Another festival is about to take over Toronto.
Starting today, July 2nd, The Toronto Fringe Festival, the city’s largest theatre festival, will be invading venues, bars, and the Honest Ed’s alleyway with more than 155 productions.
We’re talking dance, comedy, and drama – and all for only $12 a show. Most performances clock in around the hour mark (see: lunch break) and take place from noon to midnight every day.
And since we didn’t want you to get overwhelmed with all the theatre (or just accidentally walk onto a stage), we thought we’d put together a list of shows you should definitely check out over the next 12 days.
Break a leg.
Punch Up
Punch Up by Fringe Festival favourite Kat Sandler and her Notable indie theatre company Theatre Brouhaha have been presenting sold-out shows at Fringe Festival for the last two years. This year they’re back with a comedy about a man who kidnaps a comedian to help him make ‘the saddest girl in the world’ laugh. This one’s bound not to disappoint.
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Love’s Labour’s Lost is the latest production from Fringe Festival favourite Shakespeare BASH’d – a company that puts on Shakespeare shows at The Victory Cafe. This is a 19+ show because we all know the bard wanted you to have a few while watching one of his performances.
Potosi
Potosi is the winner of the “2014 Fringe New Play Contest,” a prize that gained notoriety when mega-hit Kim’s Convenience won it in 2011 before they were picked up by Soulpepper. Potosi is described as a “darkly funny parable on colonialism, gender, and greed.” Sometimes serious topics make for the best comedy.
Red Bill
Michael Eisner, a Best Leading Actor nominee at the Gemini Awards, wrote and co-stars in this dark dramaedy about a “loveable degenerate” who spirals himself and two others into a world of drugs, sex, tribal music, and money. Requiem for a Dream meets Trainspotting? Let’s hope we come out of this one alive.
Concrete Kid
Dance and drama: Concrete Kid by Ray Jarvis Ruby is a lesbian coming-of-age tale that mixes together slam poetry, hip-hop, drag and choir in this story about 18-year-old Jamie’s first night out at a gay bar. Ray Jarvis Ruby is described as a “playwright, DJ, and amateur gender theorist,” which is a pretty intriguing combination of descriptors. We suspect this effort will reflect that.
Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl
Rebecca Perry has been touring her solo comedy show about an anthropology graduate turned coffeeshop girl all across North America. Perry’s character, Joanie Little, is in debt and gets a job as a barista. To make the most of her time at the coffeeshop, and to practice her anthro skills, Joanie spends her time pretending to be Jane Goodall, studying and reporting on the humans she interacts with every day. Let’s just hope she doesn’t break the fourth wall and start to judge audience members.
Peter n’ Chris and the Kinda OK Corral
Peter n’ Chris have been nominated three times for a Canadian Comedy Award, they’re two-time winners of the Just For Laughs Best Comedy award at the Montreal Fringe, and they’ve also won two “Audience Choice” awards at Toronto Sketchfest. This should be sketch comedy at its best.
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