Category: Toronto Fringe Festival
This year, for the first time The Best of The Fringe will be at The Berkeley Street Theatre with the support on The Canadian Stage Company and NOW Magazine. Big step up from the old Diesel Theatre stand up comedy chamber that used to host these post-Fringe hits!
Hipcheck – The Musical
Book by Shelley M. Hobbs, Music by Rob Torr; Lyrics by Shelley M. Hobbs and Rob Torr
UPSTAIRS AT BERKELEY: Friday July 17 – 7pm · Saturday July 18 – 7pm · Wednesday July 22 – 9pm
My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding
By David Hein and Irene Carl
UPSTAIRS AT BERKELEY: Wednesday July 15 – 9pm · Thursday July 16 – 7pm · Friday July 17 – 9pm
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
Based on the Book by James Finn Garner; Adapted by Jessica Beaulieu
UPSTAIRS AT BERKELEY: Wednesday July 15 – 7pm · Thursday July 16 – 9pm · Saturday July 18 – 9pm
Head First
Choreography By: Holly Treddenick and Sabrina Pringle
BERKELEY MAINSTAGE: Thursday July 23 – 9pm · Friday July 24 – 9pm · Saturday July 25 – 9pm
As You Puppet
By William Shakespeare and adapted by Hank’s Toy Box Theatre
UPSTAIRS AT BERKELEY: Thursday July 23 – 7pm · Friday July 24 – 7pm · Saturday July 25 – 7pm
A Singularity of Being
By T. Berto
BERKELEY MAINSTAGE: Thursday July 23 – 7pm · Friday July 24 – 7pm · Saturday July 25 – 7pm
Morro and Jasp Do Puberty
Written and Performed by Heather Marie Annis and Amy Lee
UPSTAIRS AT BERKELEY: Wednesday July 22 – 7pm · Thursday July 23 – 9pm · Friday July 24 – 9pm · Saturday July 25 – 9pm
Tickets are $16.50 each and are available starting July 14, 2009
416.368.3110 or www.canstage.com.
The Berkeley Street Theatre – 26 Berkeley St.
Click here for the Facebook event page
2009 Toronto Fringe Festival Patron’s Pick’s are:
St. Vladimir’s Theatre
Red Bastard
July 12, 6:00pm
Robert Gill Theatre
Hipcheck, The Musical
July 12, 9:15pm
Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace
Head First
July 12, 6:45pm
Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace
Sara Hennesy Town
July 12, 7:30pm
Factory Theatre Mainspace
Like Father, Like Son. Sorry.
July 12, 9:15pm
Factory Studio Theatre
Baggage
July 12, 6:45pm
Tarragon Mainspace
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
July 12, 9:15pm
Tarragon Extraspace
Morro & Jasp Do Puberty
July 12, 6:45pm
Royal St. George’s Auditorium
Killing Kevin Spacey
July 12, 9:15pm
George Ignatieff Theatre
Just East of Broadway
July 12, 6:15pm
Helen Gardiner Theatre
2-Man No-Show
July 12, 9:15pm
The EYE website already has reviews pouring in.
Looking for reviews to decide what’s hot and what’s not at this year’s fringe?
Looking to see if anyone, anywhere, has written about a show you’re involved in?
Looking to kill hours of time refreshing your browser?
Click the links below to get to all the Fringe reviews out there:
Eye Weekly Fringe
The obvious choice, this is the one publication that guarantees they will review every fringe show. Also has a handy sorting system that lets you see what has been reviewed lately, well, or has the most comments. The comments section also has an “agree” or “disagree” function for the first time this year. This could end up being a key community tool to call bullshit on people involved with the show posing as uninvested parties with impartial feedback.
Now Magazine Fringe
The Now review site looks a lot like last year, but has a few more conveniences for the non-informed fringe-goer . Someone has taken the time to condense the plot of each show to one sentence, there is a calendar to visualize the day that each show is playing, and the venue map is right there as well. Critically, there seems to be consensus that getting 4 or 5 Ns from Now is alot harder than EYE so becoming a Critic Pick in this section is usually great for a show’s box office.
Torontoist Fringe
As a member of the online community we’re psyched about this one as Torontoist has 3, count them 3, reviewers hitting the Fringe this year. Because they’re not beholden to review everything, or the constraints of the printing press, it looks like these could end up becoming the longest and most detailed reviews of the Fringe. Also, possibly most importantly: no star system. Read the review if you want to know if it’s good lazybones.
Toronto Star Fringe
Getting your Fringe show reviewed by the Star seems pretty tough to do, but they always do review a few, and this year they do have a specifically dedicated page online. They use a strange system that we’ve only seen used for Fringe or Summerworks where shows are rated, “not recommended”, “recommended”, or “highly recommended”. Anyways, it has the highest circulation of any newspaper in the country so I guess they can do whatever they want really.
Toronto Sun Fringe
Uh oh, hard times for The Sun and theatre coverage. First they announce that although they don’t have a specific plan to review shows readers can write their own reviews which will be posted here:
http://www.torontosun.com/fringe/
As of publication this page was blank. Just completely white. No text. Nothing.
Globe and Mail Fringe
The stiff upper lip of the Globe editorial board likely prevents any print coverage of fringe shows here. Fortunately, Globe critic Kelly Nestrucks has a blog, Nestruck on Theatre, where he did cover some of the action last year. This makes a lot of sense as Kelly is an online Fringe review pioneer. (Anyone remember Alison Broverman and Kelly Nestruck as the National Post’s “Theatre Eaters” in 2006?) It’s kind of unfair to list this as we have no idea what will happen in this space for sure.
Did we miss a place for Fringe reviews? Leave a note in the comments and we will update the post.
Photo by Meredith Whitten
The cast of Praxis Theatre’s upcoming production of Tim Buck 2 at the Toronto Fringe Festival reacts to a suggestion by Praxis GM and performer Margaret Evans that the show could be something less than totally awesome.
Want to know more? You can read the media release here.
by Michael Wheeler
About 25% of the time I put into being Co-Artistic Director of Praxis Theatre is devoted specifically to our blog and online presence .
That we would have ever ended up spending this much time developing our theatre company online never occurred to Co-AD Simon Rice and I when we began Praxis in the winter of 2003, but it seems wholly necessary in the early spring of 2009. We think it’s so important we’re in the middle of putting time and money into integrating and re-launching our website and blog at praxistheatre.com.
Why? Because theatre, like virtually every other art form and industry, is being radically reshaped by the power and popularity of online media. Here are the top three reasons why:
Click here to continue reading this article on the Toronto Fringe Festival website.
Praxis Theatre will present two new original works in the summer of 2009!
1) Tim Buck 2 @ The Toronto Fringe Festival
Playwright and international security adviser
Andrew Zadel, author of the award-winning
Steel, returns to Praxis Theatre with his tale of UN forensic pathologists struggling to arrive at definitive answers in Kosovo.
Click here for more info on the Fringe Festival show.
Click here for more info on this Fringe Festival show.
Click here for more info on this Toronto Fringe Festival show.
Click here for more info on the Fringe Festival show.
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