Variation #28: Rob Kempson

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‎”When I was 10 years old my best friend was a girl who turned out to be a boy. Now that’s hot.”

Nina Arsenault

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Rob Kempson is the Artistic Producer of the Paprika Festival and on November 28^th, the Festival is celebrating its 10^th birthday. For the second year now Rob somehow manages to pull together an amazing Festival of new work by young artists. Sure he has help from a stellar executive team, but the guy doesn’t even drink coffee… what gives? Now that’s hot.

Paprika Does Double Digits: November 28^th

A collection of work from the past ten years, performed by current participants, artists, alumni and friends of the Festival

Reception at 7pm, performance at 8pm

Tarragon Theatre Mainspace

Limited tickets available, call the Tarragon Box Office at 416.531.1827

www.paprikafestival.com

Variation #27: Bobby Theodore

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The English noun identity comes, ultimately, from the Latin adverb identidem, which means “repeatedly.” The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English, buh-BUM-buh-BUM—a simple iamb, repeated; and identidem is, in fact, nothing more than a reduplication of the word idem, “the same”: idem(et)idem. Same (and) same. The same, repeated. It is a word that does exactly what it means.

It seems odd, at first glance, that a noun that we associate with distinctiveness and individuality, with the irreducible uniqueness of each person, should derive from one that denotes (and even sounds like) nothing but mechanical repetition. But once you’ve given it some thought, the etymology of identity makes a kind of sense. At least one way of establishing what something is, after all, is to see whether it always remains itself, and nothing else, over and over again. This is also the case, presumably, for people: you are, endlessly and repeatedly, you, and not some other.

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Writer for theatre, tv and film, Bobby Theodore is the co-creator (with Ame Henderson) of 300 TAPES – a bold experiment in storytelling exploring how our memories are shaped (and warped) over time. Created over two years as part of The Theatre Centre’s Residency Program, 300 TAPES merges theatre, sound art and choreography.

300 TAPES by Public Recordings runs December 1-12 at The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen Street West, Toronto (before heading to Calgary in Feb 2011). 416-538-0988.

Variation #26: Renna Reddie

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“They say that if you think you are crazy, then you aren’t. People say that. Right? So the opposite must be true too. If you aren’t crazy, then people say they think you are?”

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Renna Reddie is producing for Eldritch Theatre’s Madhouse Variations by Eric Woolfe. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly since the dress run and doesn’t like being backstage alone with all the puppets.

Madhouse Variations runs October 26-November 7th with a special Halloween Show at 10:30pm on Saturday October 30th at The Theatre Centre.

Variation #25: Matthew Walker

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To bed, to bed! there’s knocking at the gate:
come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s
done cannot be undone.–To bed, to bed, to bed!

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Matthew Walker is currently directing Litmus Theatre’s Matchbox Macbeth, an eerie and magical hour-long adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic in a backyard shed. Oct 21-31, Thu-Sun at 7 and 9pm. PWYC, ($10 suggested donation).

Secret Location in the heart of Little Italy revealed with email booking to matchboxmacbeth@gmail.com.

Click here for more info

Variation #24: Alex Rubin

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“In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?”

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My Gaza, ’tis of Thee co-writers Alex Rubin (L) and Jiv Parasram (R) are Toronto-based actors, directors and playwrights. Graduates of UC Drama at the University of Toronto and founding members of Pandemic Theatre, they have spent the last year focused primarily on politically satirical pieces. Currently, Rubin and Parasram are serving as actor and director (respectively) on My Gaza, ’tis of Thee.

The show runs runs September 16th – 19th & 24th – 26th at 8pm (2pm matinees on the 17th and 19th) at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, 79A St. George Street (just south of Harbord). $15 General, $12 Senior/Student/Underwaged.

Email tix@pandemictheatre.com for reservations.

