Chasing Plays

Every so often, I try to remember to check what is playing at Dramatists Play Services or Concord Theatricals (which swallowed up Samuel French at some point), in the sense of which theatre companies have applied for rights to put on a play in the near future.  In addition to these two, there is yet one more significant company called Broadway Play Publishing.  I don't check their site nearly as often as I should.  Once in a while I remember that rights to Rivera's Cloud Tectonics are held here, and then I go look to see if anyone is putting it on.  (I seem to remember Concord Theatricals more because they have the rights to Stoppard's Arcadia, which is one of my favorite plays.)  This time, I did a bit of a search, and I realized that BPP happens to have the rights to a few Kushner plays, including Angels in America, as well as Overmyer's On the Verge, which I would like to see one more time one of these days.

I do have a bit of a running list of plays that I am hoping to see or see again for a second time.  Now sometimes when the hype (in my own mind at least) is too high, then I end up disappointed, esp. if I made a real effort to go see the play.  This was certainly the case for Lobby Hero over at the Little Dundas Theatre in Hamilton.  Nonetheless, I usually try to look up Miller's A View from the Bridge,* and Tennessee Williams, and American Hero and Yankee Tavern any time I am at the DPS Current Productions page.  I probably should add Ruhl's Eurydice to the list of plays I would see another time.  Those rights are with Concord. 

Now it is important to remember that sometimes, or even often, if a company has applied for the rights, the production may fall through.  I still recall being pissed off when East Side Players switched Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) for some very inferior play.  For some reason, Coal Mine keeps renewing the rights to Waiting for Godot, but I don't think this will actually happen.  I did see Little Dundas Theatre was supposedly going to put on a play called Omnium Gatherum in the next few weeks, and I probably would have ventured out for that.  Instead, they are putting on Much Ado About Nothing and then Bovell's Things I Know to Be True in late April (which I saw when Mirvish put it on a few years back).

Anyway, I was doing my standard searches, and I saw that Bess Wohl's American Hero is playing in Syracuse at the end of March and first weekend of April (at Le Moyne College).  Now I had practically sworn off visiting the US due to the stupidity of its citizenry, though somehow upstate NY does feel like a bit of an exception.  I doubt I will actually do it, but it does look like it would be possible to catch the bus to Rochester and see the museum there (with a particularly good Stuart Davis painting, albeit one I have seen before) and then continue on to Syracuse and catch this play (and even another comedy called Beyond Therapy) and then catch a night bus home after the second play.

I then did my scans of local productions.  In the next week or so, Ripcord by David Lindsay-Abaire is opening at the Bloor West Village Players.  I think I'll go if I can squeeze it in.  Now apparently a different local company in Hamilton is doing American Buffalo in March.  It's hard to imagine it would be better than seeing Steppenwolf do it, but I might possibly go.  Apparently, Randolph College here in Toronto is going to be doing Arcadia in March.  It's a student production, obviously, but I might go, though there really isn't information about the production year.  

I used to go a lot more to student productions in Toronto, but it's gotten harder to keep track of them (and Hart House Theatre barely puts on any of its own shows any more).  I do try to keep track of what George Brown is doing, and this season they are doing Romeo and Juliet in April.  I've seen it several times, but I might go again.  I rarely check the Brock Theatre website, and apparently I missed Mouawad's Scorched, though it is hard to imagine it being remotely as good as the searing version I saw in Chicago.  Now I also saw Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, which is an adaptation of Ovid, done by Lookinglass, which is of course where it originated.  I might be willing to check this out again in early March.  There is also a production of She Kills Monsters (all about D & D gaming) at U of T Scarborough in mid March.  I've never even gone over to that campus, so that might be its own adventure, if I do decide to go.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to see Truck at Factory in late March, which is about autonomous vehicles replacing human drivers (either cab drivers or truck drivers in this case).  I will try to round up a few co-workers, since we are often asked to consider the impact of AVs on urban travel.

One thing that I will definitely go to when more information comes out is Posner's Life Sucks, which is supposed to play here in May.  I only found out about a new player in the Toronto theatre scene, though they put on their shows at Meridian Centre in North York along with Harold Green Jewish Theatre.  They are going to doing the musical version of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown in March!  While this does sound super intriguing, based on my reaction to clips from the Broadway production, I think this would just mess up my impressions of the actual movie.  However, they are supposedly doing Shange's for colored girls in June and then probably the musical Nine in Oct., which is based on Fellini's 8 1/2.  I don't love this movie the same way I love Women on the Verge, so I would be more likely to go, provided it is a full production and not just an in concert version, which is frankly a lot more likely.

As far as summer (fall) theatre outings, I plan on going to see LePage's Macbeth at Stratford, probably pairing it with The Winter's Tale.  I probably won't go to Shaw this year.  There is a play called 20th C. Blues being performed in Hamilton in Nov., which I might try to get over to, and Soulpepper is supposed to be staging The Comeuppance by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins in Nov.  The plot summary of The Comeuppance doesn't grab me, but Jacobs-Jenkins wrote Gloria, which was really quite good, so I think I'll give this a shot.

In terms of traveling to the States, I probably do need to stop by North Carolina at some point to see family.  I see Continuity by Bess Wohl is playing in mid March at the Mint Museum in Charlotte.  (Sadly, there is a super interesting Southern/Modern exhibit that closes in Feb.  But I can't go just for that.  I should be able to pick up the catalog if I actually do make it to Charlotte.)  If I happen to make it an open-jaw visit and start in Raleigh (because I do occasionally work with folks in our Raleigh office), then there is a community theatre production of Morning After Grace at Raleigh Little Theatre, but I'm definitely getting too far ahead of myself, since I am not really sure I would make the trip at all.

So that's sort of what I am seeing about seeing in the next few months anyway (not counting the subscriptions I have at Crow's, Tarragon and Canadian Stage, which I may already have discussed).  We won't know much about the fall productions for a while (aside from these occasional sneak peaks from the rights' holders).  I think that's enough for now on the subject.

Update (01/22) If the Cheeto-in-Chief still has his unlawful tariffs running by March (and he likely will, since he is going to use this to fund tax cuts for the rich), then this is going to run the Canadian dollar even lower, and I definitely am not going to NC and probably not upstate New York.  Here's hoping this trade war is short lived.

* I did pass on a chance to see A View from the Bridge in Buffalo when the reviews were kind of middling.  I think Ayad Akhtar's The Invisible Hand was playing in both Buffalo and Hamilton, and I ended up not going.  I still kick myself for not getting out to Hamilton at least.  I'm sure if I am patient A View from the Bridge will show up in Toronto.  It looks like Death of a Salesman should be showing up in Hamilton this fall, and I might go.  And All My Sons is playing up in Richmond Hill in a few weeks.  I'm not as interested in All My Sons, since once you know the twist at the end, there isn't that much to the play.  That said, I might go.