Praxis Theatre is currently on hiatus! Please find co-founders Aislinn Rose and Michael Wheeler at The Theatre Centre and SpiderWebShow, respectively.

Date: 2013 January

January 31, 2013, by
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Greta chats with Nigel Shawn Williams, half of the Interim Artistic Team (IAT) of Factory Theatre about what he would like to accomplish during his term.

Every Letter Counts opens January 31st 2013 and runs until February 24th at Factory Theatre.  Click Here for ticket info.


greta praxis photoGreta Papageorgiu is an actor, writer, teacher and director. She performs and teaches throughout Ontario and Quebec. Greta loves the theatre and hopes to share some of her love with you through 2 Minutes With Greta Papageorgiu.

January 30, 2013, by
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GHOST DANCE by Yvette Nolan, directed by Clare Preuss concluded Wrecking Ball T.O. 14 with a round dance that included most of the sold out audience at the Aki Theatre.

GHOST DANCE by Yvette Nolan, directed by Clare Preuss, concluded Wrecking Ball T.O 14 with a round dance that included most of the audience.. Photo by Alex Williams.

Click the image to see the full gallery on the new National Wrecking Ball Website with information on Wrecking Ball Events across Canada. Do you have it bookmarked yet?

January 22, 2013, by
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“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure….. Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?”

~ Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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CATALPACATALPA follows the true story of a band of Irish expatriates in Massachusetts, and their hair-brained scheme to sail a whaling ship to the colonial Prison in Fremantle, Australia to free six Fenian prisoners. Full of intrigue, suspense, and a tour-de-force solo-performance in which one actor plays over twenty different characters (not to mention a seagull, a whale and a storm!), CATALPA is a theatrical thrill-ride.

CATALPA runs at the TPM Backspace, Tues-Sat. 7:30pm, and Sat. at 2:00pm (PWYC), until Feb.2. Click here for tickets or call 416-504-7529.

Andrew Musselman is a Toronto-based actor, writer and producer who dreams of one day being able to afford a small cottage in Ireland.

January 21, 2013, by
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Click the image to find out playwrights involved in Wrecking Ball 14: Idle No More.

Also check it out: The Wrecking Ball has a new National Website!

 

January 11, 2013, by
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Click the image to read the full post on The Theatre Centre website. Photo by Han Soete via Creative Commons

Click the image to read the full post on The Theatre Centre website.

Photo by Han Soete via Creative Commons

In December last year we announced a new joint initiative with The Theatre Centre called Civil Debates: an opportunity for two speakers from opposite sides of an argument to debate their perspectives for a live audience. It will also be a forum for attendees to participate and vote for their preferred argument.

The topics for the first four debates of the series will be suggested by YOU, the community, via a live installation on January 12 & 13 at the Next Stage Festival’s tent at Factory Theatre.

Click on the image above for all the details, and see you at the beer tent!

January 8, 2013, by
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The Carlaw will be home to a new theatre being put together by Crows Theatre

The Carlaw will be home to a new theatre being put together by Crow’s Theatre

A new year has brought some new developments to Toronto theatre:

The Wrecking Ball has a new Facebook page.

Outside The March has a new website.

Hannah Moscovitch has a new mini-festival of her plays.

SummerWorks is accepting applications for shows in the festival of mostly new works.

Red One Theatre Collective is starting a new storefront theatre in Toronto’s west end.

Crow’s Theatre is building a new theatre in Toronto’s east end.

What’s left?

When will Factory Theatre and Necessary Angel have new Artistic Directors?

January 4, 2013, by
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Text:

“What about identity? I asked.
He said: It’s self- defense…
Identity is the child of birth, but
at the end, it’s self invention, and not
an inheritance of the past. I am multiple…
Within me an ever new exterior”

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian Poet. 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008

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IMG_0059From a Birthright Trip to the camps in Nablus, The Peace Maker explodes with live music and contradiction as a Canadian visitor tries to bring peace to the Middle East in all the wrong ways.

The Peace Maker is being presented as part of the Next Stage Festival from January 3rd to the 13th. Tickets are $12 for matinees and $15 for evening performances. To purchase tickets, call 416-966-1062 or click here.

A graduate of the National Theatre School, Natasha is an actress, writer, educator and director. She is currently facilitating the Paprika Creator’s unit, acting in the television show Bomb Girls, and preparing to direct her first play as part of The Playwright Project in May, 2013.

Photo Collage Artist: Amy Siegel
Singers: Maryem Tollar and Harveen Sandhu

January 3, 2013, by
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Last year was a big one for us.

