Development of new work is as important as the staging of established plays for a theatre troupe, something that the Harold Green Jewish Theatre understands.
In partnership with the Miles Nadal JCC and the Koffler Centre for the Arts, the company launches into its second annual workshop of staged readings. With a nod to Genesis, the series is called In The Beginning: A Jewish Playwriting Festival. All readings are free.
This year’s festival includes workshops of four plays that look at Jewish history, experience and tradition.
Leading off Monday (June 13) is Natasha Greenblatt’s The Peace Maker, about a woman’s attempt to bring harmony to the people she meets as she travels from Israel to the West Bank. Directed by Aviva Armour-Ostroff, it’s inspired by Greenblatt’s 2009 trip to the region, where she spent two months teaching drama in the West Bank.
The mother/son team of Kathy Kacer and Jake Epstein collaborate on Therefore Choose Life, about a Holocaust victim caught in an unexpected love triangle. Jen Schuber directs (June 14).
In Daniel Karasik’s Haunted, directed by Richard Rose, the widow of a murdered man becomes involved with her congregation’s rabbi, and her daughter starts seeing her father’s ghost. It’s billed as “a play about spiritual hunger” (June 15).
Jack Grinhaus directs the final reading, Michael Ross Albert’s Tough Jews, set in Depression-era Toronto, where a first-generation Canadian family tries to stick together when some of its members are caught up in a crime (June 16).
See listings.
West-end cabaret
Want some weekend cabaret to spice up your Friday and Saturday nights?
The Lower Ossington Theatre’s Maurice Galpern and arts manager/producer Robert Missen have launched The Green Door, a licensed storefront space that will present evenings with top-notch Canadian cabaret performers for the rest of June, with different shows at 8 and 10:30 pm.
Among the talents are Bruce Dow (taking a break from his Stratford schedule on March 10), Andrew Craig (June 11), Gabi Epstein (June 11), John Alcorn (June 17), Adi Braun (June 18) and Judith Lander (June 24).
The final blowout weekend features a show about musical satirist Anna Russell and a tribute to composer Healey Willan (June 25-26).
See listings.
Illuminating the Young Centre
For the past several years during the Luminato Festival, the Young Centre has offered an event-filled weekend that allowed audiences to sample several dozen short shows performed throughout the centre.
This time around, the seven shows now running in the Soulpepper rep season are part of the festival, but that doesn’t mean the free shows, featuring Young Centre resident artists, have disappeared.
There’s a whole slew of events you can catch without charge, including Emoticonics, a love story played out through dance and beatbox, choreographed and performed by Troy Feldman and Kristy Kennedy, sound-designed and performed by SUBLIMINAL Weyni Mengesha directs.
Also check out the ongoing talk-show cabaret evenings, the Young Centre City Choir, Virtuosic Toronto (in which musicians and dancers create music and choreography set to film footage of working Torontonians), Bedtime Stories (you settle into a bed and hear stories and songs) and k dub Khartoum (John Millard and Waleed Abdulhamid share songs, tales and traditions based on their respective childhoods in Kitchener and Khartoum).
See soulpepper.ca for a full schedule.
Weaving new tapestries
Ancient stories inspire Tapestry New Opera’s final presentation of the season, a showcase of works in development.
Librettist Maja Ardal and composer Norbert Palej collaborate on Waterfall, inspired by Icelandic mythology, while M’Dea Undone, by librettist Marjorie Chan and composer John Harris, draws on the classic Medea story.
Librettist Michael Lewis MacLennan and composer Jeffrey Ryan go to the Old Testament for Ruth, in which a family newly arrived in Canada has to adjust to a new home.
The only show that’s totally contemporary is Scenes From An Old Glasgow Pub, based on real-life love stories in Glasgow’s Sloans Bar and Restaurant. Its creators are librettist David Brock and composer Gareth Williams.
Tom Diamond directs the evening, with musical direction by Wayne Strongman.
See listings.
Pay the Rent
Fallen Rock Productions aims for gold with its staging of Jonathan Larson’s award-winning musical Rent.
Its purpose surely is golden: all proceeds from the show go to the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO), a charitable group that helps children with cancer and their families.
See listings.
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