The 9th Annual Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival returns March 6-16. The festival highlights the best live, scripted comedy in North America. This year is no exemption with a diverse lineup of comedy troupes from around Canada, and abroad.
For those who are not familiar with sketch comedy, in general, it is basically a funny performance that is written, rehearsed and performed by a cast of comedians. If you’ve seen Saturday Night Live, or SCTV, or Kids in the Hall, then you’re familiar with it already. It is different from stand-up or improv. But it’s just as funny!
The 10-day festival offers an array of shows and performances. To make things a little simpler for you, I’ve chosen 5 events that would appeal to some of you.
From its description alone, this is going to make my inner nerd laugh. It will contain “weird science, awkward silence, comic book references and alternate endings to Battlestar Galactica.” You’ve been warned.
If you’re a fan of The Kids in the Hall, this is a not-to-be-missed night. All five members will grace the stage for a live reading of their 1996 cult film, Brain Candy. Musical accompaniment will be performed by the movie’s original film score composer Craig Northey (The Odds), and his all star band featuring Chris Murphy and Gregory MacDonald (Sloan). This is a one-night-only engagement.
Come see 12 of Toronto’s best sketch comedy performers present radio sketches for a chance to win $500 in cold, hard cash, plus a live-album recorded by SiriusXM.
Some of the troupes in the lineup include Tony Ho, Parker and Seville, Rocket Scientists, and more! The winner will be determined by the audience this same night.
From neurotic humour to dumb enough to being funny to hearing as many jokes as you can in one minute, three troupes in one night seems… well, definitely do-able.
As part of the festival’s workshops & panels series, this is a chance to meet sketch artists from other cities, and find out how the live sketch scene works for them. Featuring some of Sketchfest’s out of town performers.
The Lounge Series is open to performers and the public, and admission is FREE.
These are but a few highlights at this year’s festival. Hoping these get you out of the cold, enjoy a few laughs, and try something new.
THE 9TH ANNUAL TORONTO SKETCH COMEDY FESTIVAL
Thursday, March 6 – Sunday, March 16, 2014
The LOT (Lower Ossington Theatre), 100A Ossington Avenue
For those looking for a more intimate way of experience art, I would suggest visiting The Red Head Gallery. Located in a restored factory building located at 401 Richmond Street in downtown Toronto, the space offers us a nice escape from the mundane among art galleries, music galleries, publishers, shops, and a café. It’s one of my favourite places to visit impromptu in the city.
Next week, the gallery presents Galileo’s Falling Bodies by Nina Leo, in collaboration with Lee Henderson. Galileo’s Falling Bodies is a series of works that allegorically contemplate various states of discord through the movement, upset, and stasis of a teacup… Various moments of upheaval and recovery are captured and re-presented, collectively proposing an underlying beauty in surrender.
Nina Leo is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist working primarily in drawing, installation, performance and public practice. Her work examines how the contemporary terrain of fragmented, often virtual experience may affect us phenomenologically as experiences and interactions become ever more accessible, yet divested of direct multi-sensorial richness. Leo holds an MFA in Emerging Practices from the University of Buffalo, SUNY. She is also an exhibiting member of the Red Head Gallery.
Lee Henderson is a media-based artist from Saskatchewan. He has studied art in Canada and Germany, with talented professionals including Maria Vedder, Brian Eno, and Ellen Bromberg. Since completing his MFA in 2005, he has been furthering his time- and lens- based artistic practice while teaching photography and media art at the postsecondary level (currently at OCADU and Ryerson University). Recent and upcoming exhibitions and screenings include the Zero Film Festival (Los Angeles), The Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina), The Rooms (St. John’s), Trinity Square Video, gallerywest, Artscape Youngplace, and YYZ (Toronto).
Always looking for something new or different to do and learn from, Galileo’s Falling Bodies sounds like an intriguing and perhaps challenging way to experience new art. I, for one, think it a good exercise for the mind and soul.
Nina Leo / Lee Henderson Galileo’s Falling Bodies, 2013 Pigment print on fibre, 29 x 43 in.
The ultimate Irish pub crawl, a boxing legend at the height of his career, a madcap chase for missing millions, an Irish bird who’s afraid of flying and personal reconciliation are among the themes at this year’s Toronto Irish Film Festival (TIRFF). Starting tonight, Friday, February 28 to Sunday, March 2 at TIFF Bell Lightbox, TIRFF 2014 promises a weekend of cinematic good times with North American and Canadian Premieres, a classic Irish pub-night and some special guests from Ireland.
