Category: Entertainment

Fay and Fluffy

Where: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St.
When: February 13-23, 2019
Cost: Wed-Sat – $20 Evening Pass. PWYC Rush tickets available each day. Available at Box Office 416.975.8555 or www.buddiesinbadtimes.com/rhubarb

Details: Canada’s longest-running new works festival returns for its 40th year this February! For two weeks, The Rhubarb Festival transforms Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre into a hotbed of experimentation, exploring new possibilities in theatre, dance, comedy, music, installation, and performance art. Rhubarb is the place to experience the most adventurous ideas in performance and catch your favourite artists venturing into uncharted territory.

Festival highlights include:
-A special presentation of Tobias Herzberg’s solo show Feygele from the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, in partnership with the red light district
-In The Apocalypse Plays: A Legacy Project, Natasha Greenblatt teams up with her mother, Kate Lushington, to finish a performance trilogy started by Kate at Rhubarb in the 1980s
-The Princess Show, a fully lip-synced anime drag performance from Halifax company HEIST
-Deafies’ Unique Time, a new show created by three BIPOC D/deaf artists (Thurga Kanagasekarampillai, Ralitsa Rodriguez, and Ali Saeedi), in partnership with Edmonton’s Sound Off: A Deaf Theatre Festival
-An evening of stand-up featuring some of the city’s best queer and POC comics, including Brandon Ash-Mohammed, Hoodo Hersi, Elvira Kurt, and more
-The AMY Project takes over the cabaret to present the culminating showing of their Performance Creation Program for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour trans women and trans femmes, directed by Bilal Baig
-A Trouble of Queers, a cabaret by the acclaimed DIY QTBIPOC festival, Bricks and Glitter featuring Carolina Brown, Mikiki Burino, Monica Garrido, and more
-A brand new cabaret from Toronto’s favourite drag storytellers, Fay Slift and Fluffy Soufflé, involving kids as both audience members and performers
-A new partnership with Progress to introduce The Performance Bus, which will shuttle audiences between Buddies and the Theatre Centre on Rhubarb’s opening night and Progress’ closing night with a host and pop-up performances along the way
-New short works from Makram Ayache, Rhiannon Collett, Athena Holmes, Katie Swift, Hanlon McGregor + Syrus Marcus Ware, and more

More Info: www.buddiesinbadtimes.com/rhubarb @buddiesTO

Where: The Social Capital Theatre, 154 Danforth Avenue
When: February 9, 2019 at 8pm
Cost: Tickets $10 advance at www.stupidgood.eventbrite.ca. Discount tickets are $5 at the door for students, arts workers and performers.

About: One night only of Improve Comedy! NOW Best of Toronto and Canadian Comedy Award-winning The Sufferettes on the same bill as The Coincidence Men…who will be joined by special guest Lisa Merchant!

Making comedy, theatre and sometimes other things – the Sufferettes are Becky Johnson and Kayla Lorette. They began performing together in 2008 as part of the weekly competitive improv show, Catch23 Improv, in Toronto. In 2011, the duo began touring internationally performing in such cities as London, Berlin, Vienna, Graz, Ljubljana, Sarnen, Bochum, Karlsruhe, Edmonton, Rochester and more. With multiple television appearances and credits from The Second City, they’ve shared in awards for the web series “Space Riders” and a Dora nomination, but still find time to confirm that life is suffering. Not to be missed!

With 100 years of collective comedy experience between them, The Coincidence Men are Kerry Griffin, Ralph MacLeod, Gord Oxley and Marcel St. Pierre. Respected vets, teachers and coaches in Toronto’s improv, sketch and comedy “scene” since the early 1980s, they’ve been individually involved with Canadian Comedy Award-winning groups like Monkey Toast and Slap Happy and the sketch-comedy-Gemini-Award winning comedy duo Fast n Dirty. With appearances on CBC, The Comedy Network, YTV and more, they’ve been founding alumni and creative forces behind Toronto’s much-loved Bad Dog Theatre Company. All are alums of Theatresports, three of them are Second City alums, and another one founded and runs The Social Capital Theatre.

More Info: www.coincidencemen.com @ConincidenceMen @The SocialCapitalTheatre @TheSufferettes

Drunk Girl, Artist – Thea Fitz-James. Photo by Dahlia Katz

Where: Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Avenue
When: February 6 – 10, 2019 at  7:30pm
Cost: General Tickets $25 and Senior/Student/Arts Worker $20. Can be purchased online at ca.patronbase.com/_ArtsBoxOffice/Productions

Details: Two award-winning and critically acclaimed one-woman shows, Drunk Girl, by Thea Fitz-James, and Everybody Dies in December, by Nancy Kenny, will have their Toronto premiere at Theatre Passe Muraille’s Backspace. This highly anticipated double-bill discusses themes around mothers & daughters, feminist struggle and our collective will to live, reminding us that while we may be solo, we are not alone.

Part theatre piece, part storytelling show, Drunk Girl explores the intimacy, tenacity, celebration,and terror of women who drink. Directed by Shanda Bezic and created/performed by Thea Fitz-James, the production takes an honest look at why so many smart, high-achieving women seem to love a drink or 10. Is the Drunk Girl a contemporary cultural crisis or a radical feminist?

Everybody Dies in December, Artist – Nancy Kenny. Photo by Olivier Surprenant

Everybody Dies in December is a dark comedy that explores familial obligation, mother-daughter relationships and whether or not a funeral is a good place to pick up. Directed by Ulla Laidlaw and performed by Canadian Comedy Award nominee, Nancy Kenny who plays Claire – a third-generation funeral home director, more at home with her ‘clients’ in the basement than with the mortals upstairs..

More Info: www.passemuraille.ca