Blog: Gracing the Stage

Christopher Lee Gibson as Baptise the Clown in "L'Ange Avec Les Fleurs" This weekend marks the closing of the Next Stage Festival , and the fest has already been a success. By the midway point this week, it had already smashed last year's attendance records, despite the week's frigid cold snap (and the power outage); patrons have flocked to the Factory Theatre (and the heated beer tent), to sample some of the best theatre companies on the Fringe circuit in recent years. Most of the shows in the festival have already [...]

This is the first update available exclusively through the website; the Yahoo Groups site will continue to exist solely as an archive of the last 5 year's archives. After going through the update, please do poke around the site, and peruse some of the articles; many of them mention weekly recurring shows, and shows yet to appear on the Events Calendar (though that is my next website priority). (The full week in Toronto's performing arts events, after the jump!) IN THEATRE, The Next Stage [...]

There's a whole bunch of options to see some fascinating music this evening in Toronto, and two of them are as cheap as you can get. Timbre Timbre is playing a FREE in-store set at Soundscapes tonight at 7pm. I'm a huge fan of the S oundscapes in-store series ; they have a history of inviting some of Toronto's best indie acts, like Constantines , Gentleman Reg , Broken Social Scene , and many more, to squeeze into the back of the store and play for a crowd of savvy [...]

Colin here - GracingTheStage.ca's humble and nerdy internets wrangler. Steve and I have long been friends and we've always wanted to get Steve online with GTS. This past month, we did exactly that and we're getting more and more hits every day. Steve deserves a lot of credit for his dedication and putting it all together. The problem is, he doesn't pay me at all! Here I am sweating over a hot laptop, 'infomationing the internets' for free! A deal was made - I'll be posting on all things digital. To tie in the [...]

Frankly, I find it shocking the website has been up for over a week, and this is my first music post. I'd planned to write posts about last weekend's Rock n' Roll Anniversary , Singing Lamb Launch , and Out of This Spark shows, but the update, and the new Event Calendar (move your mouse over it, why dontcha, and see what happens!) ate up all my waking time. So the next two days are going to be all about the music, starting with Wombat Wednesdays . (That's Basement [...]

• Entire Cities - Dancing With My Brother
• Gravity Wave - Buffalo Jump
• Woodhands - Dancer

Tuesdays are likely to be the days I write about film most often on this blog. Why? Well, although Cineplex may have discontinued their discount day, several theatres still offer cheaper pricing on Tuesdays, and I despise paying full price for anything (my mother says this trait comes from my Scottish ancestry). Of the converted "repertory cinemas" in Toronto - The Bloor , the Fox , the Kingsway , The Royal , and the Revue - only the Revue still offers Tuesday discounts. It's a terrific deal; you can see a double [...]

When the 2009 Next Stage Festival line-up was announced, the most pleasant surprise, for me, was the inclusion of " Take It Back ". Of the more than 50 Fringe shows I saw last summer, it stood out as the most unabashedly fun and enjoyable experience I had at the festival, and frankly, I'd felt it'd been one of the overlooked gems of the Fringe. Luckily for us all, there was at least one Next Stage juror who was a passionate advocate for the show... (More on the flexible dynamos of [...]

The first update posted to the site! A little late, but better that then never. Email steve@gracingthestage.ca to get on the weekly mailing list, if you aren't already getting it. Full listings follow below. IN THEATRE, The second annual Next Stage Festival , a curated selection work from some of the best Fringe companies from the Canadian circuit, launched last week at the Factory Theatre, and runs until next Sunday. Of the eight selected plays, one was my very favourite of the 2008 Toronto Fringe [...]