Variation #23: Laurel Green

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“It’s the cliches that cause the trouble. A precise emotion seeks a precise expression. If what I feel is not precise then should I call it love? It’s so terrifying, love, that all I can do is shove it under a dump bin of pink cuddly toys and send myself a greeting card saying, ‘Congratulations on your Engagement’. But I am not engaged I am deeply distracted. I am desperately looking the other way so that love won’t see me.”

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Laurel Green is an Associate Producer with the 2010 SummerWorks Festival. She is spending her summer vacation helping to organize their first-ever Performance Bar: a collision of theatre, music, and performance hosted by improv heroes The National Theatre of the World.

Fiasco Playhouse runs August 5 – 14th at 9PM on the Ground Floor of the Lower Ossington Theatre (100A Ossington Avenue). PWYC. Full Bar. Air Conditioning

Variation #22: Ellen Bayley

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“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Theatre creation workshop led by Jeremy James

One of Ellen Bayley’s many jobs as the The Metcalf Foundation Arts Management Intern at Volcano Theatre, is organizing and promoting The 2010 Volcano Conservatory, which offers intensives and master classes taught by industry leaders for actors, dancers and theatre-makers.

Classes offered between August 16th – 29th in Mnouchkine Technique, Fearless Dancing, Lecoq Red Nose Clown, Viewpoints, Chekhov Technique and more. Don’t miss out!

Variation #21: Eve Wylden

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“Beautiful girls make the best wives….

We need to educate our boys to know real beauty, to go beneath the paint and powder and look at features, the shape of the face, the poise of the head.  We ought to teach them to know real beauty like a horse man knows a thoroughbred.

When a woman has a beautiful face and figure, she is sure to be healthy and intelligent.  Beautiful figures are becoming obsolete to-day and a real beauty is as rare as genius.  There is only one beautiful woman in every four thousand.

The very slim, boyish figure, so much desired by the girls of to-day who are willing to suffer endless dieting, is not beautiful.  The trouble is that fathers and mothers have tried to make their offspring look for other qualities first and to leave beauty alone, till, simply from ignorance, the saying ‘Beautiful but Dumb’ has sprung up and persisted.”

Another failing is that the beautiful young women of this generation do not desire to become mothers and it is largely the biologically unfit who are having children.”

Professor Albert Edward Wiggam

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Eve Wylden stars in Miss Toronto gets a Life_in Parkdale, an exciting site-specific multi-media performance on hijacking the history of beauty pageants in Toronto.

Presented by The DitchWitch Brigade, Miss Toronto gets a Life in Parkdale previews July 20 and runs July 21-25 @ 8 p.m. at The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen Street West.

Variation #20: Jonno Katz

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“Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
– Mother Teresa

“I know that if I wasn’t scared, something’s wrong, because the thrill is what’s scary.”
– Richard Pryor

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Jonno Katz in Cactus: The Seduction, Toronto Fringe 2010

An Australian artist, this is Jonno Katz’s 5th time at the Toronto Fringe Festival, where he is presenting Cactus: The Seduction.

Click here for more information about the show, and here for more about dates and times at the Toronto Fringe.

Variation #19: Amy Zuch

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The Thief and the Cobbler was conceived by Canadian animator Richard Williams, who worked 26 years on the project.

“[Williams is] an incredible animator, though. Incredible. One of the biggest problems we had was trying our desperate best, where we had brand new footage, to come up to the level of quality that he had set.”

—Fred Calvert

The first time that the Miramax version of the film appeared on DVD, was in Canada in 2001 as a giveaway promotion in packages of Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal.

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Amy Zuch is the solo performer and writer behind “Key to Key.” A regular improviser at the Bad Dog Theatre, Amy has also appeared on stand up comedy stages across the city, in musical theatre productions, and in the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival.

Amy Zuch’s Key to Key, the true story of an animator pulled from fantasy and dropped into the real world, opens at the Toronto Fringe Festival on July 2nd at the air conditioned Royal St. George Auditorium, 120 Howland Avenue (North of Bloor).  More information available here on Facebook, and buy advance tickets here.