Stage Door News
Stage Door News
“Find yourself in People City stay awhile if you can, with folks who will be tomorrow’s faces, kicking the traces, showing you places… that’s People City...”
Recently voted Toronto’s Best Improv Troupe by Now Toronto readers, the Canadian Comedy Award-nominated Bad Dog Repertory Players return to Comedy Bar with their first show of 2014. People City, an unscripted comedy directed by Peter Stevens (Hogtown, Elephant Empire), is an improvised glimpse into 1970s Toronto.
Toronto. 1974. North America’s fastest-growing city - a boom town, bursting with construction and brutalist architecture, is swollen with an influx of English-speaking Montrealers. The CN Tower is half-built; the AGO is on the move; Ontario Place, the Toronto Film Festival and the Scarborough Town Centre are born. Jeans are high-waisted, trouser-legs wide. Kung-Fu Fighting and Waterloo top the charts. Blazing Saddles conquers the box office and Chinatown cleans up the awards. On the boob tube, Monty Python’s Flying Circus airs its last episode and Little House on the Prairie airs its first. Neil Young plays Massey Hall. David Crombie, Toronto’s “tiny, perfect mayor” is poised for re-election.
This is an improvised comedy show that brings you chuckles and theatre from the streets of our beloved city. Laugh. Cry. Freak out. You won’t want the seventies to end.
“There’s a video kicking around YouTube of a love song to the city by Gary Gray and Tommy Ambrose from the early 70’s… idyllic shots of the CNE, the Island, people paying for parking... that song - People City - is where this show started. The BDRP tend to specialize in Toronto-centric work already and I loved the idea of spending some time there - 40 years ago,” says Bad Dog Theatre Artistic Director, Julie Dumais Osborne. “I’m fascinated by how the city has unfolded, how it became the place it is today.”
Here’s the skinny, each episode features fully improvised games, characters who aren’t afraid to say, “sit on it, creep”, and heart-breaking tales of Torontonians in this far out city. Over the course of a three week run, BDRP members Craig Anderson, Jess Bryson, Kyle Dooley, Colin Munch, Etan Muskat, Evany Rosen, Hannah Spear, Sean Tabares, and Anders Yates will populate the city with both fictional and famous citizens. Scenic designer, Hanna Puley (Henri Faberge on the Lamb, Tony Ho Comedy), transports the Comedy Bar mainstage to the groovy streets of a Toronto of yore.
Wednesdays, March 19, 26 & April 2 at 9:30pm
Location: Comedy Bar (945 Bloor St. W)
Tickets are $12 regular/ $10 student
Tickets are available at the door, online at comedybar.ca
or by the Comedy Bar Box Office at 416-551-6540.
2014-03-03
Toronto: Bad Dog Repertory Players present "People City" Wednesdays March 19-April 2