Fringe Fest Comments; Olympic Gymnastics Trials; Streetfest; I <3 Enemiez!; Krock = OTP 4EVA!!11
2004 Toronto Fringe Festival:
The annual Fringe Theatre Festival was held in T.O. last week, showcasing over 100 new productions from young companies across the city and beyond. I was lucky enough to have a media pass, which granted me access to several shows that were sellouts from Day 1 of the festival (which would have meant lining up for five hours if I'd wanted to get in otherwise). Every year I go through the Fringe booklet trying to decide what I want to see, which is quite a chore, because it forces me to wade through pages and pages of horribly pretentious sounding dreck. However, I seem to have developed quite a knack at picking out the hot shows of the festival, and my streak continued this year.
On Monday, I saw The Rap Canterbury Tales, a one-man show in which poet/actor Baba Brinkman goes through Chaucer's famed tales in... yep, you've got it... rap. The set-up is that Brinkman is a fanboy who climbs onto a tour bus filled with rap stars and gets caught in the middle of a hip-hop battle in which each rapper has to tell a tale, freestyle. Overall, it was well adapted and highly amusing stuff, but Brinkman is a little too white to fully pull off the whole hip-hop vibe, and doesn't have the charisma of my Job boys, who have become the metrestick by which all Fringe productions, especially those done hip-hop style, are measured. The ending of the piece was also pretty lacklustre, with the audience voting on which rapper, or which tale, wins the hip-hop battle - it would have worked with a huge audience, but in a Fringe setting with smaller audiences, it just killed the stage energy and left the whole thing feeling kind of flat. On the other hand, I'd definitely recommend the play to any high school students studying Chaucer - it's a nifty way to make the old English accessible and relevant to kids who have grown up on hip-hop.
On Thursday, it was off to the Tarragon to see Waiting For Trudeau: The Return of the King, a four-handed musical written by husband-and-wife team Brett and Rachel McQuaig. The musical was a parody of Canadian history, from the days of the first settlers to our most recent federal election. I thought it was a clever spoof, made all the better by the fact that all four cast members could actually sing, something that's often sorely lacking in musical comedies. Several reviewers and audience members seemed to feel the piece relied too heavily on stereotype, but I thought that was part of the point of the whole thing. I was also highly amused that the musical included a spoof on CI in the form of a Separatist Idol sketch in which the two finalists were Rene Levesque and Celine Dion, and the host was a drunken Scot who claimed that if Ben Mulroney could host a show, anyone could. Bwah!
Friday I was on the campus of my alma mater, U of T, to see my friend Chris and his production company, Upstart Crow, and their annual Fringe twist on Shakespeare. Upstart Crow has done Shakespeare in the form of the World Cup of Soccer, as gladiator games, and as a rugby tournament, and this year they decided to showcase the romance and comedy plays in the form of Shakespeare's Comic Olympics. The way the show intertwined modern pop culture and political references with every last one of the Bard's comedies and romances was very clever, but the play suffered from having an overly-large cast and being set in an actual soccer field. The venue made projection an issue for almost every actor in the cast (with Chris himself, who wrote and directed the play as well as playing Referee William Shakespeare, being the one major exception), and the staging was also somewhat iffy since it was done as theatre in the round, with audience on both ends of the field.
While I was on campus, I decided to stick around and watch Chris star in yet another Fringe show, a shortened version of Edmond Rostand's classic Cyrano de Bergerac. I was glad I did, because while the production itself was good, but not great, Chris' performance as Cyrano was freakin' fantastic. I had no idea the guy had it in him, especially after doing a physically exhausting show less than an hour before this one, but man oh man, he was awesome. Crystal-clear vocal work and emotional characterization that moved me practically to tears. I spoke to Chris after the show, and basically told him I have no idea how he does it - not only was he acting in two Fringe plays (one of which, as previously mentioned, he also wrote and directed!), but he also teaches drama full-time throughout the year and has three children under the age of six. Damn, the man must be superhuman. I have incredible admiration for the guy and all he does. We also shared a small world story when I found out that the school he's teaching at now happens to be the school that my former high school drama teacher is vice-principal of, two of his fellow drama teachers at the school were high school classmates of mine, and the fourth drama teacher in the pack went to the school I currently teach at when she was a girl. As the drama world turns, indeed!
