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"The lead role is shared by Sean Cullen and Bruce Dow"

Its success at Stratford is what brought it to Mirvish's subscription. I saw Bruce Dow in the lead. Everybody was very good, but it felt so... laboured. This just isn't the type of humour I enjoy, and it's the whole plot I found dated, even if it was meant to be a play on farce.

Lead list:http://www.mirvish.com/My Files/FORUMSchedule1.pdf
 
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Thanks ... and humour is, like so many other things, subjective. One of the things we all felt about it when we saw it at Stratford is how much fun the performers were having on stage; they weren't just saying their lines, there was a lot of interaction that added to our enjoyment of the play. Perhaps we hit a good day, perhaps we were just in the right mood that day, who knows! :)
 
Favourite Productions of 2010

Another year wraps up. It's hard to pick a single, favourite production, so I'll stick to choosing ten, and listing them in the order I saw them:

Light in the Piazza - Acting Up Theatre

Oh, What a Lovely War- Soulpepper Theatre

Art- Canadian Stage Company

South Pacific- DanCap Theatre Productions

Doc-Soulpepper Theatre

Death of a Salesman-Soulpepper Theatre

Wide Awake Hearts-Tarragon Theatre

The Year of Magical Thinking- Tarragon Theatre

Studies in Motion- Canadian Stage Company

Priscilla, Queen of The Desert- Mirvish Productions

A subjective list to be sure; as PinkLucy suggests, as much depends on what one brings to the theatre as what the theatre offers.

I'm looking forward to the new year, while looking back with gratitude to all the theatre companies that make Toronto such a great city.

Happy New Year to everyone!
 
The Misanthrope - Tarragon Theatre

The new year starts with a thud; Tarragon Theatre's production of Martin Crimp's version of The Misanthrope is a disappointment. Why, why, why set this play in London? If you're doing a 1996 version of a 17th century French play, why not set it here, in Toronto? Why, why, why have actors speak in an accent they can't do, or maintain? (That should be any theatre company's default: DON"T DO ACCENTS!) If this play, about an honest movie critic in love with a movie star and appalled by the hypocrisy of her circle, had been set in Toronto, let's say during TIFF, it would have had a sharper point to its satire. As it is, these people prancing around with faux Brit accents, speaking in rhyme, under ham-fisted direction, become very tedious, very fast.There are some funny, cutting moments, but they're lost; the actors become slaves to the rhyme.In the second act, we get some actual dramatic meat, but it's only Michelle Giroux as the journalist Ellen, who actually makes me believe I'm watching a human being and not a cartoon. Great performance.

Two acts, one intermission

http://www.tarragontheatre.com/season/1011/misanthrope/
 
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The Theatre Centre production of 'Assassins' was just about one of the greatest theatre experiences I have ever had. No question it was my highlight of 2010.
 
Tewder said:
The Theatre Centre production of 'Assassins' was just about one of the greatest theatre experiences I have ever had. No question it was my highlight of 2010.
Click to expand...

YAY! It's being produced again! Jan 6 -23, 2011. I'm sorry I missed it last year, but plan to see it this time around!

http://www.theatrecentre.org/
 
Assassins -The Theatre Centre

Winner of the 2010 Dora award for "Best Musical", Assassins, by Stephen Sondheim, takes on an immediate resonance, given the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona yesterday. Creepy, chilling, funny and terrifying, seventeen gifted actor/singer/musicians guide us through The American Dream as imagined by some of the most infamous names in American history: John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinkley, "Squeaky" Fromme...I think you get the twisted picture. "All you have to do is move your little finger, and you can change the world." Grotesque and too true.

I agree with Tewder, I have to say this is one of the best theatrical productions I've seen. I missed it the first time around;don't anyone miss it this time!

2 hours, no intermission....the time flies; everyone is just that damn good!

http://www.theatrecentre.org/
 
Parade - The Berkeley Street Theatre-Upstairs

In the opening scene, Jeff Irving , dressed as a young confederate soldier sings about the red hills of home, followed seamlessly by George Masswohl playing an old version of him. It's riveting, and sets the time, place and mind-set for what is to follow. Leo Frank (Michael Therriault), a New York Jewish man married to Lucille (Tracy Michailidis), a southern Jewish woman, is accused of murdering thirteen-year old Mary Phagan (Jessica Greenberg) in 1913 Atlanta. The default of the good citizens is to accuse the black man (Daren A. Herbert) first, and when that doesn't stick, well, lets go after the Jew. The trial is a mockery of justice; the verdict, a travesty. When the Governor(Jay Turvey) re-examines the case after pressure to do so by Lucille and national criticism, he commutes Leo's death sentence to life. But this is not the justice people want, and Leo is lynched. There's a wonderful number in the second act; Minnie (Alana Hibbert) and Newt Lee (Daren A. Herbert) sing about how all the northerners flooding in to Atlanta to protest Leo's sentence won't even notice the black men hanging from the trees.

