Off-season Shakespeare and impromptu Broadway
The Winter’s Tale Watch this if: You don’t want to wait until spring for Stratford-level Shakespeare.
Have you ever wondered what the actors of the Shaw and Stratford festivals get up to in their off-season? Well, this year, they’re doing more Shakespeare — but in a tiny storefront on the Danforth instead of the Festival Theatre.
Directed by Stratford vet Graham Abbey, the 10-person cast features a few familiar names: Brent Carver, Tom McCamus, Lucy Peacock, Michelle Giroux, Patrick Galligan, Charlie Gallant and more.
All performing in the Coal Mine Theatre’s temporary space, which is slightly larger than a dressing room. Sign us up.
Tuesday to Feb. 20 Coal Mine Theatre 1454 Danforth Ave.
One Night Only: The Greatest Musical Never Written Watch this if: You like Broadway that lives dangerously.
Imagine the amount of work that goes into staging the average musical — composition, lyrics, script, choreography, characters and story. Imagine not knowing any of it before going on stage and making it up on the spot. Terrifying, right?
That’s what six all-star improv performers (Alex Tindal, Ashley Bot- ting, Jan Caruana, Reid Janisse, Ron Pederson, Carly Heffernan and some special guests) are about to do, 18 times.
If anyone can pull this off, it’s a cast like that. And who knows what gold might emerge. After all, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway juggernaut Hamilton began with a little freestyling too.
Wednesday to Feb. 14 Factory Theatre 125 Bathurst St.
The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine Watch this if: Your domestic life sometimes feels like a circus.
Soulpepper Theatre has been redefining what it considers to be a “classic,” and is now looking inwards instead of only outwards.
The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine could be Canada’s favourite clown classic, written in 1987 by Robert Morgan, Martha Ross and Leah Cherniak.
Cherniak herself directs a new production at Soulpepper, about a young couple of newlyweds who find that cohabitating isn’t as utopian as they imagined. It’s charming and funny, and with two Soulpepper favourites (Gregory Prest and Raquel Duffy) starring, their wedded mishaps will be the audience’s bliss.
Monday to Feb. 20 Young Centre for the Performing Arts 50 Tank House Lane