking The Cradle”, by Des Walsh, is set in a small, Newfoundland fishing village, circa 1967. Joan (Ruth Lawrence) is married to Vince (Daryl Avalon Hopkins) and craves to have children, as women in her time (and village) are supposed to. All of her friends have them, seemingly effortlessly and endlessly. But time passes, and there is no baby. Vince goes out of his way to ensure there won’t be one. Joan becomes obsessed with the idea of having children and becomes a prime target of the gossipmongers. Why does Vince not want children? What can she do?

This one act play is 75 minutes long, of which, perhaps, only 19 are interesting. Unfortunately they’re not consecutive. In many plays, local accents can be dispensed with. In this one the regional accent is imperative. How awkward that Ruth Lawrence can’t manage to maintain it for more than a couple of minutes at a time. “Featuring East Coast music, biting humour and poetic storytelling...” What biting humour? How many badly sung local songs are needed in a 75-minute play? The storytellers’ acting ruins whatever "poetic storytelling" existed. The supporting cast delivers amateurish performances at best, with only the two males offering anything stronger.

I did think the set was interesting, until I realized the scrim was never going to rise; the whole play is conducted behind it. Projections onto it, of sea and snow, are not enough to make up for the obscuring effect, separating audience from actors. When they SHOULD have used projections they used actual props: a kite wheels across the stage on a clothesline, a flock of fake crows are brought on stage with what….fishing poles? Bolts of white cloth are waved around to represent fog. I mean, really!

That this play is “freely adapted from Lorca’s ‘Yerma’” is meaningless, save to ward off potential copyright infringement suits. The play should stand or fall on it’s own. And fall it does, on all counts, on all fronts and all by itself. I’m surprised that Richard Rose directed this. I’m surprised that it actually made it onto the Tarragon stage. Not worthy.

http://www.tarragontheatre.com/season/0910/rockingthecradle/
 
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From Mirvish Newsletter:

"MY MOTHER'S LESBIAN JEWISH WICCAN WEDDING is already a massive hit, selling more than 16,000 tickets at the 700-seat Panasonic Theatre. So, producer David Mirvish doesn't have a choice but to extend the show's limited engagement by two more weeks. This new musical comedy based on a true story will now play until December 13, 2009... with the new block of tickets on sale right now! "

Want to find out how this new comedy began and how it was developed? Go behind the scenes of the rehearsal process. Meet the creative team and cast. Tune in this Sat Nov 21, 7 PM on the CTV network for a mini-documentary about the making of MMLJWW."

I get to see this in December; I'm glad it's being so well received.

http://174.143.72.90/mmljww/

On a different note, here's something I wasn't aware of: for all you students between the ages of 15 and 29, TOTIX has a programme offering Five dollar theatre tickets to certain plays and performances. Details here:

http://www.totix.ca/golive/hiptix
 
Theatre Info-The Toronto Star

An interesting article by Martin Knelman in today's Toronto Star on what is left out of press releases.

Included:Mirvish NOT inviting critics to the opening of "My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding".

Dancap offering thousands of free tickets to "Toxic Avenger", and some problems filling the Summer season at the Four Seasons Centre, though "South Pacific" is a go.

Stratford in the black, but with less Shakespeare.

All kinds of stuff!

http://www.thestar.com/entertainmen...elman-what-the-theatres-press-releases-forgot
 
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Rocking the Cradle Review

Benc7 said:
“This one act play is 75 minutes long, of which, perhaps, only 19 are interesting. Unfortunately they’re not consecutive. In many plays, local accents can be dispensed with. In this one the regional accent is imperative. How awkward that Ruth Lawrence can’t manage to maintain it for more than a couple of minutes at a time. “
http://www.tarragontheatre.com/season/0910/rockingthecradle/
Click to expand...

Benc7,

Before you read the following, you should know that I have no problem with your response to the show. Be it a good or bad review, you are certainly entitled to express your feelings about the show.

That being said, as the actress mentioned above (Ruth Lawrence), I am compelled to respond to your gross misrepresentation of our cast. I was born and raised in rural Newfoundland and have lived there for 36 years. Every member of the cast was born and raised there and have lived there for most of their lives. There was never even a discussion of putting on an accent for this production. We are all native Newfoundlanders and are speaking in our natural tongue. A quick scan of the bios in the program would have revealed this information.

If you were looking for the stereotypical mockery of a Newfoundland accent, I would direct you to the Comedy Network and the Royal Canadian Air Farce. It is you, not me, that should feel "awkward".

I do, however, thank you for support of theatre. I am glad you have found a voice in this forum to post your reviews. Any mention of theatre is good for all theatre.

All the best
Ruth
 
RuthLawrence said:
Benc7,

Before you read the following, you should know that I have no problem with your response to the show. Be it a good or bad review, you are certainly entitled to express your feelings about the show.

That being said, as the actress mentioned above (Ruth Lawrence), I am compelled to respond to your gross misrepresentation of our cast. I was born and raised in rural Newfoundland and have lived there for 36 years. Every member of the cast was born and raised there and have lived there for most of their lives. There was never even a discussion of putting on an accent for this production. We are all native Newfoundlanders and are speaking in our natural tongue. A quick scan of the bios in the program would have revealed this information.