Saturday, I headed back on campus to my old stomping ground, the place I completed my three years of acting training at, the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. I was there, of course, to see the hit of the Fringe, Charles Ross' One Man Lord of the Rings. This was, I must add, my third time trying to get into the show, as the show was so incredibly popular and so incredibly sold out that there were mix-ups with which press were accredited for which day, and I happened to be one of the ones involved in the mix-up on both Thursday and Friday. Grr. On Saturday, they claimed to have no press list, and I had to argue with the publicist directly to get in, but finally, I got one of the last seats to the show, and holy cow, am I glad I did! Ross does the entire LotR trilogy in an hour, playing all the characters, singing bits of the soundtrack, doing all the sound effects, everything. His telling of the story was extra good because he made tons of fun of OrBLANDo Bloom's portrayal of Legolas by preening and fussing with his hair every time he switched to the character, and he also acknowledged the Frodo/Sam OTP HoYay. Whee! Both Ross and the show itself were frickin' brilliant and the audience leapt to its feet at the end in an instantaneous and well-deserved standing ovation. The man then further endeared himself to everyone by stopping the applause to tell the audience that everyone who has a dream should make sure to follow it, because if you want it enough, it will come true. Awwww. A note to the SWOWs in the house - Charles Ross' fringe hit last year was One Man Star Wars, in which he did the entire SW trilogy in one hour, and apparently he has some very exciting news involving some sort of deal with Lucasfilm that he'll be announcing on his site on July 23rd. Hmm.
And that was it for my 2004 Fringe adventures! I'm feeling so inspired that I'm going to try and get a show into the Fringe lottery myself this fall in hopes of putting something on in next year's Fringe.
2004 Canadian Olympic Gymnastics Trials:
On Sunday, I met fizzybottlecap at the Seneca College gym for Day 2 of the Canadian Olympic Gymnastics Trials. I don't have a lot to say about the event, so I'm not going to bother putting it under a cut despite the fact that I know almost none of you care about gymnastics or what I have to say about trials. Hee!
First of all, I couldn't believe trials for the freakin' Olympics were being held in such a small (and non-air conditioned!) gym, with tickets being sold for $12 at the door. The seating was bleachers that were absolutely packed, and you had to literally climb over people to get to your seat. It was slightly hazardous and I was fully sure I would fall on someone by the end of the day, but luckily, I didn't. Go me! Anyhow, the whole event had the feeling of a high school gymnastics meet or something of that level. That aside, it was definitely fun to watch - the Canadian gymnastics team kind of sucks, but they didn't suck as badly as I expecting them to. There were several marks in the 9s and not too many outright falls. Four members of the team were named directly after the competition, including Amelie Plante, who is probably my favourite of the ten girls competing for six spots, and later that night, my other favourite, Kate Richardson, was also named to the team. Yay! Jess doesn't like Kate's floor routine, but I thought it was the most choreographically coherent of the bunch and I like the way she sold it. Can't wait for the Olympics - elite gymnastics is probably the only occasion on which I cheer hardcore for Team USA, and I hope that the American girls win the team gold and that either Courtney Kupets or Carly Patterson wins the all-around title.
2004 Celebrate Toronto Street Festival:
For the past several years, the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival has been held in July, with musical acts at five different venues and various other fun (and free!) activities for the whole family. Gary and Toya were playing at one of the venues on the "urban" stage, but let's just say you would not have caught me dead anywhere near there. On the other hand, I happen to know that Mel was secretly there, and took so many pictures of Gary that she ran out of memory on her digicam! After the gymnastics, Jess and I headed over to the Yonge & Eglinton stage to catch a few acts.
Danny Michel is one of my favourite Toronto singer-songwriters, and so it was a real treat to see him play a one-hour set at Streetfest for an appreciative crowd. The stupid hardcore indie crowd in the city seems to have dropped the boy like a rock since The Mix started playing his songs on the radio, but dey juss jeluss, foo'! He played a good mix of old and new stuff with a rockin' band that included Andrew Aldridge and Dennis Mohammad (brown pryde!) and was his usual, hobbit-like, adorable self.
