Theatre Tidbits

I keep up with a variety of entertainment news online, but no matter where I am, I always manage to return to the theatre.  It’s my first love: Musicals, plays, one-man shows – I don’t go to them as often as I’d like and should, but I go.  Every summer I try to hit the Stratford Shakespeare Festival as well as the Shaw Festival in nearby Niagara-On-The-Lake.  And now that I’m back in Toronto, there’s a huge variety of stuff that I can go to.  Some random theatre bits:

• I missed Incendies three times: Once when it was making its trail-blazing way around France, and twice when it came to Toronto in French and English.  Now that Quebecois Denis Villeneuve has turned the award-winning play (about a Montreal woman’s strange legacy to her children) into a potentially Oscar-winning film of the same name, I’m not missing it a fourth time.
• When I was in Hong Kong I managed to make it to Zaia, by Cirque du Soleil, in Macau.  I wasn’t super, mega, ultra impressed, but whether I should blame the production itself (is it one of the “lesser” Cirque shows?) or my high expectations due to hype, I don’t know.  Definitely willing to give Cirque another go, and likely to when I head to Vegas in late February.  Ka?  Mystere?  O?
• Christopher Plummer is playing Barrymore at the Elgin Theatre, and I’ve got tickets.  I absolutely cannot wait.  I saw him as Caesar in Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra, and it’s like watching a legend.  Correct that – it is is watching a legend.
• Billy Elliott is coming to town.  I wasn’t going to go, but after reading reviews, I’m thinking I should.
• Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.  It still hasn’t officially opened, but the consensus is that it will take a miracle to make this work.  But really.  Spider-Man, the Musical? Come on.

Do any of you go to the theatre?  Seen any of the above?  Any recommendations/non-recommendations?

– Jean AAR