One couldn't ask for a more intimate setting than The Berkeley Street Theatre, Upstairs. One couldn't ask for a more gifted cast(there are fifteen on stage), and yet this musical never really takes off. Too linear? We know what's going to happen; it just takes a very long time to get there. There isn't the emotional punch one looks for. Don't just sing it; feel it. Make us feel it. Though it's won Tony awards, I think the problems are with the musical itself.The cast is worth more than the price of admission (how does a cast this big, in a theatre this small, break even?) I felt I'd been undercharged; time to make a donation to The Acting Up Stage Companyand Studio 180, who've given me some incredible theatrical moments in the past.

Two acts, one intermission

http://www.paradethemusical.com/
 
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Mirvish Teaser Announcement...of an announcement!

I hate teasers like this, but it is provoking speculation... which is what it's designed to do.

From Mirvish Productions:

Dear Theatre-Goer,

Occasionally there's a theatrical announcement that we feel will be of great interest to everyone, beyond just the people who usually follow theatre news. At such times, we like to share the good news with our extended community of friends. Such an occasion is coming up THIS WEEK, and we would like to extend an invitation to you to attend.

On Wednesday, January 26, at 10:30 AM, at the Steam Whistle event space in the historic Roundhouse (located at the foot of the CN Tower, adjacent to the Rogers Centre), an announcement will be made that we believe will delight all the citizens of our city, especially those keen on its cultural life.

So, take a little time out of your morning routine on Wednesday, come on down to the Roundhouse and be there for this very special event. The event is absolutely FREE, and there will be complimentary breakfast pastries and refreshments. What can you lose? In fact, you'll have a lot to gain and enjoy.
 
Mirvish Announcement- New Theatre to be Built

Well, here's the announcement :

"TORONTO - A musical version of Edith Nesbitt's book "The Railway Children" is coming to Toronto this spring.

Published in 1906, the children's book tells the story of a family that moves to a house near a railway after the father is jailed for allegedly selling state secrets to the Russians.

Mirvish Productions described "The Railway Children" as an "event theatre spectacle" this morning at a news conference.

The Toronto production — slated for May — will mark "The Railway Children"'s North American premiere.

The show will be mounted in a new 1,000-seat theatre to be built near the Rogers Centre."

Terrific! A new theatre!!!

The Toronto Star wrote about this play back in November:


"All aboard, Toronto! The Railway Children, one of the most innovative and acclaimed shows to hit London in recent years will be mounting a local production this May, the Star has learned.

Based on Edith Nesbit's classic 1905 story of three children who live by the railway after they father is unjustly imprisoned for espionage, the tale has been turned into numerous film and TV adaptations, but this stage version is something new.

Originally staged at the National Railway Museum in York, England, in 2008, it caught the eye of producer Matthew Gale who brought it to London and placed it right in Waterloo Station.

“This show caught fire with the public,†Gale said Tuesday from London, “and we got 13 four-star reviews from the press. We drive a 140-year-old steam train right into the middle of the space. I told Andrew Lloyd Webber I've got more scenery than he ever had. 300 tons of it.â€

Gale is being tight-lipped about the venue for the show in Toronto, simply saying “there are a lot of complications to be dealt with and, in effect, we're building a new 1,000-seat theatre in the middle of the city.â€
 
PinkLucy said:
They're going to build a new theatre and stage a production between now and May?
Click to expand...

More info now available:

"As previously revealed in the Star, the London stage hit will open in Toronto in May. And a temporary, 1,000-seat, state-of-the-art theatre is being built adjacent to Toronto’s historic Roundhouse Park, at Bremner Blvd. and Lower Simcoe St., it was revealed Wednesday."

Group tickets are now available at 416-593-4142 or 1-800-724-6420. Single tickets go on sale April 4 at www.ticketking.com, 416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333.

Full article here:
http://www.thestar.com/entertainmen...ay-the-railway-children-and-new-theatre-venue
 
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