May was a month of mind-blowing, reality-bending shows which I absolutely adored; I love a piece that I’m still talking about several days after I’ve seen it. June has a lot of really great shows coming up: moving, innovative, different pieces which I’m thrilled to be sharing with all of you!
Sizwe Banzi is Dead – Soulpepper Theatre
In apartheid-era South Africa, the only way for Banzi to survive is to fake his own death. From one of the world’s great playwrights Athol Fugard (‘Master Harold’…and the Boys), comes a soaring and personal comedy of identity, memory, and the resilience of the human spirit.
May 25 – June 18
Michael Young Theatre – 50 Tank House Lane
Soulpepper Theatre – Plays, Concerts & Musicals
Perceptual Archaeology (or How to Travel Blind) – Crow’s Theatre and Fire and Rescue Team
What is it like to travel blind?
Blind artist Alex Bulmer welcomes you to her five part “talk” exploring this question.
Adapted for theatre from her original blind travel essays, Alex sets off on a dramatic journey that playfully twists and turns across differing geographies and unexpected emotional terrain.
Imagine a play created by blind and sighted artists. Imagine a play developed with a love of improvisation, sound, the absurd, and the uncertain.
PERCEPTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY (OR HOW TO TRAVEL BLIND) is designed and created for blind and sighted audiences.
The Fire and Rescue Team is an artist-led performance collective, co-founded and helmed by theatre artists Alex Bulmer and Leah Cherniak.
June 1 – 25
Studio Theatre – 345 Carlaw Avenue
Perceptual Archaeology – Crow’s Theatre (crowstheatre.com)
Armadillos – Factory Theatre
On a cross-country theatre tour of a new interpretation of the classic Greek myth of the Marriage of Thetis and Peleus, the onstage danger spills into the backstage world as four actors have to navigate the realities of tour life, challenges to patriarchy, and the disruption of a new actress performing Thetis halfway through the tour. The chaos she brings forces each to confront how the stories we tell about love, sex, power, and consent shape our everyday lives and interactions. Armadillos brings audiences beyond the edge of their seats to the edge of the stage and asks us: what stories do we have to leave behind in order to fully and truly love?
June 3 – 24
Mainspace Theatre – 125 Bathurst Street
Influenced – Theatre Enthused
Sam Chaulk’s new solo(ish) show Influenced is having its world premiere at Space Space Revolution’s One Night Only Festival on June 9th at 7:00PM before travelling to The Montreal and Winnipeg Fringe Festivals in June and July. Watch as a mesmerizing, dummy thicc and dangerous bouffon clown performs a variety of musical and comedy acts that gleefully mock influencers, experts…and you. Let go as Algo, a virtual assistant like Amazon’s Alexa, feeds you number after number. All you need to do is sort the truth from the lies.
June 9
The Attic Studio and Theatre – 1402 Queen St E Unit C3
No Save Points – Outside the March
A joyous, high-octane, deeply personal adventure story, all experienced at the touch of a button, NO SAVE POINTS is created by and stars Toronto theatre veteran Sébastien Heins. In the show, video games, theatre and memoir collide as Heins places the control(er) in the hands of the audience, entrusting them to pilot his performance using state-of-the-art motion capture and haptic technology. Intimate and innovative, the piece is inspired by the real-life story of Heins’ mother being diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, a rare genetic illness. No Save Points is crafted for gamers and theatre-lovers alike, and explores the universal question: “what do we do with the time that we have?”
June 6 – 25
Lighthouse ArtSpace – 1 Yonge St.
Outside The March No Save Points
A Lysistrata – Act 2 Studio Works
Aristophanes’s classic tells the story of Lysistrata, an Athenian woman who leads the women of Greece in a sex strike in order to compel their men to end the Peloponnesian War. Featuring a brand-new translation written by company members, act2studioWORKS’s version, A LYSISTRATA, interrogates the politics and legacy of that original, asking pointed questions about feminism, sex, womanhood, and political activism.
June 14 – 18
The Alumnae Theatre – 70 Berkeley Street
PERFORMANCES – act2studioWORKS
Access Me – Boys in Chairs Collective
Stories from the queer disability community will transform the Toronto stage this Pride! Andrew Gurza, Frank Hull, and Ken Harrower will be giving the city exclusive (and inclusive) access to their lives as gay disabled men in Access Me, a fun, queer disability sex-positive performance.
Immediate and intimate, provocative and personal —and incredibly hot!— Access Me resulted from the collective’s desire to create a space where the disabled and able-bodied can speak to experiences that are rarely, if ever, seen on stage. Audiences are invited to join the three charismatic performers for a personal exploration and public celebration of queer sexuality and disability as the theatre transforms into an all-access dance club!
June 16 – 24
Aki Studio, Daniels Spectrum – 585 Dundas St E
Access Me by the Boys In Chairs Collective (squarespace.com)
A View from the Box 