WalkLeft, the Podcast

The podcast returns with Go Play Producing’s retelling of the story of Shakespeare’s Moor of Venice with all of the characters’ genders swapped.

Director Tanya Rintoul, actor Krystina Bojanowski, and producer Pooria Fard all enthusiastically shared their insights into their production and the process that they’ve taken in bringing Othello to life.

If you’re interested in getting even more behind-the-scene’s information, the company’s Facebook page features a rehearsal log series and their crowdfunding campaign is in full swing.

WARNING: Though this is a preview for a play presented as a part of FringeKids! programming in the Toronto Fringe Festival, the episode itself contains a generous number of expletives.

The zany puppetry of Shakey-Shake & Friends returns to the Palmerston Library Theatre for a third consecutive year. Tom McGee reveals the company’s origins and his approach to creating and performing theatre for young audiences.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream… A Puppet Epic! will likely be just that.

As you can probably tell from the poster, this 2013 Toronto Fringe Festival preview takes a slightly darker sexual turn than previous episodes.

The primary mission of Rachel Ganz’s Newborn Theatre is the production of the work of young playwrights and, though it was originally destined for a smaller stage, being successful in the Fringe lottery meant a fast-tracked development process for Teach Me.

Natural Progression Theatre’s Stalled has gone through a thorough development process, from staged reading to workshop performances and now on to the 2013 Toronto Fringe Festival.

Ashley Steeves, Phillip Psutka, and Lindsay Bellaire trace the production’s progress and their approach to facing the challenges that have come with preparing the play for its Fringe audience.

With so many options in the Toronto Fringe Festival, it’s sometimes hard to get one’s mind beyond judging by a title, even when it includes a nod to Stanley Kubrick. Fortunately, you’re a click away from hearing about Katharine McLeod‘s solo show, which could open and even elevate your mind.

My High-Heeled Life: Or, How I Learned to Keep Worrying and Love My Stilettos may encourage you to be just as unapologetic about the things you love – and there’s a chance that you’ll add this show to that list.

Burt and Werneburg – the company founded by Hallie and Kate, respectively – presents a two-woman adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that will be part of the upcoming Toronto Fringe Festival.

In choosing a director for Elizabeth – Darcy, they didn’t want a fanboy. Hopefully, they didn’t mind that quality in a podcast interviewer, this time.

There’ll be an added degree of authenticity bestowed on their work by their historic performance venue, Campbell House.

Royal Porcupine Productions, who pride themselves on picking and presenting prickly plays, are proud participants in this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival.

Company members and performers Annemieke Wade and Cameron Johnston share the company’s history and reveal some details about the process involved in bringing David Ives’s Saint Francis Talks to the Birds to the stage.

You’re also invited to their fundraiser(which happens to coincide with the company’s General Manager’s birthday).

And, in honour of Fathers’ Day, here are Mieke’s father’s enduring words regarding their Fringe play’s titular holy man:

“Saint Francis really, really loved animals.”

Tarradiddle Productions will be presenting their collectively created production Honest Aesop’s Fables as a part of the FringeKids! programming at this year’s 25th anniversary edition of the Toronto Fringe Festival.

The play’s director Teodoro Dragonieri and Luke LaRocque, one of its actors and a co-producer, discuss collective creation, theatre for young audiences, and modernizing source material from antiquity.

More production details are also available here.

“Coffee’s in your face now, y’know? It’s there, it’s present, it’s part of being trendy in Toronto.”

So, what better place to study human behaviour than from behind the counter of a coffeeshop? That’s where Rebecca Perry toiled away for eight months, jotting down her observations, and then she interviewed other java slingers to expand her research. The final result, after a dramaturgical process: A play wherein Joanie Little, a Jane-Goodall-esque ginger, navigates her urban jungle.

Torontonians can see Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl before our foibles are analyzed in front of audiences at the fringe festivals in Winnipeg and Edmonton and beyond.

Over the course of Artichoke Heart Collective‘s existence, a source of ominous delight has walked among them. A few puppets, yes, but also a story and a script that have evolved and reached a new audience-ready stratum.

Before We Walk Among You makes its way to the Montréal Fringe, Toronto fans of theatre and puppetry have two chances to see the show right here in Hogtown.

But the company’s Co-Artistic Director Michelle Urbano’s description can do it justice the way these paragraphs can’t. Lend an ear.