Category: Events



Where: Theatre Centre Incubator, 1115 Queen St. West
When: November 15 – December 2, 2018
Cost: Tickets range from $20 – $35 and can be purchased at www.redsnowcollective.ca or call 416.538.0988.

Details: Red Snow Collective presents the World Premiere of The Monkey Queen, written by Diana Tso, directed by William Yong, and performed by Diana Tso and Nick Eddie. The production weaves text, movement, visual art and music, and reimagines the ancient tale through the playwright’s own personal journey as a Chinese-Canadian female artist.

The ancient mythology of the Monkey King in Wu Cheng’En’s Journey to the West has been re-envisioned through the playwright’s own heritage. In this modern version, The Monkey Queen is born in Canada and travels East towards China in search of her identity as a female warrior. Her epic path across the Canadian landscape combines dramatic styles from both eastern and western storytelling aesthetics.

Playwright and performer Diana Tso is a theatre artist, playwright, storyteller, artist in education and Dora award-winning actor. Director, choreographer and scenic designer William Yong’s professional dance and theatre career spans more than twenty-four years. He has performed in 75 cities within 15 countries.

The production also introduces recent George Brown Theatre graduate and Toronto based actor Nick Eddie. Features original music by composers Nick Storring and Brandon Valdivia, and costume design by Robin Fisher.

More Info: www.redsnowcollective.ca @Diana_Tso #redsnowcollective @tsotography

(l-r) Michael Rubenfeld and Mary Berchard. Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh

Where: Factory Mainspace, 125 Bathurst Street at Adelaide
When: November 14 – 25, 2018
Opening Night: November 15, 2018 @ 8pm
Cost: $20 for previews and range from $40-$50 at www.factorytheatre.ca. Student/senior prices also available.  3-Play Passes start at $84 at www.factorytheatre.ca/2018-19-season, 
416.504.9971 or Box Office.

Details: This season, Factory launches CrossCurrents Canada, presentations of uncompromising Canadian stories by intercultural artists from across the country. For its debut CrossCurrents Canada production, Factory presents We Keep Coming Back, a (mostly) true story of a Canadian artist, his mother, and the odyssey to their pre-Holocaust familial homes in Poland.

On their quest to work on their relationship and discover their lost ancestral history, real-life mother and son, Mary Berchard and Michael Rubenfeld head to Poland for the first time. This site of historic trauma offers healing, new friends, new love, and a surprising vibrant Jewish revival. Polish collaborator Katka Reszke, writer, filmmaker, and researcher in Jewish history, culture, and identity, acts as guide and adds her own incredible stories to the mix. Intimate and humorous, We Keep Coming Back explores how confronting ghosts and pre-conceived ideas can uncover something beautiful and transformative.

Selfconscious Theatre, led by Michael Rubenfeld and Sarah Garton Stanley, was established as a laboratory for the artists to use the theatrical form to investigate personal narratives that challenge the boundaries of realities. Through the imaginative telling of their own stories, they guide themselves, and their audiences, towards new perceptions and possible futures. Michael and Sarah are marking 10 years of Selfconscious Theatre collaborations.

Michael Rubenfeld is a performance maker, cultural producer, playwright and actor originally from Winnipeg and now residing in Toronto and Poland. Director, dramaturg and conversationalist, Sarah Garton Stanley is from Montreal, now lives in Kingston and works from Ottawa.

More Info:  @FactoryToronto  @FactoryTheatreTO @FactoryTheatre
 #ftWKCB #ftCrossCanada

Where: 3rd floor of The  Social Capital Theatre, 154 Danforth Avenue
When: November 10, 2018
Cost: Advance tickets $10 can be purchased at www.eventbrite.ca. $5 rush discounts available at the door for students, performers and arts workers (based on availability).

Details: Improv superstar, actor and author Colin Mochrie, star of the internationally acclaimed Who’s Line Is It, Anyway, guests with Toronto-based improv group The Coincidence Men at the November edition of their monthly Shenanigans Comedy Night! A comedy-variety experience best served with many fine beverages available at the bar!

Also featured on the bill are improv group Living Bloodsticks. They are Cassie Barradas (Second City House Co), Jessica Perkins (Second City House Co alumni) and Spencer Litzinger (YTV) and they are high energy, supportive as ya can get (got your back!) and most importantly FUN GIRLS! Come join their cult!

And finally, your hosts 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.

More Info: www.socap.ca @TheSoCap @TheSocialCapitalTheatre

Where: Hart House Theatre, 7 Hart House Circle
When: November 9- 24, 2018
Cost: Adults $28, Seniors $17, Students $15, $12 Student tickets every Wednesday night. Can be purchased online at tickets.harthouse.ca

Details: Hart House Theatre presents a retelling of classic tale by Canadian icon and award-winning storyteller Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad. Directed by a vigorous new talent, Michelle Langille, featuring a lead performance by powerhouse actor Amanda Cordner, and supported by an all-female ensemble of emergent talent, the production is sure to be an empowering tour de force.

Atwood weaves a historic saga from a new perspective. After years of loyalty through untold hardship and upon her hero-husband’s return from war, Penelope’s fidelity is rewarded with butchery and abuse. The Penelopiad is a re-examining of an epic HIS-story, which uncovers the hypocrisy of the iconic “good wife”.

Warning: Coarse language, sexual and graphic violence

More Info: www.harthouse.ca

Tantoo Cardinal stars in Falls Around Her

Where: Various downtown locations including – Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, Ted Rogers Cinema, TIFF Bell Lightbox
When: October 17-21, 2018
Cost: Tickets for single screenings and events go on sale October 1. Call 416.599.TIFF (8433) or Online – TIFF Festival Partners and Third Party Events 
In Person – TIFF Box Office at 350 King St W

Details: The 19th Annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival will present 153 individual media artworks, including 10 dramatic feature length films – the most in imagineNATIVE history. This year’s Festival features work by 156 Indigenous artists representing 109 Indigenous nations from Canada and around the world; 55% of the works have female directors with 42% male and 3% non-binary or Two-Spirit.

imagineNATIVE’s Opening Night Gala on October 17 will be Darlene Naponse’s Falls Around Her at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. On October 21 the Closing Night Gala will be Sgaawaay K’uuna (Edge of the Knife) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

For the first time, imagineNATIVE will present the iNdigital Space, a large-scale presentation of digital and interactive work in a newly curated space on the main floor of the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

The imagineNATIVE Art Crawl will be on October 19 with stops at six art galleries within the 401 Richmond building including Current Terrain (opening September 18), an exhibition curated by Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective. This exhibition investigates a range of works by Indigenous artists currently living in Alberta whose work activates the province’s variable territories and geographies, all connected by extensive bodies of water.

imagineNATIVE’s music showcase The Beat, co-presented by Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), returns Saturday, October 20, 2018 at Lee’s Palace with live performances and the $10,000 iN Bullseye Prize award presentation. The Beat will feature live performances by 2018 Polaris Music Prize short listers Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Inuit throat-singing and beat mashup Silla + Rise, Indigenous rapper from Guanajuato by way of Oakland Chhoti Maa, and Winnipeg producer DJ Boogey the Beat.

More Info: Full schedule for the 19th Annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is now available online at  www.imaginenative.org/2018-schedule  Twitter and Instagram: @imagineNATIVE