The play's the thing: Shakespeare in High Park, The Fringe Festival, SummerWorks and Gay Play Day
15 Jun 2018

Pride is the theatrical event - in terms of drama, spectacle and sheer numbers - of the summer. But hard on her high heels comes a series of theatrical festivals that are also not to be missed. After recovering from marching, partying and being the gods' gift to the world, a few hours in the darkened tabernacle of the theatre is another way to celebrate culture.

There is just time to catch one's breath before Shakespeare in High Park begins its run under the stars. From Thursday, June 28 to Sunday, September 2, the bisexual bard's best gets a crowd-pleasing airing in the magical ampitheatre close to the traditional cruising grounds of the west end. Tanja Jacobs (Love and Information, La Bete) returns after last year's riotous Twelfth Night, to direct A Midsummer's Night Dream set "in a stylish Fellini-inspired production set in a Roman amusement park in the early 1950s." Frank Cox-O'Connell crosses the footlights from playing Hamlet to directing Romeo and Juliet. The star-crossed lovers meet amidst a soccer hooligan culture, "a culture poisoned by masculinity."

If that isn't enough inducement, the cast performing the plays in repertory, is stellar including sex symbol Jason Cadieux (Love and Information, The Wedding Party, King Lear), Rachel Cairns (Bunny, Hamlet), the irrepressible Peter Fernandes (Love and Information, Onegin, King Lear), Naomi Wright (Kiss, Julius Caesar, A Room of One's Own) the intense and hunky David Patrick Flemming (What a Young Wife Ought to Know), Amaka Umeh (James and the Giant Peach, This Is For You Anna, Sister Act, Jesus Christ Superstar), and the always mesmerizing Jakob Ehman (The Circle, Nature of the Beast, Cockfight, Donors, Firebrand). Shakespeare will sizzle this summer.

The Toronto Fringe Festival running from Wednesday, July 4 to Sunday, July 15 has 159 ticketed shows and over 50 free events. It is, frankly, overwhelming. Best to hunker down with the program guide (available in .pdf format at fringetoronto.com) and pick out anything that catches your attention. And inevitably, as word of mouth and social media rev up, there will unexpected pleasures to be found. Here are just a few, arranged in no particular order, that caught my eye.

The Bird Killer is an "updated and gender-bent" version of Chekhow's The Seagull which sounds intriguing. Then I discovered that Michael Ricci (Pippi The Strongest Girl in the World, Circles) is part of the cast. Now it is a must-see.
Paradise Lost is Paul Van Dyck's dazzling retelling of John Milton's poem. If you didn't get to see it in its previous limited run, this is your chance.
The Pansy Craze: A New Musical tells the tale of "the unsung tale of queer artists struggling to find sanctuary in the early 1930s." Musicals, queer and an alluring title, are a combination dear to my heart.
Movin' Melvin Brown - A Man, A Magic, A Music brings the rhythm and blues to the stage for a one man song and dance extravaganza.

Anatomy of a Dancer has an 11 member cast interpreting the Gene Kelly quote "You dance love, you dance joy, and you dance dreams. And I know if I can make you smile by jumping over a couple of couches or running through a rainstorm, then I'll be very glad to be a song and dance man." Kelly was, in my opinion, the sexiest triple threat of Hollywood's golden age and if they capture a quarter of him magnetism, it will be riveting.
Andy Warhol Musical: In Rehearsal has an anonymous (?!?) ensemble of 13 going behind the scenes at the creation of a musical about The Factory. Very Warhol concept by a company calling itself Josie's Pussy Cats.
Birds Make Me Think of Freedom tells the stories of people institutionalized for having developmental disabilities. Both the stories of the incarcerated and the ones who facilitated the incarceration.
Save the Date has Morro and Jasp (9 - 5, Stupefaction) throwing a clown wedding. An invite not to be declined, RSVP immediately.

Flooded: A Show and Sail Around the Toronto Islands is a seafaring rare experience that, if you missed it last summer, don't miss it this time around.

Carmilla interprets the classic lesbian vampire potboiler through burlesque, song, dance and cabaret. Hot.
The Cockwhisperer - A Love Story is unfortunately from the heterosexual perspective of Colette Kendall, but I'm sure all can relate.

The Ding Dong Girls is the sure bet of the entire Fringe and if you want tickets, get them fast. A drag musical based on "the mostly untrue legend of a cross-dressing misfit who gathers around him four other young gay men to form a madcap, politically-motivated drag troupe" is written by wits Gordon Bowness and Christopher Richards, and the cast includes some fierce dragsters and the delectable Oscar Moreno (Thank You for Being a Friend). La cage aux fabulous.
Circus Shop of Horrors sounds like it was created specifically for moi - "an eclectic musical revue, paying homage to beloved horror films, by melding the grotesque, with acrobatics, circus, dance, drag, and illusion" - but I suspect there are a lot of other queer horror musical circus fans out there. At least I, and cast member/secret weapon Phil Skala (Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story, Rent, Avenue Q, Rent), fervently believe so.

The SummerWorks Performance Festival running Thursday, August 9 to Sunday, August 19 is still far enough away that there hasn't been a concrete announcement of their programming. However some of the names of the participating artists have leaked and include such luminaries as Graham Isador (Situational Anarchy), Mark Aikman (Family Story). Michaela Washburn (La Bete, Animal Farm), Molly Johnson, Rob Kempson (The Way Back to Thursday), Susanna Fournier (Lulu v7), Tom Arthur Davis (Situational Anarchy, They Say He Fell), ted witzel (Lulu v7, The Marquise of O, All's Well That Ends Well, La Ronde) and FADO Performance Art Centre (Lost in TRANS).

However SummerWorks is dedicated to presenting what they call "cutting-edge, exciting, professional theatre" which translates into theatre that is shaping theatre, or, theatre that is embryonic or that you will not see anywhere else. Past festivals have brought us the wonders of Gash!, Paradise Red, X, Pearle Harbour's Chautauqua, Delicacy, and To Myself at 28. All of the artists involved in those shows have gone on to create more extraordinary work and we'll be able to type the same sentence next year. SummerWorks really is, as billed, "the breeding ground for the mainstage shows of the future."

Explicitly a mainstage show of the future is the Outside the March (Mr Burns A Post Apocalyptic Play) and The Musical Stage Company (Fun Home, Onegin, Once On This Island, Elegies, Falsettos) are presenting Dr Silver: A Celebration of Life which is being workshopped at Luminato, and undoubtedly has a full theatrical run in its near future.

And by then it will be September and we can get start getting prepared for the Gay Play Day festival on Friday, September 7 and Saturday, September 8 featuring new works from Steven Elliott Jackson (The Seat Next to the King, Threesome, Real Life Superhero) and Philip Cairns. Buddies new season. will also launch and there will be theatre and drama all the way until next Pride.