There’s a lot of incredible live performance happening here in Toronto and abroad this month! While I wish I was able to see it all, but hopefully you’ll be able to check some of these incredible performances out!

Vástádus eana – The answer is land – Harbourfront Centre
Choreographed by Indigenous Sámi choreographer and filmmaker, Elle Sofe Sara, this powerful new work is inspired by spiritual practices and environmental activism, and serves as an exploration and reclamation of Sámi cultural identity, community, and kinship between people and nature.
Hailed by NRK – Norway’s public broadcaster – as “powerful in a quiet yet magnificent way,” the show features seven Sámi and Norwegian women performers combining ritualized movement with polyphonic yoiks – traditional mountain songs – for a hypnotic experience.
Vástádus eana – The answer is land is choreographed as a theatrical concert, beginning outside in Ontario Square, where the performers will open the evening by guiding the audience through a protest before the cast and audience will travel together into Fleck Dance Theatre for the remainder of the show.

March 6 & 7
Fleck Dance Theatre – 207 Queens Quay West (3rd Floor)
https://harbourfrontcentre.com/event/vastadus-eana-the-answer-is-land/

Replay Story Fest – Replay Storytelling

From live performances to interactive workshops, Replay Story Fest will showcase diverse forms of storytelling, from live performances to music, live journalism to poetry — all rooted in our lived experiences. Storytellers include Nisha Coleman (Montreal), Rico Rodriguez, Ken Hall, Christel Bartelse, Anto Chan, Veronica Antipolo, Briane Nasimok, Sachin Sharma, Panagiota Vogdou, Shreya Parashar, Maddy Blythe, Sarah St-Fleur, Miho Suzuki, Chris Stoner, G.G. Cole, Dima Mironov, Misha Gajewski, Kavya Rajith, Vonne Aguda, and Ronit Rubinstein.
The festival offers an opportunity to revel in the magic of our shared lived experiences, and honour the vibrant community that has shaped Replay Storytelling over the last eight years.

March 6 – 10
Burdock Music Hall – 1184 Bloor St. W
https://replaystorytelling.com/storyfest/

Through My Eyes – Young People’s Theatre

Find out why parents call Through My Eyes “JUST MAGICAL” and “ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL”. A playful world of fun for little ones – on stage this March! Immerse yourself in this topsy-turvy wonderland brought to life through dance, bouncy energy, kaleidoscopic colours and sensory surprises! As astonishing as a sunrise and as contagiously fun as the giggles! This stimulating dance piece from Quebec’s Bouge de là invites audiences to see the world afresh through the eyes of an exploring child. Don’t miss this limited run event for ages 4-7.

March 4 – 17
Young People’s Theatre – 165 Front Street East
https://www.youngpeoplestheatre.org/shows-tickets/through-my-eyes/

This Stage Ain’t Big Enough for the Two of Us – A.C.T Producitons

Join us, A.C.T. Productions, at SoCap Comedy (The Social Capital) Mainstage as we kick off our 2024 season with a two-person long-form improv show! These comedians will be performing an improvised narrative set based on suggestions from you, the audience!

March 12 @8pm
Social Capital Theatre – 154 Danforth Avenue
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/this-stage-aint-big-enough-for-the-two-of-us-tickets-811547890587?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=1

Guilt (A Love Story) – Centaur Theatre
GUILT (a love story) is a deep dive into a complex, uncomfortable, and highly human feeling – a state of being that most of us, especially parents, wrestle with inelegantly. GUILT begins by focusing on Flacks’ odyssey: the perspective of a self-sacrificing Jewish mother instigating family dissolution. Flacks stands in the eye of an explosion in which she is the bomb. Drawing on Western philosophy, pop culture, and Jewish heritage, she brings the audience an erudite, emotionally turbulent, and hilarious journey.
You can check out my review of this production at Tarragon Theatre here: https://aviewfromthebox.net/2024/02/19/tarragon-theatres-guilt-a-love-story/

March 12 – 30
Centaur Theatre – 453 Saint Francois-Xavier, Montreal
https://centaurtheatre.com/shows/guilt-a-love-story/

Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival

The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival is Canada’s premier festival celebrating
scripted, ensemble comedy boasting multiple days of comedy on professional stages,
each year featuring approximately 200 comedians. Since 2005, the Festival has brought
sketch comedy to wider audiences with ticketed and free performances showcasing
hundreds of emerging comedians alongside a slate of top-flight headliner acts such as
Tallboyz, Kate McKinnon, Ramy Youssef and Jonathan Bryalock of Inside Jokes Films,
The Kids in the Hall, Ninja Sex Party, Sasheer Zamata, Michael Ian Black, and Gavin
Crawford. TOsketchfest is a registered charity and supports Canadian comedic
writer-performers through showcases, professional development and direct funding
through the Sketch Comedy Project Fund in partnership with the Pat & Tony Adams
Freedom Fund for The Arts.