OPENING NIGHT GALA – THE IRISH PUB Director: Alex Fegan in attendance/Q & A following screening Friday, February 28, 2014, 7:00pm
This feature documentary is a eulogy to the greatest institution in Irish society, and the legendary Irish publicans who run them. An ode to the traditional Irish pub in all its glory: solid wood, stone floors, no music, little TV, knick-knacks and yellowed ceilings, Fegan’s camera slips from pub to pub meeting interesting and quirky publicans and patrons each step along the way.
OPENING NIGHT PARTY: Dora Keogh’s, 141 Danforth Avenue, 9:30pm Present your TIRFF ticket stub from ‘The Irish Pub’ to meet director Alex Fegan enjoy the celebration!
TIRFF 2014 IRISH SHORTS PROGRAM Saturday, March 1, 2014, 5:00pm Canadian Premiere
Fear of Flying- director Conor Finnegan This is an animated short about a small bird with a fear of flying trying to avoid heading south for the winter.
The End of the Counter – director Laura McGann This short recalls the moment in 1965 when grocery shopping in Ireland changed forever with the birth of the supermarket.
Two Wheels Good – director Barry Gene Murphy This short follows four seasoned veterans of the Irish open road celebrating a lifetime in the saddle.
The Tree – director David Freyne Set in post-Apocalyptic Ireland, two strangers meet in a silent fight for survival.
Breakfast Wine – director Ian Fitzgibbon This is a dark comeday, wehre two alcoholics have their daily routine disrupted by a beautiful stranger.
This is the story of how, in July 1972 an historic boxing match in Croke Park between Muhammad Ali and Alvin ‘Blue’ Lewis brought the nation to a standstill. Ross Whitaker’s film, produced during the 40th anniversary of the fight, combines a wealth of archival material with colourful reminiscences of people who came into contact with Ali during his time in Ireland.
MADE IN BELFAST Director: Paul Kennedy Saturday, March 1, 2014, 9:00pm
Shot in thirteen days on a micro budget, Made In Belfast, Paul Kennedy’s directorial debut proves that money is no substitute for a great story. Jack Kelly (Ciaran McMenamin) is a successful novelist who leads a reclusive life in his apartment in Paris. But when circumstances conspire to bring him back to his hometown for a few days, he resolves to put things right with the friends he betrayed, the brother he abandoned and the fiancée he jilted.
MOONE BOY – Season II Canadian Launch Creator & co-writer: Chris O’Dowd Sunday, March 2, 2014, 5:00pm
Back in 2012, Chris O’Dowd and Nick Vincent Murphy charmed Sky 1 and BITE TV (in Canada) audiences with their semi-autobiographical coming-of-age comedy set in the small Irish town of Boyle in 1989. Following the adventures of 12-year-old Martin Moone (David Rawle), the series celebrated family life as Martin set about growing up amid his chaotic clan, ably assisted by imaginary friend Sean Murphy (O’Dowd), who was always on hand with some not-so-wise words of advice.
LIFE’S A BREEZE Director: Lance Daly Sunday, March 2, 2014, 7:00pm
A feel good “recession comedy”, starring Fionnula Flanagan, Pat Shortt and Kelly Thornton. Inspired by a real life Israeli human interest story, the film follows three generations of a Dublin family struggling to stay afloat and stay together through hard times in Ireland. Chaos ensues when Nan reveals that she’d stashed her life savings of 1 million euros in her old mattress which the kids took to the dump. A madcap race to all of Dublin’s landfills follows and soon the family are joined by the whole country on their search to find Nan’s treasure.
With a varied lineup such as this, a weekend at the movies sounds just about right. You can find more information on TIRFF at torontoirishfilmfest.com. Oh… and don’t forget to drop by the pub for a pint!
Mi táctica es mirarte aprender como sos quererte como sos
mi táctica es hablarte y escucharte construir con palabras un puente indestructible
mi táctica es quedarme en tu recuerdo no sé cómo ni sé con qué pretexto pero quedarme en vos
mi táctica es ser franco y saber que sos franca y que no nos vendamos simulacros para que entre los dos no haya telón ni abismos
mi estrategia es en cambio más profunda y más simple
mi estrategia es que un día cualquiera no sé cómo ni sé con qué pretexto por fin me necesites.
