Pride Week officially begins in Toronto ..happy queer christmas, to one and all Let the rainbow-flaggin’ and the booty-shakin’ and street partying begin!
Begin? Where to begin? Well …for starters, check out the fun little video story that Xtra Magazine has up on their site, about me and my thing, promo-ing my upcoming western tour…
While still in Toronto for the big weekend, I’ll be performing at Cheap Queers at Buddies on Thursday the 26, and on the Proud Voices stage on Sunday the 29th at 5 pm, at the James Canning Gardens… though I’ll tell you, i feel I’ve been living and breathing the Pride spirit for weeks now,because of PrideCab, the big year-end youth cabaret show at Buddies- which, incidentally, sold out around the block last Wednesday! I’ve never seen such a long line up at Buddies, even on club nights. More than 100 people turned away! What a smash success — another great show by a great gang of youth: this marks year four that I have directing the project, and also my final year. Next year i take a step back from the youth programme, to concentrate more on my own work, and wear a new hat at Buddies: that of “Associate Artist”. I’ll be directing the Young Creators Unit again, directing Mark Shyzer’s new show “Fishbowl: a concise, expansive theory of everything” as part of the 30th Anniversay season, and…working on my own writing and other projects…actually i’m going to be writing a play for Buddies for 2009/10. So it’s exciting times for me. Sad to be letting go of the apron strings of my beloved youth programme…but the time is right. Chy Ryan Spain takes over, and that’s all good.
After we’re all done with being proud…next week I head out west for a two week music tour with the marvellous David Celia; he’ll be my one-man back-up band, and we’ll do a series of double bills together: can’t wait. Then back for more festivals back in Ontario. I am SERIOUSLY excited about the line up for my Hillside band: we had a jumpin’ show at the neighbourhood joint Not My Dog on Friday night, and it made me really really excited…there is a new sound developing, with David Celia on electric guitar, and the addition of upright bass (ahhh…the lovely Trevor Mills is back in the band!) and Beth Washburn on her little mini-tuba as well as the cornet…and of course Brad Hart playing drums. Adam Warner will actually be playing drums at Hillside, since Brad is on tour with Claire Jenkins Avec Band for a month…so Brad will be missed but Adam will be a great addition. With the new instrumental elements, and several new songs, i think things are really coming together in a slightly new and definitely exciting direction…and you know how i love new and exciting….
This entry was posted on Monday, June 23, 2008 at 2:09 pm in Currently, Dear diary, Miss Cellaneous, News, Theatre. You can follow any responses through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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The Independent Aunties are thrilled to announce that BREAFAST has been honoured with three Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations: For Outstanding Performance by a Female (Karin Randoja), Outstanding Sound Design (Richard Windeyer) and Outstanding Lighting Design (Laird MacDonald). The winners will be announced on June 30th….
And, in other news, apologies if you’ve been trying to navigate this site and finding strange pages in place of what you were looking for….we’ve been having a rather massive problem on our server — hopefully all will be fixed real soon. If there is something you can’t find that you need, please email evalyn at evalynparry dot com. Also if you’ve emailed evalyn and haven’t heard back, please try again.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 10:00 am in Currently, Dear diary, News, Theatre. You can follow any responses through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Breakfast, the new Independent Aunties show, opened officially last Wednesday, May 21, after a week of previewing. We Aunties are feeling so proud and happy. The audience response has been exhilarating: it seems we have made something that is CONNECTING to people in exactly the ways that we hoped it would. A wonderful review in Xtra Magazine:
“…a highly strung and expertly crafted script…Breakfast is a prime example of text and tech blending seamlessly into an hour of funny, painful and often gripping drama.” Xtra Magazine
and EYE Magazine:
” Moment by moment, this 70-minute creation is utterly compelling, even if Breakfast’s dark, absurdist progression eventually defies description….adventurers who surrender to this play about transformation will be rewarded by visceral theatre. Like an orgasm, it’s hard to describe but you know when you’ve had one” EYE Magazine
People are calling the show creepy, sexy, dark, fascinating, complex, gripping, suspenseful and moving…. It delves into the female psyche, explores ideas about self help, about transformation, intimacy, celebrity and voyeurism…and lots of other things, too. Through many, many ideas, creative collaborators, crazy physical explorations, fundraising, rewrites and hours and months later, we have created a one-hour show that we are all incredibly proud of. Even several friends that claim to generally dislike theatre have told us they loved it. We hope you, too, can come experience Breakfast with us before it closes on JUNE 1st.
Here are a coupla links to what is being said, both critically and in cyber-conversation:
Xtra Review of BREAKFAST by David Bateman
EYE Review of BREAKFAST by Gord McLaughlin
The Aunties in conversation with Chris Dupuis
Theatre Umbrella Blog
This entry was posted on Friday, May 23, 2008 at 10:22 am in Currently, Dear diary, News, Theatre. You can follow any responses through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Backstage