If you were looking for the stereotypical mockery of a Newfoundland accent, I would direct you to the Comedy Network and the Royal Canadian Air Farce. It is you, not me, that should feel "awkward".

I do, however, thank you for support of theatre. I am glad you have found a voice in this forum to post your reviews. Any mention of theatre is good for all theatre.

All the best
Ruth
Click to expand...

I'm glad you understand that what I wrote was simply my opinion, nothing more, nothing less. What I want to make crystal clear is my intense love of theatre and my sincere admiration for people, like you, who devote so much of their lives to a profession that is often stingy with its rewards. I go to the theatre often because it can engage and move me as nothing else can.

I did read the programme, several times. I understood that every member of the cast was born and raised in Newfoundland. I also know that sometimes, regardless of intentions and efforts, a production just doesn't work. I look forward to seeing you again someday, on stage and in a play that will better showcase your talents.

Until then, I wish you nothing but success.

Sincerely,
BenC7
 
The Silicone Diaries-Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

Nina Arsenault has fascinated me since I first saw her on “Kinkâ€. Her determination to cut, inject and mould her male body to conform to an ideal, not of what A woman should look like, but what HER woman should look like, borders on obsession, if not addiction.

"The Silicone Diaries", a one-woman show, follows a chronology, beginning with her childhood and her admiration of a department store mannequin as an ideal of feminine beauty. But the play is more about Nina's struggle to get at the “why†of the thing, rather than an episodic recounting of the “howâ€. She realizes that it isn’t just the feminine she’s after, but an aesthetic superlative, a personal ideal of beauty that demolishes boundaries.

There’s a lot of very funny stuff in this piece. In one scene she talks about her famous encounter with Tommy Lee at the Rosewater Supper club, where he was taken in by her appearance. What I found particularly interesting was her reference to Pamela Lee, his then wife, as another surgical construct. Nina's recounting of the death of a mentor, who had one operation too many, was especially touching. The painful lengths Nina goes through to obtain the silicone injections that will give her the feminine curves she so desperately wants is as horrifying as it is moving. Later, her obsessive use of an exercise bike to gain some sort of spiritual, Zen-like clarity results with her natural parts becoming smaller while her silicone parts remain the same size; she’s as close as she’ll ever get to resembling the department store mannequin she so admired as a child. From my vantage point, Nina looked like many different woman through the evening; maybe that’s the lighting, maybe it’s the effects of her surgeries. While all of them were beautiful, this “cyborg†woman at the end, with her shaved head and impossible curves, is the most memorable.

It comes as no surprise to me that Nina can write well; I followed her column in “Fabâ€, and have read her pieces elsewhere. She isn’t a trained stage actress, and it showed, but in the end that made little difference. The artist IS the art and, at the very least, our attention is required. She had mine from the get-go.

This was its final performance.

http://www.artsexy.ca/show.cfm?id=409
 
A friend of mine who is a regular theatre goer in Toronto and NYC several times a year saw Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical in Sydney about two years ago and he raved about it.
 
^ I'm looking forward to it; I've heard its really good. At least it will have new songs and not recycled top 40 hits.:)
 
7 Stories-The Canadian Stage Company

“7 Stories”, by Morris Panych, is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its debut in a marvellous Canadian Stage production at The Bluma Appel Theatre.

On a set, straight from a René Magritte painting, a man in a bowler hat perches on a ledge seven stories from the ground, ready to commit suicide. If only the occupants of the seventh floor would let him! Through the windows that boarder the ledge, the motley habitués of the building fling the everyday absurdities of their lives at the poor, befuddled Man. In true surrealist tradition, with every sidesplitting laugh comes a piece of broken glass to chew on. Why not jump? A question posed to all of us every day. Really, why not? And yet most of us don’t. Sometimes, all it takes is “a grapefruit on the table”. To understand that, go see this superb cast in a superb, much-awarded play.

Starring Peter Anderson (The Man) and Damien Atkins, Christopher Hunt, Melody A. Johnson and Rebecca Northan playing a number of roles, all of them terrific. Directed by Dean Paul Gibson.

90 minutes, no intermission.

I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier in the run; it ends on December 5th.


http://www.canstage.com/7stories
 
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My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding-Panasonic Theatre

"My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding", by David Hein and Irene Carl Sankoff is the sort of play I’d hoped Mirvish would showcase in The Panasonic Theatre: a small, quirky Fringe piece that could be nurtured and expanded into something bigger and better. Well, this is certainly longer than the original that debuted at the Fringe just a few months ago. I didn’t see that production, but this incarnation is Fringe all the way, except for the bigger theatre. There’s no set, just a little band (a very good little band) and David Hein recounting the story of his mother and her marriage to a woman, a Wiccan woman as it happens. He plays in the band when he’s not narrating or acting on stage, and does so with such ease it was a pleasure to watch him. Lisa Horner plays Claire, the aforementioned mother, and her coming out after years of marriage to a man, is sung with a lot of energy and humour.