Mario Benedetti (4 September 1920 – 17 May 2009) was an Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet as well as being an integral member of the Generación del 45 — a group of writers, mainly from Uruguay, who had a notable influence in the literary and cultural life of their country and region. Their name derives from the fact that their careers started out mainly between 1945 and 1950.
Benedetti wrote of the human condition – love, the passage of time, death, misery, injustice, loneliness and hope – but in a simple, direct language. Many of his poems became songs, put to music by the Uruguayan writer and musician Daniel Viglietti and the Catalan singer/songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat.
In spite of publishing more than 80 books and being published in twenty languages he is not well known in the English-speaking world, but in the Spanish-speaking world he is considered one of Latin America’s most important writers from the latter half of the 20th-century.
The Foot That Moves the Pedal… is a month-long celebration in images of the diverse ways bikes are used globally. The exhibit brings together some of Henry’s favourite images of bicycles from North America and East Africa.
I came to know Henry last summer and have had the chance to know more about him and his work since. I like the way he is able to capture people and some really personal moments through his photography. According to soulfunkspecial.com, images of people are one of the most desirable types of image for the internet in particular and it’s hard to argue with that. But overall, his photographic work is pretty diverse. This lends itself perfectly for this upcoming exhibit.
His fascination with bikes has been a theme in his photography for some time. He shares, “Ever since I was a child watching my father bike to work each day, bikes have had a hold on my imagination… I indeed love how bikes are often both functional and graceful objects of style, and even art.”
The space provided by the Toronto Public Library makes this a good way to learn more from Henry himself, but also take a closer look at his work. He is really excited to share several new, previously unshown, photos at this exhibit. The images on display were captured while travelling in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Paris and Rwanda over the span of a few years.
If you’d like to meet Henry, hear more about his work and take in the exhibition, drop by Runnymede Library on one of the following times:
Saturday March 1st, 12:00 – 2:00 PM Thursday March 20th, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
You can also take a look at the gallery on the Culture Snap Photography website, as well for more information on Henry and his work.
The Foot That Moves the Pedal By Henry VanderSpek
Dates: March 1st – 31st (library is closed Sundays)
My neighbourthood cinema, The Royal Cinema, presents the Festival Of New Spanish Cinema beginning this week. This 11-city touring festival will run for every Wednesday for five weeks at the Royal, starting on February 26th.
Now in its sixth year, and still as fresh as ever, North America’s leading showcase of Spanish cinema comes to Toronto for the first time, allowing audiences to discover the latest and most exciting films from Spain. The festival arrives after its presentation in Ottawa, Houston, Vancouver and Portland, and will travel to Seattle, Miami, Washington, San Juan de Puerto Rico, and Chicago over the next few months.
“We have hand-picked the best films Spain has to offer. From our favorite directors such as Cesc Gay and Alberto Rodríguez, to impressive indie feature by avant garde directors Jonás Trueba and Juan Cavestany, these films are not to be missed… We have an array of genres from surreally-Buñuelinean stories to thrillers, romantic comedies and social charge features.” – Marta Sanchez, founder of Pragda and the main organizer of this important event.
The festival will spotlight five hits from Spain:
A GUN IN EACH HAND / UNA PISTOLA EN CADA MANO Wednesday, February 26th 7:00 pm Dir. CESC GAY With Ricardo Darín, Luis Tosar, Javier Cámara, Eduardo Noriega, and more
Eight men in their 40s are caught up in everyday situations that reveal their main conflict: a masculine identity crisis. Their behavior forms a mosaic of emotions men usually don’t reveal. J. is depressed and is the perfect victim for psychoanalysis. E. has lost everything and lives with his mother and his cat. S. is attempting to win his ex-wife back. With the help of drugs, G. is trying to understand why his wife is having an affair. The rest of their friends are doing their best with similar catastrophes.