March 6 – 17
https://torontosketchfest.com/

Tease – Big Kitties in association with Crow’s Theatre

TEASE challenges society’s patriarchal views and misogynistic expectations while unflinchingly poking fun at its own “woke” packaging. Combining elements of clown, sketch comedy, improv, and dance, the show is as salty as it is sweet in its exploration of sex, politics, and what it means to be a woman in this reimagining of the burlesque comedy genre.
Created and directed by award-winning comedienne Lindsay Mullan (Second City Mainstage Toronto), and featuring Glenys Marshall (Ottawa-based variety show Small Fish) and Mei Miyazawa (Pachinko, Apple TV+), TEASE is a multi-faceted theatrical experience that entertains with humour and sex appeal while drawing audiences in with its underlying heartfelt message.

March 13 – 24
Studio Theatre at Sreetcar Crowsnest – 345 Carlaw Ave
https://www.crowstheatre.com/whats-on/view-all/tease

Blockbuster Week 2024 – Bad Dog Comedy Theatre and Sex T-Rex

A community gathering for some of Toronto’s most talented artists, Blockbuster Week is a beloved festival of brand new improvised comedies celebrating movies and television in a live, unscripted setting.
At Blockbuster Week, Toronto’s best improvisers perform their takes on film and television genres, popular hits, and cult classics. This year’s festival sees the return of such 2023 Blockbuster Week hits as Improvised Bollywood, Chorelord, and Porno: The Musical, alongside hilarious new offerings such as GRINDHOUSE: An Improvised blankSpolitation movie and WAR!!!… In Space.
All six evenings of the festival will also offer community events such as karaoke, movie night, and Clown Car – a late-night segment spotlighting the city’s high-calibre clown talent. Blockbuster Week culminates on March 29th in a celebratory awards night called The Sexies, which sees Sex T-Rex awarding satirical yet heartfelt awards to all the artists in the festival.

March 22 – 29
The Assembly Theatre – 1479 Queen Street W
https://baddogtheatre.com/blockbuster

Fiji – Icarus Theatre

Sam and Nic recently met online and believe they are destined to be together. After telling everyone he’s bought a one-way ticket to Fiji, Sam has joined Nic at his apartment for a romantic weekend getaway of home-cooked meals and get-to-know-you games. If all goes according to plan, this will be their first and last meeting. This true crime romantic comedy has shocked UK and Edmonton audiences over the past four years, and is now making its’ Toronto debut after a sold-out run at the Edmonton Fringe Festival.

March 29 – April 7
Theatre Passe Muraille Bob Nasmith Backspace – 16 Ryerson Ave
https://www.icarustheatre.ca/fiji

WHITE MUSCLE DADDY – A PENCIL KIT PRODUCTIONS + BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES THEATRE PRODUCTION

Soon after Jeremy Río clocks in for his first graveyard shift at an exclusive LA gym, he meets Eugene, a fitness influencer who seems to have the life of Jeremy’s dreams—one that’s double stuffed with money, muscles, and parties galore. What begins as an envious crush quickly morphs into an insatiable hunger that threatens to tear Jeremy’s life apart.
A cinematic theatre piece, WHITE MUSCLE DADDY uses projection art, live camera feed and shadow play to spin a chilling yarn about the politics of queer desire.

MARCH 20–31
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre – 12 Alexander Street
https://buddiesinbadtimes.com/show/white-muscle-daddy/

Doctor Faustus – Dandelion Theatre and Apothecary Theatre

This March Dandelion Theatre and Apothecary Theatre invite you to back hell for Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, a play of dualities. God and Lucifer. Faith and Doubt. Loyalty and Betrayal. Good and Evil. Ambition and Regret. The play’s titular necromancer is split down the centre of his soul, between a desire for magical power and terror at what will become of his immortal spirit. Dandelion’ and Apothecary’s production strips Christopher Marlowe’s tragedy down to a personal interplay between Doctor Faustus and Mephistopheles, the demon he conjures to serve him. Once the deal is struck, and Faustus has surrendered heaven for worldly pleasures, the two figures become all things to each other: mutual servants, lovers, enemies and friends, trapped in a dance that will last for all eternity. The show explores themes of codependency, anxiety, art, and ambition as audiences are invited into a tour of one man’s very personal hell, and the demon he shares it with. What the audience knows but Faustus cannot is that he is already damned, and all of this has happened before and will happen again, forever.

You can read my review of this production here: https://aviewfromthebox.net/2023/10/30/dandelion-theatre-and-apothecary-theatres-doctor-faustus/

March 28th-30th
Small World Centre – 180 Shaw St unit 305
https://www.zeffy.com/en-CA/ticketing/6db3eddd-bff2-4a98-bb8b-b687bd06d73f