Shaye is an east coast girl group made up of former solo artists Tara MacLean, Dahmnait Doyle and Kim Stockwood, each of whom had a hit single or two of her own here in Canada in the Lilith Fair days. Tara and Dahmnait used to be friends of my sister's back then, too, but they've lost touch. Anyhow, I've been meaning to go see them for awhile and kept missing them, so it was nice to finally catch their set. While they were very good live, and work well together, I do think they come off as just pretty girls making pretty music, and their album material is very generic. They are each individually very strong songwriters and excellent singers, and together, have enough talent to be making better music than the radio-friendly Celtic-inspired pop they're making now. One thing I noticed is that Dahmnait, who, individually, is probably the weakest of the three women, really shines in the group setting, while Tara, the most individually talented, seems to take a backseat to both Dahmnait and Kim in the trio. Interesting. Also, Dahmnait has gotten way too skinny - given her natural body type, there is no way the girl should ever be skinnier than Tara MacLean. Eat food, woman.
I <3 Enemiez!
The shananigans of the last few days have amused me greatly. The stupid people of the world don't seem to understand that I could not care less whether they ban me from their journals or not. In fact, I happen to think this makes them seem exceedingly cowardly, and, well, scared of me and my posse! Scared! Of us! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! If they weren't, they'd leave their journals open, like I do, because I know that even if they spam my journal to death, I can showdown them good and give them head ingury [sic] very easy.
ninja_sheep, astormyhaze, misspaprika, and all other members of da posse that aren't afraid of the Lying Liar, Zella Dawg, and their minions, y'all rock, hardcore. I am also incredibly amused that certain members of that group of sheep and minions are obviously spying on me and my posse, but will never find out anything worth knowing, because unlike them, we aren't stupid. BWAH!
Krock = OTP 4EVA!!!11
Whee! I finally finished writing a Krockfic! It's exceedingly faux-slash and could be rated G, in all honesty, so don't be scared. Hee!
I have also learned not to be scribbling away at Krockfic while in the audience of various plays, because I am now consumed with a new Krockfic idea that may well be on crack, but I may have to try my hand at writing it. Anyone know the story of Cyrano de Bergerac? messynessy, maybe? What do you think of a modern spin on that old tale with Brock as the Cyrano character, Kalan as the Roxane and Jacob as the Christian? Maybe with emails instead of letters and Brock/Cyrano not dying at the end? What say you to that? Am I on serious crack, or what?? Krock have totally eaten my brayn sellz. Gah.
Finally, I would just like to say that Krock is the CI2 OTP, and anyone who disagrees can just crawl back into their Jalan-ish holes and stay there. Buh-bye!
And thus ends the longest LJ post in history.
The annual Fringe Theatre Festival was held in T.O. last week, showcasing over 100 new productions from young companies across the city and beyond. I was lucky enough to have a media pass, which granted me access to several shows that were sellouts from Day 1 of the festival (which would have meant lining up for five hours if I'd wanted to get in otherwise). Every year I go through the Fringe booklet trying to decide what I want to see, which is quite a chore, because it forces me to wade through pages and pages of horribly pretentious sounding dreck. However, I seem to have developed quite a knack at picking out the hot shows of the festival, and my streak continued this year.
On Monday, I saw The Rap Canterbury Tales, a one-man show in which poet/actor Baba Brinkman goes through Chaucer's famed tales in... yep, you've got it... rap. The set-up is that Brinkman is a fanboy who climbs onto a tour bus filled with rap stars and gets caught in the middle of a hip-hop battle in which each rapper has to tell a tale, freestyle. Overall, it was well adapted and highly amusing stuff, but Brinkman is a little too white to fully pull off the whole hip-hop vibe, and doesn't have the charisma of my Job boys, who have become the metrestick by which all Fringe productions, especially those done hip-hop style, are measured. The ending of the piece was also pretty lacklustre, with the audience voting on which rapper, or which tale, wins the hip-hop battle - it would have worked with a huge audience, but in a Fringe setting with smaller audiences, it just killed the stage energy and left the whole thing feeling kind of flat. On the other hand, I'd definitely recommend the play to any high school students studying Chaucer - it's a nifty way to make the old English accessible and relevant to kids who have grown up on hip-hop.
On Thursday, it was off to the Tarragon to see Waiting For Trudeau: The Return of the King, a four-handed musical written by husband-and-wife team Brett and Rachel McQuaig. The musical was a parody of Canadian history, from the days of the first settlers to our most recent federal election. I thought it was a clever spoof, made all the better by the fact that all four cast members could actually sing, something that's often sorely lacking in musical comedies. Several reviewers and audience members seemed to feel the piece relied too heavily on stereotype, but I thought that was part of the point of the whole thing. I was also highly amused that the musical included a spoof on CI in the form of a Separatist Idol sketch in which the two finalists were Rene Levesque and Celine Dion, and the host was a drunken Scot who claimed that if Ben Mulroney could host a show, anyone could. Bwah!
