The Next Stage Theatre Festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary this Jan. 4 to 15, could be considered crème de la crème selections from Toronto’s indie theatre scene. The productions, at the Factory Theatre, are all unique, but after looking at the lineup, we’ve noted that they can be untidily pigeonholed into three categories: new plays, musicals and cabaret.
Musicals
Fans of the TV show Orphan Black may recognize Blood Ties, which made an appearance in the show’s second season. It’s a black comedy musical about cleaning up a corpse in time for a wedding ceremony, created by Anika Johnson and Barbara Johnston.
Songbuster, whose crack team of improvisers create a new musical on the spot at every show, was a hit of the 2016 Fringe.
Manicpixiedreamgirls is the most mysterious (to us) offering, a dance-theatre experience inspired by ’90s pop hits and soundtracks, choreographed by Rock Bottom Movement’s Alyssa Martin.
New works
All four of these shows have been written in the past year. Two of them are world premieres. Western we saw workshopped in 2015. It’s a magic realism tale, with characters that question their realities, that will surely appeal to fans of HBO’s recent series Westworld.
Silk Bath was an audience choice fave at the 2016 Fringe Festival, a satire created by (and starring) a young company, in which an absurd game show pits immigrants against each other for opportunities.
Contrast that with Pea Green Theatre following its recent hit, Three Men in a Boat, with a new show, Clique Claque, which turns back time to the 19th century, as devious crime bosses attempt a takeover of Paris’s busking scene.
Lastly, Kawa Ada has written (and directs) his sophomore play about an imagined meeting of the highest profile women in politics in the ’80s — Margaret Thatcher, Kim Campbell, Benazir Bhutto and infamous presidential spouse Imelda Marcos — that is interrupted by a time traveller. The Death of Mrs. Gandhi and the Beginning of New Physics (a Political Fantasy) features an all-female cast and is billed as a satire, with the leaders banding together to save history.
Cabaret
There are three cabaret shows at Next Stage. One of them is so big, they needed to bump it to a bigger space. My Big Fat German Puppet features veteran puppeteer Frank Meschkuleit (The Muppets) and an oddball assortment of performers.
In the cabaret space, three storytellers — Rhiannon Archer, Helder Brum and Graham Isador — take turns telling Two Truths and a Lie. And in Date Me, accomplished improvisers Ted Hallett and Lisa Merchant tackle modern dating, using advice from the audience.
