Louis Train - Page 2

SOLDIER ON comes to us from the UK, where a variety of audiences, military and non-military alike, have had the chance to enjoy its easy humour and satisfying plot. It tells the story of a group of servicepeople and their families who have come together to talk through their issues and put on a show. If the play within a play sounds pretentious, it's not - SOLDIER ON is effortlessly accessible and universally charming, even to those of us with no connection to the subject matter.

In life, we all get dealt a hand the moment we're born. The choice is whether to play it or try for better cards. Walter Washington never knew his own father, but he kept trading in his cards, refusing to become a wanderer, a deadbeat. He got a job on the force, an apartment, a family, a spoon collection. Still, the world kept dealing him 3's and deuces. Getting shot forced Walter into early retirement so he could watch his wife, Dolores, turn terminally ill and die before his eyes.

Dr Jon Lien, the whale man of Memorial University, earned his nickname over a lifetime of rescuing trapped whales off the coast of Newfoundland. His brilliant career, as well as the painful circumstances surrounding his death, inspired Newfoundland's own Robert Chafe to write BETWEEN BREATHS, a short, music-infused drama that traces Jon's life from his last moments backwards through his career, uncovering his boundless capacity for compassion and respect for the joy of other creatures.

In the world premiere of Anosh Irani's BUFFOON, at Tarragon Theatre, Anand Rajaram plays Felix the clown, a child of the thrilling, vicious world of the circus. On a bare gray stage with nothing but a chair for company, Felix tells his life's story, beginning with his frightening birth, through the first book he read (Moby Dick), his first kiss (a?oeThat's the tree trunk, Felixa??) and many, many moments of loss.

Later this month, We Are Here Productions, in collaboration with Cue to Cue Productions, will present SONGS FOR  A NEW WORLD, a song cycle to benefit the Canadian Women's Foundation, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Broadwayworld caught up with co-directors Matt Lacas and Chelsea Johnson to talk collaboration, the casting process, and what it's like directing for a good cause. 

Theatre Gargantua's THE WAGER is a flat-Earth musical with talking birds. 

DEAD PARENTS SOCIETY is a sketch comedy revue about mourning. Each skit addresses the death of a parent, the mourning process, going back to work or dating after loss. The premises are grim. The pain is real: each of the performers has lost a parent. The mood is anguished. And the show is hilarious.

TROUT STANLEY brims with confusion and delight, like a birthday cake when it's nobody's birthday. Set somewhere in rural BC, it follows a pair of lugubrious but charming sisters, Grace and Sugar, as they cross paths with a mysterious man, Mr Trout Stanely, who's wandered in off the street. Neither they nor we really know what anyone's intentions are, only that, if patterns repeat themselves, somebody is going to die.

If we're going by technical categorisation, THE PARTICULARS, on now at the Theatre Centre, is an experimental piece of drama that incorporates elements of dance and movement; if we're going by my own personal descriptor, THE PARTICULARS is a Fringe show with wings. 

ALMIGHTY VOICE IS AND HIS WIFE is an enormous play, spanning an incredible breadth of theatrical technique and exploring, in depth, some of the most challenging questions of Canadian cultural memory.

Broadwayworld spoke with producer Christopher Wilson about Toronto Musical Concert's upcoming production of URINETOWN, and why a show with a terrible name is still a great time. 

THE JUNGLE is a boldly political new play, argumentative and direct and a bit radical. It is also a touchingly honest drama, brimming with humor and pathos. And it is also another category: a Toronto play, a play that is both of and for our beautiful, challenging city. 

Imagine On the Town with a bunch of dick jokes and you'll sort of get a picture of SOMETHING FOR THE BUOYS, a new Canadian musical by Eli Pasic. The show is equal measures charming and raunchy, with a good deal of humour and an excellent - actually, surprisingly, really good - score. Inspired by musical comedies of the 30s and 40s, SOMETHING FOR THE BUOYS follows the adventures of a group of sailors (seamen!) and burlesque dancers as they look for love in the big city.

If UN POYO ROJO is about anything, it is about the ambiguities and duplicities of masculinity - a source of both competition and camaraderie, domination and kinship.

Weyni Mengesha's new production of the Tennessee Williams classic is a solid undertaking, a technically precise, error-free interpretation of a story we know well. 

Kat Sandler's new play, YAGA, is breezy and dark; goofy and mournful; bleak, gothic, shadowy, and really damn funny.

Odile Gakire (Kiki) Katese, the Rwandan humanitarian and artist, has brought her voice and wisdom to the Canadian Stage Company this autumn in THE BOOK OF LIFE. Brimming with insight and charm, THE BOOK OF LIFE is also a difficult and provocative piece of political theatre that test the limits of idealism in the face a crushing need for pragmatic thinking.

Somewhere in the Russian countryside, three sisters - Olga, Masha, and Irina - are waiting for their youth to end. They are deeply, tragically over-cultured and over-qualified for their surroundings; fluent in foreign languages and proficient in philosophy, yet hundreds of miles from the nearest city. With nothing to do but chat to the locally-stationed soldiers, the girls dream of life in Moscow. "Soon," they promise each other, they'll get there.

Afterglow opens with a blaze of strobe lights, the throbbing pulse of dance music, and three naked lads writhing on a bed. Some groping and kissing later, they come up for air and a chat. Josh (Sean Hart) and Alex (Danny Mahoney) are married, but their relationship is open. Darius (Jesse Fox) is single but smitten with his hosts, and their arrangement, and makes a date with Josh the following day.

Lea Salonga sang the soundtrack to my childhood. As the voices of Princess Jasmine in Disney's Aladdin and the title character of Mulan, Lea lent her talents to two of the most iconic animated characters of the Nineties. She also debuted the role of Kim in Miss Saigon on the West End, and has portrayed both Eponine and Fantine on Broadway. Lea returns to the UK this July for a six-stop concert tour. We caught up with her to ask for some teasers, get her take on the new Aladdin movie, and find out what she thinks of English weather and food.