There are a number of very funny songs in this: I loved “Feelings Are Important” where a young David (played by Kyle Orzech) tries to tell his two moms that all he needs is money to do his laundry and a belt to hold up his pants, but they’re convinced there are underlying “feelings” that need to be explored. “Hot Lesbian Action,” sung by Robert B. Kennedy as the father, Garth, imagines his ex-wife and her new lover as straight men often do: pornographically. There is an odd “Short History of Gay Marriage In Canada” number that’s instructive, but does nothing for the musical itself. Best to leave that to the programme notes . The rest of the cast, Lori Nancy Kalamanski, David Leyshon, Astrid Van Wieren, Jackie English, and the co-writer, Irene Carl Sankoff, play a number of supporting roles. (By the way, Irene Carl Sankoff is just freaking beautiful…oops, if that’s sexist than I have to add that Kyle Orzech is hot…err…hawt. Equal opportunity lechery.;))

In the end, I can’t see this play going on to become anything more. That it got this far is remarkable; most Fringe plays are never seen again. It's sincere and heart-felt, but going back to the future and clipping it to the original 60 minute length might be the best thing for it.

90 minutes, no intermission.

http://174.143.72.90/mmljww/
 
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Parfumerie-Soulpepper Theatre

“Parfumerie”, now playing at the Young Centre For the Performing Arts, is an adaptation of Miklós László’s 1937 play that inspired the movie “You Got Mail”. A more charming, touching, and funny holiday play would be hard to come by.

Wonderfully directed by Morris Panych (the author of “7 Stories” now on at The Bluma Appel Theatre”), the play is about love, old and new, and longing, that longing for what we imagine that someone (or something) will bring us.

The play is set in a perfume shop in the 1930’s, but this beautiful little store is from the early 1900’s, all swirly Art Nouveau. (Thank you, Ken MacDonald.). Co-workers Rosanna Balaz (Patricia Fagan) and George Asztalos (Oliver Dennis) have been corresponding with each other anonymously for more than a year. They begin their letters with “Dear Friend”, and confide their thoughts and love; in the real world, they can’t stand one another. Miklos Hammerschmidt (Joseph Ziegler) is the owner of the “parfumerie” and the “father” of the little family of clerks who work for him. After thirty-five years of marriage, he suspects his wife of infidelity and suspects that one of his clerks is her lover. So, we have an interesting contrast right off the bat: the fictitious new love between Rosanna and George, the real, older love between Milkos and his wife. There’s also some unrequited love, some ambitious love, some familial love and some selfish love thrown into the mix by the superb supporting cast. The thirteen actors are so good, the writing so genuine, that the characters took me in right away and I wondered what became of them after the curtain went down; I worried for them. That translates into one very happy member of the audience. A truly delightful performance.

Staring Maev Beaty, Stacey Bulmer, Kevin Bundy, Oliver Dennis, Patricia Fagan, Jeff Lillico, Miranda Mulholland, Noah Reid, Brenda Robins, Michael Simpson, Kristina Uranowski, William Webster, and Joseph Ziegler.


2 hours, 10 minutes with one intermission.


http://www.soulpepper.ca/performances/09_season/parfumerie.aspx#overview
 
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Stuff Happens - The Royal Alexandra Theatre

“Stuff Happensâ€, by David Hare, might be entitled “Stuff Happenedâ€. The events leading to the American invasion of Iraq are too near to be an historical piece, but just distant enough to remove the immediacy this production must have had when it was first performed in 2004. Lack of edge aside, it still remains a sometimes funny, and often fiercely terrifying look at the “confederacy of dunces†that brought about an unnecessary war.

There are fifteen actors in this Studio 180 Theatre production, some of whom perform double, triple and quadruple duty. Michael Healy, veteran actor and playwright, plays the Head Dunce, George.W. Bush, and does it without trying to impersonate him. The character George, like the real George, says some very funny things without meaning to, and says some very scary things, believing them. Karen Robinson plays Condoleezza Rice. She “filters†information to him and “filters†him to the world. David Fox is Donald Rumsfeld, easily the creepiest of the Confederacy, and Nigel Shawn Williams plays Colin Powell, the closest thing there is to a good guy in this play. Andrew Gilles plays Tony Blair, wanting the war to suit his own vision of a new world order. Joel Greenberg does a masterful job directing this large, very talented, cast.

The play is constructed so that actual quotations and fictionalized scenes blend seamlessly. Some of the fictionalized scenes are riveting; nothing like seeing “politics, the art of the possible†played with such art. The second act, for me, was the more satisfying theatrical experience, and less of a recent history lesson. The spare set consists of a number of office chairs that are wheeled around. Fifteen actors, a bunch of chairs, and a very good play.

We’ve grown used to the war in Iraq; it’s become no more than background noise in the media. This play reminds us that the “noise†wasn’t an accident and is still very, very loud.

2 hours, 30 minutes with one intermission

http://www.mirvish.com/stuffhappens/
 
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