If you run a web-influenced theatre company for 10 years, you will accumulate some ridiculous photos.

If you run a web-influenced theatre company for 10 years, you will accumulate some ridiculous photos.

Michael co-curated FreeFall ’12 at The Theatre Centre with AD Franco Boni, and spent seven months at The Shaw Festival, where he assistant directed Ragtime, Helen’s Necklace, A Man and Some Women and directed Brecht’s Senora Carrar’s Rifles. This fall, he returned to Toronto as an assistant director with The Electric Company at Canadian Stage and Associate Artist at Theatre Passe Muraille.

Aislinn produced a two-week festival of theatre for human rights with Aluna Theatre and five shows for other companies including Modern Times Stage Company’s production of The Lesson, and the electroacoustic opera Julie Sits Waiting with Fides Krucker. She also created online content for Liza Balkan’s Out The Window, and Michael Healey’s Proud.

Throughout the year, we wrote, hosted, curated and moderated a number of essential and vigorous conversations online at praxistheatre.com. Traffic from unique visitors is up 48% from 2011, and after beginning the year as Torontoist People to Watch in 2012, we finished up as an end-of-year pick by The Grid as a 2012 Toronto Theatre MVPs for providing “informed, well-reasoned debate… for the community of independent theatre artists in Toronto and beyond”.

In 2013, we’re moving to build upon these successes with live performances directly connected to online content:

Civil Debates 

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Debates Winter/Spring 2013

Civil Debates is a monthly series we are creating with The Theatre Centre that invites two speakers from opposite sides of an argument to debate their perspectives for and with a live audience.

It is also a forum for all attendees to participate and vote on who and what they agree with. We hope this will be an opportunity to extend the online community we have developed over the years in a face-to-face setting, bringing those conversations into a physical space.

The topics for the initial four debates will be curated via a gallery installation January 12 and 13 at The Next Stage Festival at Factory Theatre. Debates will take place monthly at The Theatre Centre at 1095 Queen St. W (Queen and Dovercourt) in February, March, April and May 2013. The First Debate is on Thursday, February 7th. Go put it in your book or iCal etc. right now.

Praxis 10th Anniversary Party 

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Party Summer 2013

Yes. Praxis Theatre has been around for 10 years!

Our first production, Eugene, a modern original adaptation of the epic poem Eugene Onegin, opened at The Theatre Centre in June 2003. Since then we have created 12 original plays, built a website and started combining the two.

Come join us for a big party we are throwing at a TBD location to celebrate. If you just know us online, this is the time to come out. If you have ever been to or been in a Praxis show, we hope you’ll come too. It seems crazy. For real. A DECADE.

You Should Have Stayed Home National Tour 

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National Tour Fall 2013

We are taking our award-winning production of You Should Have Stayed Home across the country next fall.

Some details are still pending, but the production will be performed in several Canadian cities, including a new production for Toronto.

We’re pretty excited Tommy Taylor’s original adaptation of his Facebook note is our first show to tour, after ten years as a company. The damage done to civil liberties by the G20 Summit in Canada was a failure of all three levels of government. Thanks to the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts for their support.

Other Stuff We Don’t Know/Can’t Say Yet

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? – What Else – ?

The great thing about being a small company with an adaptable communications structure is that we can take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

We have something we are working on with Videofag we hope to tell you about soon, there are probably some blog posts coming up, and other live events we will be involved with. We’ll let you know, just as soon as we know what they are.

Thanks to everyone who helped make 2012 a success. We feel really lucky to be making work that excites us with great people in 2013.

Aislinn and Michael

January 2, 2013, by
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“We were barely there. Our feelings could not be hurt because they lay elsewhere, off-campus, aurora borealis. I drew pictures of it on my binder, a smudge in a heart. A smudge and me in interconnecting hearts. Me and a smudge and a half human/half-smudge baby…What a terrible mistake to let go of something wonderful for something real.” – Miranda July, “Making Love in 2003”

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WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN plays at the Next Stage Theatre Festival, Jan 2nd-13th at Factory Theatre: Studio (125 Bathurst) Click here for schedule and ticket information.

Directed by Andrew Lamb, Written by Julia Lederer, Featuring Robin Archer, Julia Lederer, and Martha Ross. Click here for more information and everything you need and want to know.
 
Julia Lederer is a playwright and actor who enjoys playing small instruments- for example, the mini-harmonica and the ukulele. She has always been drawn to the colour purple. Since the dawn of time, probably.