When it comes to theatre, Toronto usually has enough going on to be treated as a region all by itself. Certainly this season Toronto theatre-goers have more than another horrible winter to look forward to. The theatre companies have all launched their 1999-2000 seasons and the programme is looking surprisingly good for Canadian playwrights. There will be the latest works by veterans Linda Griffiths, John Palmer, JudithThompson, Michel Tremblay (both the English and the French 1998 productions will be coming to Toronto from Montreal), and George Walker; reprisals of Michael Healey's The Drawer Boy, Marie Laberge's Le Faucon, Wendy Lill's Glace Bay Miners Museum, John Mighton's A Short History of Night, Panych and Gorling's The Overcoat, and two by Jason Sherman, Patience and It's All True. Also staged will be new works by a host of lesser-known writers, including the amazing puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, Diane Flacks with Richard Greenblatt, Michael Healey with Kate Lynch, Bryden MacDonald, Michael Lewis MacLennan, Andrew Moodie, Colleen Murphy, James O'Reilly, and Edward Roy. There will also be plays by writers new to me: Allen Cole, Claudia Dey, Florence Gibson, Geoff Kavanaugh, Michael Redhill, Jean Yoon, and others. Of course I haven't even mentioned the annual festivals of original works: Buddies' Rhubarb! in February, Factory's Works! in October, F.O.O.T at the Robert Gill in March (to name a few). Then there's the World Stage Festival at Harbourfront in April which promises exciting international fare, but also includes a new Lepage, the translation of Serge Boucher's Motel Hélène -- a fresh voice from Quebec, and the premiere of David Young's Clout. Besides these there are all the ones I have omitted (please forgive the oversight).
As John Palmer's Ibsen put it over twenty years ago: "We have
embarked on nothing less than a fight for our own culture. I can think
of nothing sadder than inaction now....We will produce well and badly but
we must produce...." And indeed we are! So come to town if you can; there
is lots to see.