THE WISHFUL THINKERS / LOS ILUSOS Wednesday, March 5th 6:45 pm Dir. JONÁS TRUEBA With Francesco Carril, Aura Garrido, Mikele Urroz, Vito Sanz, lsabelle Stoffel, Luis Miguel Madrid
This is the life of dreamy filmmaker Leon, in between projects – a sort of limbo with an endless postponing of things, low-key frustration, lover’s quarrels, conversations, coffees, drunkenness, classes, concerts and walks…
UNIT 7 / GRUPO 7 Wednesday March 12th 6:45 pm Dir. ALBERTO RODRÍGUEZ With Antonio de la Torre, Mario Casas and Inma Cuesta
A group of renegade cops decides to take the law into their own hands in this gritty thriller. The drug problem in Seville, Spain is spiraling out of control as the city prepares to host the 1992 World Exposition. With pressure mounting to clean up the city, an overworked group of cops starts writing their own rules. Selling dope for cash and information, padding their bank accounts and arrest records, they become local celebrities, poster boys for a new tough-on-crime era in Seville. But their brutal tactics draw press attention and the local drug lords secretly plot their revenge.
PEOPLE IN PLACES / GENTE EN SITIOS Wednesday March 19th 6:45 pm Dir. JUAN CAVESTANY With Ernesto Alterio, Carlos Areces, Raúl Arévalo, Enric Benavent
Working with the tiniest of micro-budgets, playwright and independent filmmaker Juan Cavestany stages a series of bizarre, Buñuelian scenarios that offer a cracked view of contemporary Spain in the wake of the economic crisis. To uncover the strange in the ordinary, the unsettling in the everyday: this is the mark of imaginative wizardry that can be found in abundance in People In Places. Moving from one nondescript location to the next, a theme, or perhaps more of an undercurrent, emerges — until the fiercely political nature of the film becomes apparent.
LIVING IS EASY WITH EYES CLOSED / VIVIR ES FACIL CON LOS OJOS CERRADOS Wednesday, March 26th 6:45 pm Dir. DAVID TRUEBA With Javier Cámara, Natalia de Molina, Francesc Colomer
Beatles fans will recognize the title, as lyrics from the song Strawberry Fields Forever. John Lennon wrote it in 1966, while in southern Spain playing a minor character in Richard Lester’s anti-war movie How I Won The War. This forms the backdrop of David Trueba’s film about Antonio, a Spanish school teacher who is also an avid Beatles fan. When he learns that Lennon is filming in Almeria, he sets out to meet him… Lennon’s words take on special significance in this charming road movie set in Franco’s Spain.
Certainly an impressive list of films, filmmakers, and stars in this festival lineup. Looks I’ll be spending several nights at my neighbourhood cinema in the next few weeks… Nos vemos!
All films will be screened with English subtitles. Screenings take place at The Royal cinema, starting this week, Wednesday, February 26th. Tickets range from $8 (students) to $10 (adults). Tickets on sale at theatre’s box office or online at theroyal.to.
This week, Toronto film aficionados have the opportunity to catch a screening of Public Hearing. Brought to us by Refocus, the film revolves around a civic meeting in a rural American town, wherein the locals discuss whether to accept the re-zoning proposal to allow the town’s Wal-Mart to expand.
Public Hearing is a verbatim re-performance from this meeting; taken from a transcript downloaded as publicly available information. Shot entirely in cinematic close-up on black-and-white 16mm film, a cast of actors and non-actors read between the lines in an ironic debate over the replacement of an existing Wal-Mart with a ‘mega’ Wal-Mart.
Director James N. Kienitz Wilkins uses the transcript as a tool to create satire.. The film is somewhat of an experiment; in that it’s meant to have the audience question what is “lost in translation” during such mundane, civic proceedings.
The film comes with some strong support from various outlets, including Indiewire. It is a documentary that expands its boundaries, and one that will provide plenty of post-screening discussion material.
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is well-known for works like Pygmalion and Hearbreak House, among many. What many came to know later on was his intimate correspondence with Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the celebrated actress with whom he was “violently in love”.
This correspondence began in late-Victorian London in 1899 and ended with the death of “Mrs. Pat” in France in 1940. The two lovers wrote each other letters over the span of four decades, from the Boer Wars to the Second World War.
Cher Menteur (Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters) is an adaptation by Jerome Kilty of this 41-year correspondence. The play was later translated into French by the famed poet Jean Cocteau. At times tender, at others spiteful, the letters between Shaw and Campbell evoke a sense of mutual admiration, respect, and love.
