FIlling up the calendar

It's somewhat interesting that I don't actually have much planned for the weekends through June and even early July.  (Toronto Fringe might certainly change that of course.)  Oddly, most of the events I am seeing are in the middle of the week, which makes it a little harder to remember to head over after work.  I'll just have to be extra careful this summer.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, I tend to feel that living in the city is more justified when I am doing lots of cultural events, so I am starting to load up the calendar again, at least to some extent.  However, it looks like I also need to fix up the deck, and that will almost certainly require two full weekends.  Sigh...

I am somewhat tempted by a special offer at the TSO (buy one-get one free) to go see James Ehnes playing Elgar's Violin Concerto and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.  The June 11 date would work reasonably well (90 minutes and no intermission), but I actually saw Ehnes doing the Elgar in Vancouver, and I'm not a huge fan of The Rite of Spring.  I think I'll do the mature thing and just skip this.

I just found out that Unit 102 Actors Co. is doing Much Ado about Nothing in an outdoor venue.  Even better it is a covered outdoor venue.  So I think I'll do that, but then I definitely won't see the same play at Hart House.  I haven't settled on a date, but they have quite a few performances in the second half of June.  (I don't always jump at seeing outdoor Shakespeare though.  I see they are doing Love's Labour's Lost in Kew Gardens, but I can tell from the promo video and the approach that this wouldn't be my cup of tea.)

I didn't manage to see any of the concerts at Casa Loma last summer, and these are typically Tuesdays, not on weekends, which can make it a bit trickier.  It does look like they are skewing far more towards vocal performances and fewer symphonies.  (It may be easier to rehearse with a semi-amateur ensemble.)  Too bad, as I am not that interested in the season.  There is some chance we would come out July 26 to see the Vivaldi Four Seasons.  Maybe I will call and see if that is on the first half or second half of the concert.  I think we could probably get the kids to wander through Casa Loma (it's open quite late on these evenings) and maybe listen to half of a concert, but the full concert would be too much for sure.

Not too sure what else is opening, though I realized I had forgotten about the show opening at Coal Mine.  Today and today only they have preview pricing, but the show tonight is not surprisingly sold out.  I will probably try to go next weekend.

Perhaps there just isn't that much going on, theatre-wise, that I haven't already thought about and decided to pass on (Albee's The Goat) or it is playing at Stratford or Shaw.  It's not necessarily such a bad thing to scale back for a while, especially since I was feeling so worn out yesterday due to the heat.