It might be ‘end of season’ for some theatre companies. This does not mean we have limited options for enjoying some local theatre.
Sharing my latest, personally curated, theatre listings for the next few weeks. Plenty of performances, including drama and dance, for all budgets.
NEW
Necessary Angel Theatre Company, Canadian Stage & The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre
Berkeley Street Theatre | Runs until May 14, 2023
The year is 1970 and the arrival of a Bengali bride to a small university town shakes up a tight-knit group of Indian immigrants, including the husband she’s never met. Tradition and counterculture collide for three women and their husbands as their perceptions of identity, sexuality, and the meaning of freedom are challenged by the spirit – and actions – of this fearless young woman.
The Chinese Lady
Studio 180 Theatre & fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company
Crow’s Theatre | Runs until May 21, 2023
The Chinese Lady tells the story of Afong Moy, purportedly the first Chinese woman to set foot in the United States. Brought to the U.S. from Guangzhou Province in 1834 at the age of 14, Afong Moy is put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Alternatingly dark, poetic, and whimsical, the play is a searing portrait of Western culture seen through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.
Paprika Theatre Festival
Native Earth Performing Arts’ Aki Studio | May 16-21
The festival will be presenting the work of seventeen young and emerging artists; giving us a glimpse into the future of theatre. The festival has a Pay-What-You-Can ticket model with a free option, which will open doors for Torontonians to experience a vast lineup of workshops, presentations, community discussions, staged readings, and community events.
L-E-A-K
Sara Porter Productions
The Theatre Centre | May 18 – 21, 2023 | 8pm ET
L-E-A-K is an absurdist and poetic lesbian love letter to the ocean, inspired by the ecosexual notions of falling in love with the earth. The work draws on images, poetry, and surreal stories created from the shores of Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy – home to the highest tides in the world.
Best of Enemies – National Theatre Live
Cineplex Cinemas | May 18, 2023
In 1968 America, as two men fight to become the next president, all eyes are on the battle between two others: the cunningly conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and the unruly liberal Gore Vidal. During a new nightly television format, they debate the moral landscape of a shattered nation. As beliefs are challenged and slurs slung, a new frontier in American politics is opening and television news is about to be transformed forever.
She’s Not Special
Nightwood Theatre Presentation & Tarragon Theatre
Tarragon Theatre Mainspace | May 24 – May 28, 2023
As a Black Muslim Woman, Fatuma Adar is on a mission to free you from the clutches of exceptionalism and teach you how to relish in the joys of mediocrity. After a critically acclaimed digital run at the Next Stage Theatre Festival, She’s Not Special returns to the stage LIVE!
Photo by Connie Tsang
The Sound Inside
Coal Mine Theatre | Runs until May 28, 2023
The Sound Inside tells the story of Bella Baird, an isolated creative writing professor at Yale who begins to mentor a brilliant but enigmatic student named Christopher. As the two form an unexpectedly intense bond, their lives and the stories they tell about themselves intertwine in unpredictable ways, culminating in Bella making a shocking request of Christopher that neither knows if he can fulfill. Brimming with suspense, Rapp’s riveting play explores the limits of what one person can ask of another.
On the Razzle
Shaw Festival
Royal George Theatre | Runs until October 8, 2023
On the Razzle is Tom Stoppard’s vivacious breakneck joyride of mistaken identities, romantic entanglements, double entendres and narrow escapes. Life in a small Austrian village can get a bit tedious. But when two shop assistants decide to go “on the razzle” in Vienna, they manage to get into more trouble in one night than most of us will in a lifetime.