In this production by Théâtre Français de Toronto, the play stars two legends of the Québec stage, Louise Marleau and Albert Millaire. The one act show offers an intimate look at these two very strong personalities, their emotions, and their vulnerabilities. Millaire and Marleau embody Shaw and Campbell quite nicely and with grace. I found myself drawn to each of them almost equally throughout the performance.
Given that the show is based on letters, Millaire (who also directs the piece) chose to have himself and Marleau read from such letters while interacting with each other from time to time. At times, this took away from the performance. However, during the moments where Shaw and Campbell adress each other face-to-face, Millaire and Marleau held the audience’s attention fully.
My fluency in Spanish helps only so much in understanding parts of spoken French. For those of us who are not fluent in French, the surtitles assist in understanding the dialogue much more. There are aspects of the dialogue that I’m certain make better sense in French; however, this production has made me curious to find the English version and read it. There is humour, candour, and of course, some great lines. One such line that stood out for me came from a letter by Campbell. She wrote, “I’ve been thinking a great deal lately and I find that love sentiment…” Campbell goes on to describe how she admires Shaw’s ability to show sentiment through his words; his writing. This was a key point in my believing how ‘real’ their affection was.
Other aspects of the production I’d like to point out are the set and light desing by Jean-Bernard Hébert. These were minimal but used appropriately to evoke mood and time. At 75 minutes long, the play moves rapidly enough. As stated before, the minor drawback was having Millaire and Marleau read from the ‘letters’ the majority of the time. I’d have liked to see them interact with each other a bit more. Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable one-act show. One that leaves you with a sense of appreciation for those with whom we have a connection, but may not be able to interact with face-to-face. If you’re a ‘romantic’ person, like I am, go see this.
Albert Millaire and Louise Marleau Photo: Avital Zemmer
My Letters! all dead paper… (Sonnet 28) By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee tonight. This said—he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch my hand. . . a simple thing, Yes I wept for it—this . . . the paper’s light. . . Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed As if God’s future thundered on my past. This said, I am thine—and so its ink has paled With lying at my heart that beat too fast. And this . . . 0 Love, thy words have ill availed If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Source: wikipedia.org
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Romantic Movement.Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. In 1844, Barrett Browning produced a collection entitled simply Poems. This volume gained the attention of poet Robert Browning, whose work Elizabeth had praised in one of her poems, and he wrote her a letter.
Elizabeth and Robert, who was six years her junior, exchanged 574 letters over the next twenty months. Immortalized in 1930 in the play The Barretts of Wimpole Street, by Rudolf Besier (1878-1942), their romance was bitterly opposed by her father, who did not want any of his children to marry. In 1846, the couple eloped and settled in Florence, Italy. Political and social themes embody Elizabeth’s later work. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband shortly after her death.
For one night only, audiences can partake in a workshop presentation of Parts to Whole, a new play written and directed by One Little Goat Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Adam Seelig.
Sochi Fried and Ben Irvine star in Parts to Whole as a couple discussing and exploring their intimacy in ways so simple as to be radical. Much like Seelig’s previous play (Like the First Time), Parts to Whole is written without punctuation so that the actors may choose how they emphasize the text. The unorthodox spacing on each page is generated by the vertical alignment of certain letters and words. This play also marks Seelig’s further exploration into his notion of “charactor”.
Fried and Irvine were recently seen together in One Little Goat’s The Charge of the Expormidable Moose, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The casting and dialogue are two elements in which I believe Seelig excels in. I have seen most of Seelig’s plays in the past four years, there is something about poetic theatre that really draws one in. Well, at least me… Seelig is also the founder of One Little Goat Theatre Company, with which he has premiered works by Yehuda Amichai, Thomas Bernhard, Jon Fosse, Claude Gauvreau, Luigi Pirandello and himself.
Seelig’s plays and books include Every Day in the Morning (slow), Talking Masks (Oedipussy), Antigone:Insurgency and others. Parts to Whole is being published in print and as an e-book by BookThug, now celebrating its 10th anniversary in innovative Canadian publishing. This marks BookThug’s third publication with One Little Goat.
This workshop will feature work from, Dora Award recipients and nominees, design consultants Jackie Chau (sets and costumes), Laird MacDonald (lighting) and Thomas Ryder Payne (sound).
With the support of Canadian Stage, this workshop presentation of Parts to Whole takes place on Monday, February 24, at 8 pm at the Canadian Stage Main Rehearsal Hall. Admission is free. More information available at OneLittleGoat.org.
