Apr 16
April 16, 2012
By: Ryan Quinn
This past week, I met up with director Alex Johnson, contributor for this site and co-creator of the Tennessee Project. I met Alex during my time in Windsor, but was really interested in getting to the heart of the Project and what she hopes it will accomplish in Toronto. This is the beginning of my series on the Tennessee Project, and I look forward to experiencing it with you, the reader.
By: Alex Johnson
I was late to the Gregory Prest party. My invitation got lost in the mail. The man of the hour had been winning audiences over regularly with performances in White Biting Dog, Death of a Salesman, and Ghost, while I sat at home watching Dance Moms – all of them. With his current rendering of Edmund in Soulpepper’s Long Days Journey Into Night, I am at the party, and deep into the free champagne.
Gregory was kind enough to meet me before a Saturday night show and I came face-to-face with Gregory Prest: The Actor’s Actor. Present, eager, aware, quick to laugh and refreshingly at ease with the occasional uneasiness of the actor’s job.
“I am so deeply impressed with the vision and originality of the Tennessee Project! It is everything that a holistic arts project should be: grounded in excellence, collaborative in nature and focused on community. Bravo. I can’t wait.”
THE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS PROJECT
Featuring the talents of nine theatre companies in the largest co-production Toronto has seen in years, the Tennessee Project will hit Toronto in MAY 2012! For seven nights, seven productions of Tennessee Williams’ one-acts will rotate through seven different Toronto neighborhoods, bringing Tennessee right to the heart of Toronto in an energized, heartfelt celebration of community, culture, and good ol’ Tenn.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
On May 1st 2012 at eight p.m., productions of the Tennessee one-acts will open in Cabbagetown, Greektown, Roncesvalles, The Annex, The Beach, Leslieville, and St. Clair West. The productions will rotate to a different neighborhood each evening, giving each community seven different nights of Williams.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
The point is to reach directly out to Toronto communities, develop relationships with them, and offer them a personal, friendly, uncomplicated theatre-going experience. We at the Tennessee Project believe Toronto has en enormous appetite for art, and seek to make it accessible, amiable, and celebratory, bringing theatre about our communities directly to them; to decentralize theatre from the downtown core and celebrate Toronto’s many faces, colors, and textures through the work of Williams – a man who always defended and treasured people from every walk of life. To bring a spectacular, unforgettable seven nights to the city that we love!!
BEYOND THE STAGE:
An evening in the theatre, like any form of entertainment, stands to be enriched through knowledge, familiarity, and interaction. The Tennessee Project is founded on the principle that audience outreach is an exciting and integral part of modern theatre that creates a more intimate and thrilling experience for all involved. Over the next few months, members of the Tennessee team will be getting to know each community. We will be volunteering at – and engaging with – local businesses, holding FREE events, opening up our rehearsals, holding ‘bar banter’ nights and VIP launch events, staging readings at local libraries, and bumping in to you on the street!
The companies involved are: Birdtown and Swanville Theatre Company, Red One Theatre Collective, Red Light Theatre District, Afterglow Theatre company, Another Theatre Company, Theatre Caravel, Written on Water Theatre, Quixotic Arts Collective, and Black Tea Theatre.
By: Ryan Quinn
Allyson Pratt and Meegwun Fairbrother in The Great Mountain
It’s especially hard for me to review The Great Mountain at the Young People’s Theatre, because I know that I’m not its intended audience at all. It’s also hard to review because there is no hidden layer, everything that the show needs to say, it says outright. But watching the performance, written by Tracey Power and directed by Alan Dilworth, I did feel let in on the magic. It’s not without its flaws, but I think it achieves what it set out to do, which is to send a message of environmental activism in a fun, heroic way.
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By: Barry Chong
Adam Poalozza’s rendition of Dostoyevsky’s The Double is a frenetic production punctuated by technical bravura and charming original music. Despite its allegiance to the towering source material (much of the dialogue is quoted verbatim), the play is full of bravely self-conscious humour, and even acknowledges its own nervous reverence of Dostoyevsky himself. But like the novella that inspired it, the theatrical Double’s brilliance lies in its ability to juggle humour with an inescapable thematic undertow of paranoia and terror.
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