Toronto Theater Gets Weird

The best theatrical productions usually don’t emerge from a writer’s brain as fully-formed masterpieces. Instead, a series of readings, workshops, and revisions often contribute to the finished product. This process, is generally hidden from the ticket-purchasing public.

If you’re interested in the mechanics of playwriting and the ways in which burgeoning creatives are pushing the dramatic form, buy your tickets now for the The New Ideas Festival. The three-week juried festival of new playwriting, run by the Alumnae Theatre Company, will take place from March 8th – 26th. New plays each week and staged readings on Saturdays will introduce the Toronto community to some of the most experimental, risk-taking work out there. Fifteen new works feature such diverse characters as a dancing octopus and a physicist on her way to outer space.

If you can’t make the festival, visit Alumnae’s website to explore their other theatrical offerings this season. This April, the theater will present The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl, a 2005 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The whimsical romantic comedy features a Brazilian cleaning woman who aspires to be a comedian.