Friday I was on the campus of my alma mater, U of T, to see my friend Chris and his production company, Upstart Crow, and their annual Fringe twist on Shakespeare. Upstart Crow has done Shakespeare in the form of the World Cup of Soccer, as gladiator games, and as a rugby tournament, and this year they decided to showcase the romance and comedy plays in the form of Shakespeare's Comic Olympics. The way the show intertwined modern pop culture and political references with every last one of the Bard's comedies and romances was very clever, but the play suffered from having an overly-large cast and being set in an actual soccer field. The venue made projection an issue for almost every actor in the cast (with Chris himself, who wrote and directed the play as well as playing Referee William Shakespeare, being the one major exception), and the staging was also somewhat iffy since it was done as theatre in the round, with audience on both ends of the field.
While I was on campus, I decided to stick around and watch Chris star in yet another Fringe show, a shortened version of Edmond Rostand's classic Cyrano de Bergerac. I was glad I did, because while the production itself was good, but not great, Chris' performance as Cyrano was freakin' fantastic. I had no idea the guy had it in him, especially after doing a physically exhausting show less than an hour before this one, but man oh man, he was awesome. Crystal-clear vocal work and emotional characterization that moved me practically to tears. I spoke to Chris after the show, and basically told him I have no idea how he does it - not only was he acting in two Fringe plays (one of which, as previously mentioned, he also wrote and directed!), but he also teaches drama full-time throughout the year and has three children under the age of six. Damn, the man must be superhuman. I have incredible admiration for the guy and all he does. We also shared a small world story when I found out that the school he's teaching at now happens to be the school that my former high school drama teacher is vice-principal of, two of his fellow drama teachers at the school were high school classmates of mine, and the fourth drama teacher in the pack went to the school I currently teach at when she was a girl. As the drama world turns, indeed!
Saturday, I headed back on campus to my old stomping ground, the place I completed my three years of acting training at, the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. I was there, of course, to see the hit of the Fringe, Charles Ross' One Man Lord of the Rings. This was, I must add, my third time trying to get into the show, as the show was so incredibly popular and so incredibly sold out that there were mix-ups with which press were accredited for which day, and I happened to be one of the ones involved in the mix-up on both Thursday and Friday. Grr. On Saturday, they claimed to have no press list, and I had to argue with the publicist directly to get in, but finally, I got one of the last seats to the show, and holy cow, am I glad I did! Ross does the entire LotR trilogy in an hour, playing all the characters, singing bits of the soundtrack, doing all the sound effects, everything. His telling of the story was extra good because he made tons of fun of OrBLANDo Bloom's portrayal of Legolas by preening and fussing with his hair every time he switched to the character, and he also acknowledged the Frodo/Sam OTP HoYay. Whee! Both Ross and the show itself were frickin' brilliant and the audience leapt to its feet at the end in an instantaneous and well-deserved standing ovation. The man then further endeared himself to everyone by stopping the applause to tell the audience that everyone who has a dream should make sure to follow it, because if you want it enough, it will come true. Awwww. A note to the SWOWs in the house - Charles Ross' fringe hit last year was One Man Star Wars, in which he did the entire SW trilogy in one hour, and apparently he has some very exciting news involving some sort of deal with Lucasfilm that he'll be announcing on his site on July 23rd. Hmm.
And that was it for my 2004 Fringe adventures! I'm feeling so inspired that I'm going to try and get a show into the Fringe lottery myself this fall in hopes of putting something on in next year's Fringe.
2004 Canadian Olympic Gymnastics Trials:
On Sunday, I met fizzybottlecap at the Seneca College gym for Day 2 of the Canadian Olympic Gymnastics Trials. I don't have a lot to say about the event, so I'm not going to bother putting it under a cut despite the fact that I know almost none of you care about gymnastics or what I have to say about trials. Hee!
