I've been having such a blast in my first ever Summerworks show. The whole festival has a great vibe, everybody is working together to put up great shows on a shoestring. Teamwork is huge - under the leadership of our stage manager Andrea Schurman, our Director Jennifer Brewin and our designed Glenn Davidson, we managed to tech in our allotted 6 hours of prep time in our venue, (Theatre Passe-Muraille) complete with a stumbly run-through and then we opened the next day. To make it happen, everybody has their jobs placing set pieces or dealing with costumes, and of course we're all doing as much promotion as we can!
We've had four shows (and three more to come) with great houses. Seems like that John Millard-Peter Anderson toe-tapping music really gets under the skin in the best kind of way.
We've had some nice press too:
Torontoist gave us 4.5 Stars. NOW Magazine gave use NNNN (four stars), Mooney on Theatre called the show "90 minutes of joy" and ArtsVox called the show "Perfect Summer Fare".
I was also really honoured to be named one of 10 "Artists to Watch" in NOW Magazine's Summerworks Preview:
Fingers crossed for three final sell-out performances!
I've seen a number of other great shows at Summerworks, including the riviting iShow, featuring Sarah Berthiaume who is the playwright behind the Flood Thereafter, which is the next show I'll be involved in.
I also loved the heartbreaking shows Late Company and Wild Dogs on the Moscow Trains. And with a formidable title for a formidable show, THE ART OF BUILDING A BUNKER OR PADDLING THE CANOE OF MY SELF DOWN THE RIVER OF INCLUSIVITY AND INTO THE ASS OF THE WORLD is a beast of a one man show, totally gripping, hilarious and horrifying...it left me reeling and I loved it.
I'm looking forward to seeing more great theatre before the week is out!