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brooks flows
As former head of Necessary Angel Theatre, Richard Rose always took risks. Actor/director/writer Daniel Brooks will keep pushing the company’s envelope when he takes over in January. Brooks has directed some exciting productions — Possible Worlds, Faust, Endgame — and collaborated with cutting-edge artists Daniel MacIvor, Don McKellar, Tracy Wright and Guillermo Verdecchia. A year ago he copped the first Siminovitch Prize for directing.
Small world? Oh yeah. Rose can pass the torch to Brooks any time they run into each other at the Tarragon, where Rose is now artistic director and Brooks is a playwright in residence.
audit angst
Pochsy’s in trouble — and that’s good for audiences. In the workshop of Citizen Pochsy: Head Movements Of A Long-Haired Girl, the big-eyed, beaming Pochsy (writer/performer Karen Hines) is being audited by the government. And she’s not happy about it.
But the event allows the ever-narcissistic Pochsy to reflect on her life with a ready smile that’s part charm and part shark. Hines has great comic timing, and with musician Greg Morrison and director John Turner, she turns the evening of song and story into a real treat. A moral tabula rasa, Pochsy has an Anne Frank-like belief in the goodness of people but never loses her self-absorption. Who else bargains and flirts with God at the same time? And with such hilarious results? The workshop continues through Sunday. See listings for details.
heino, november 23
Achtung! Marc Hickox has a hit on his hands. Hickox’s imitation of Heino, the deadly stiff German pop star, sold out the Tim Sims Playhouse November 22-23. And it wasn’t because of the free Jägermeister shots.
More confident and menacing than his first weekend as Heino a month ago, Hickox remained in character throughout the faux TV talk show. At two and a half hours, the night was too long, but highlights included Heino’s Top Five reasons why Jacko dangled his baby (my fave: “I was hoping the shock would turn him pure white”), the first appearance of David Shore at Second City since he left the mainstage cast and the Barenaked Ladies’ Tyler Stewart as David Hasselhoff — a big hit in Germany — competing in a sing-off with Heino at the end of the show. Ja!