First of all, I couldn't believe trials for the freakin' Olympics were being held in such a small (and non-air conditioned!) gym, with tickets being sold for $12 at the door. The seating was bleachers that were absolutely packed, and you had to literally climb over people to get to your seat. It was slightly hazardous and I was fully sure I would fall on someone by the end of the day, but luckily, I didn't. Go me! Anyhow, the whole event had the feeling of a high school gymnastics meet or something of that level. That aside, it was definitely fun to watch - the Canadian gymnastics team kind of sucks, but they didn't suck as badly as I expecting them to. There were several marks in the 9s and not too many outright falls. Four members of the team were named directly after the competition, including Amelie Plante, who is probably my favourite of the ten girls competing for six spots, and later that night, my other favourite, Kate Richardson, was also named to the team. Yay! Jess doesn't like Kate's floor routine, but I thought it was the most choreographically coherent of the bunch and I like the way she sold it. Can't wait for the Olympics - elite gymnastics is probably the only occasion on which I cheer hardcore for Team USA, and I hope that the American girls win the team gold and that either Courtney Kupets or Carly Patterson wins the all-around title.
2004 Celebrate Toronto Street Festival:
For the past several years, the Celebrate Toronto Street Festival has been held in July, with musical acts at five different venues and various other fun (and free!) activities for the whole family. Gary and Toya were playing at one of the venues on the "urban" stage, but let's just say you would not have caught me dead anywhere near there. On the other hand, I happen to know that Mel was secretly there, and took so many pictures of Gary that she ran out of memory on her digicam! After the gymnastics, Jess and I headed over to the Yonge & Eglinton stage to catch a few acts.
Danny Michel is one of my favourite Toronto singer-songwriters, and so it was a real treat to see him play a one-hour set at Streetfest for an appreciative crowd. The stupid hardcore indie crowd in the city seems to have dropped the boy like a rock since The Mix started playing his songs on the radio, but dey juss jeluss, foo'! He played a good mix of old and new stuff with a rockin' band that included Andrew Aldridge and Dennis Mohammad (brown pryde!) and was his usual, hobbit-like, adorable self.
Shaye is an east coast girl group made up of former solo artists Tara MacLean, Dahmnait Doyle and Kim Stockwood, each of whom had a hit single or two of her own here in Canada in the Lilith Fair days. Tara and Dahmnait used to be friends of my sister's back then, too, but they've lost touch. Anyhow, I've been meaning to go see them for awhile and kept missing them, so it was nice to finally catch their set. While they were very good live, and work well together, I do think they come off as just pretty girls making pretty music, and their album material is very generic. They are each individually very strong songwriters and excellent singers, and together, have enough talent to be making better music than the radio-friendly Celtic-inspired pop they're making now. One thing I noticed is that Dahmnait, who, individually, is probably the weakest of the three women, really shines in the group setting, while Tara, the most individually talented, seems to take a backseat to both Dahmnait and Kim in the trio. Interesting. Also, Dahmnait has gotten way too skinny - given her natural body type, there is no way the girl should ever be skinnier than Tara MacLean. Eat food, woman.
I <3 Enemiez!
The shananigans of the last few days have amused me greatly. The stupid people of the world don't seem to understand that I could not care less whether they ban me from their journals or not. In fact, I happen to think this makes them seem exceedingly cowardly, and, well, scared of me and my posse! Scared! Of us! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! If they weren't, they'd leave their journals open, like I do, because I know that even if they spam my journal to death, I can showdown them good and give them head ingury [sic] very easy.
ninja_sheep, astormyhaze, misspaprika, and all other members of da posse that aren't afraid of the Lying Liar, Zella Dawg, and their minions, y'all rock, hardcore. I am also incredibly amused that certain members of that group of sheep and minions are obviously spying on me and my posse, but will never find out anything worth knowing, because unlike them, we aren't stupid. BWAH!
Krock = OTP 4EVA!!!11
Whee! I finally finished writing a Krockfic! It's exceedingly faux-slash and could be rated G, in all honesty, so don't be scared. Hee!
I have also learned not to be scribbling away at Krockfic while in the audience of various plays, because I am now consumed with a new Krockfic idea that may well be on crack, but I may have to try my hand at writing it. Anyone know the story of Cyrano de Bergerac? messynessy, maybe? What do you think of a modern spin on that old tale with Brock as the Cyrano character, Kalan as the Roxane and Jacob as the Christian? Maybe with emails instead of letters and Brock/Cyrano not dying at the end? What say you to that? Am I on serious crack, or what?? Krock have totally eaten my brayn sellz. Gah.
Finally, I would just like to say that Krock is the CI2 OTP, and anyone who disagrees can just crawl back into their Jalan-ish holes and stay there. Buh-bye!
And thus ends the longest LJ post in history.