Planning for anything more than a day or two in advance definitely feels a lot like Charlie Brown winding up to kick the football for realz this time. I'm almost certain that anything in Jan. or Feb. will be cancelled, with a small chance that this latest wave will be over by March or April (with almost everyone having caught and recovered from Covid), but who really knows.
At any rate, I mentioned that Coal Mine Theatre is doing Baker's The Antipodes and I'd probably see that in very early February and then D'Amour's Detroit in April. I've seen Detroit. I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but I mostly subscribed to Coal Mine this season in order to help keep them afloat.
Also, Crow's Theatre is doing Bengal Tiger in Jan. Then I plan on seeing Gloria in March and George F. Walker's Orphans for the Czar in April.
I don't know if they'll get knocked out or not, but the Bloor West Village Players are putting on something called The Impossibility of Now in late Jan./early Feb. Their production of Good People was the last live theatre I saw before the pandemic restrictions came down hard. I don't know if it would be a good omen or just tempting fate to see another of their shows right as things seem to be winding down yet again.
I haven't been too interested in Theatre Passe Muraille in a while (or Theatre Centre for that matter), but I might check out their reworking of Iphigenia in Tauris in January. Our Place, a play about the struggles of undocumented Caribbean women trying to get their papers in Canada, plays in late March. This actually resonates with me, in part because I have been reading Selvon on folks from the West Indies living in London (and will likely be reading Lamming again shortly), but also because I have a half-finished script about my fictionalized struggles with an immigration officer (if I had tried to overstay my school visa in the 90s). I don't know if I ever will finish this, but there are days I think I shall, but I need to figure out a different ending.
Factory Theatre has two more on-line productions in their season which will almost certainly be going ahead, and I have to decide if I want to check them out or not. And two in-person productions that are at risk. I was a bit more open to the dramedy, Among Men, about Al Purdy and Milton Acorn, but now am leaning against going. I'll see how I feel closer to the time. I think I will try to make it to Wildfire in June, however.
There is nothing I want to see at either Canadian Stage or Tarragon. There isn't much I want to see at Soulpepper, which is definitely a shame. I just am not enamoured of their new direction. I do have a ticket to see The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale (fingers crossed it isn't cancelled yet again), and I'll likely see King Lear in the fall, but I'll pass on Queen Goneril. I saw a staged reading of it a few months back and I left at intermission, mostly because it was recycling Lear in not very interesting ways (at least not to me) and it was way too long.
It doesn't appear that Nightwood is doing anything in person in 2022, and at the moment they are dealing with the loss of their studio. Video Cabaret, which does have its own space, seems to have gone completely dormant. Shakespeare Bash'd is pretty much only doing online acting classes with no real plans in terms of putting on live theatre. So far there is no word on what Driftwood is doing this summer, but the signs don't look great. Red Sandcastle is running a few things, but mostly creepy pieces by Eldritch Theatre that don't grab me all that much. I'll try to keep an eye out to see if anything else crops up there.
Somehow I completely missed Alumnae Theatre doing an odd hybrid performance of Tremblay's Albertine in Five Times (with 2 actors in person and 4 on Zoom) back in November. I don't think it got any press at all. Maybe that is just as well, as this doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the production I saw at UT four or five years back. Anyway, if the fates allow, Alumnae will be doing Ruhl's In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) in April, and I'll try to make that.
Art museums are generally not hit quite as hard, but sometimes their exhibits are derailed. I did like Robert Houle's Red is Beautiful at the AGO and I'll probably see it again before it departs in mid April. The next round of exhibitions at the Power Plant open on Jan. 29, and I should make it over there in Feb. or March at the latest. That actually reminds me that the Albright-Knox in Buffalo is supposedly reopening in 2022 after a very long closure to remodel and expand the main museum campus.* Very hard to know what the border crossing rules will be in mid to late 2022, but this is something I would consider if the latest (and last?) Covid wave has finally crested.
I haven't really been keeping up on the rock groups coming through in part because I think they'll all decide it isn't worth trying to cross the border and then have the rules change on them. That said, the Cowboy Junkies are playing Massey Hall on April 7, and I might try to see that (if tickets are even still available at 50% capacity). Supposedly New Order and Pet Shop Boys are coming through in the summer, and I'd like to see them. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are also supposed to be coming through, but I have my doubts. While their December shows were mostly cancelled, for the time being Barenaked Ladies still are selling tickets to their July show out at Budweiser Stage. I think Toad the Wet Sprocket was going to open for them on this tour, so we shall see. I will certainly try to make it if the show goes on.
I should be able to get out to Stratford in the early summer to check out Hamlet. My biggest concern is whether the Stratford bus is running, and just how I feel about taking that. Given that I plan on taking my son, maybe I can justify renting a car again. I'm not so sure there is anything else I would see there, though I'd probably watch Hamlet 9-11 if it transfers to Toronto at some point. It's a bit more likely that they'll transfer Moliere's The Miser (as they transferred Tartuffe to Soulpepper years ago). While I hated Tartuffe, I vaguely remember thinking The Miser was better. Late in the summer or even early fall, I do think I'll head down to Niagara-on-the-Lake to see August Wilson's The Gem of the Ocean at Shaw. I'll pass on the rest of their shows, however.
I think that's all I need to cover for now. I'm kind of getting myself a bit depressed, listing all these things that are probably going to be snatched away again at the last minute. Frigging Covid...
* Now they are saying first half of 2023, which probably means late 2023, but I'll keep checking back in periodically.
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