July always starts with a bang in Toronto due largely in part to the Toronto Fringe Festival - the annual tradition when thousands of people descend upon the Annex Neighbourhood and surrounding areas. Hundreds of artists vie for your attention with flyers, posters, costumes, PR stunts and more. And for only $10, you could see the next big hit to grace the stages of Toronto. The Drowsy Chaperone is probably the best and most quoted example of the little Fringe show that could - making its way from its humble beginnings here in Toronto to the bright lights of Broadway and beyond!
Author Archive for Blair
Both Katherine and I have a history with the Fringe. I used to tech for a couple of years at a few of the University of Toronto venues while Katherine has produced one of the hit Fringe shows a few years ago and is back at it again this year with The Three Magic Wishes, a Cow Over Moon Children’s Theatre Company production.
Day 2 of the Fringe and we hit up the Fringe text to say hi to some friends, grab a beer and see some great improvisation.
Follow our journeys through the following ways:
What we talked about in this episode:
- The Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival
- About An Hour
- Cow Over Moon Children’s Theatre
- The Three Magic Wishes
Photo taken of Future’s Bakery at Bloor and Brunswick by Blair Francey
Formats available:MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), Flash Video (.flv)
Once a year, the theatre, dance and opera community come together to celebrate their achievements over the past year at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards. Produced by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA), the Dora Awards have been celebrating excellence on Toronto’s stages for the past 29 years!
In episode 4, Katherine and Blair take you behind the scenes of this years award show from the VIP reception to the after party to talk to the nominees and winners.
It was a long day … but it was worth it. 
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What we talked about in this episode:
Photo taken from the CN Tower by Blair Francey
Formats available:MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), Flash Video (.flv)
It’s the beginning of July and that can only mean one thing … that the Toronto Fringe Festival is kicking into high gear!
Katherine and the good folks of Cow Over Moon Children’s Theatre have a show in the festival called “The Three Magic Wishes” at the Palmerston Library. After the performance on Thursday afternoon, we’re going to go check out some of the sites and sounds of the Annex and run from venue to venue to find the next big show to come out of the festival!
If you’re around, be sure to find us in the beer tent at the Tranzac Club later on in the evening. If you’ve got a tip on a great show to check out, let us know!
See you there!
While Katherine is busy rehearsing for her Fringe show, Blair takes off to the launch of a new book, Ikonica: A fieldguide to Canadas Brandscape, co-Authored by Allan Middleton and Jeannette Hanna (who also just happens to be his mother).
A Mini Edition is an episode where we cant necessarily make it out the entire night, but there’s an event we want to cover.
Follow our journeys through the following ways:
What we talked about in this episode:
Hey kids,
Just because we missed out on Kathleen’s show in our last episode, doesn’t mean you can’t partake in some of her comedy. Thanks to the brilliance of the inter-web, we bring you a little slice of Kathleen Phillips! You can check out her YouTube page for more hilarious videos.
Hey everyone,
We’re in widescreen! I figured out how to film on the video camera in 16:9 ratio … yay!
Last Thursday Katherine and I headed out on the town to see if we drink up some more culture in Toronto. We had it all planned out and it started off really well at Prefix. We grabbed some food and then chaos ensued …
Okay, not really chaos, but we certainly had to improvise. You’ll have to watch the episode to figure out what happens!
We’re really ecstatic about the response we’ve had from our first episode. There are so many events coming up in the summer, I doubt we’ll have any trouble finding new events to attend. But if you know of an event coming up that you think we should take a look at, contact us and let us know! We’ll try and fit it into our schedule!
Formats available:MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), Flash Video (.flv)
Our first vlog!
Katherine and I are really excited to show you our first attempt at putting our first video blog together!
On June 10, 2008, we began our night at the Mille Femme exhibit at Brookfield Place, biked up town to see Black Watch at Varsity Arena, stopped off at Hart House to observe Slow Dance, grabbed a bite to eat at Queen and Spadina before rockin’ out at The Horseshoe Tavern with Sebastien Grainger And The Mountains.
Here’s how much we spent tonight: approximately $47.
Unfortunately we couldn’t take any footage of the Black Watch performance - lucky for us though, there’s a great preview on YouTube - check it out here:
We hope you enjoy the first of our vlogs about culture in Toronto. Do you know of an event or exhibition or show we should check out? Give us a shout!
Did you see one of the events we saw? What did you think of it? Leave a comment!
Also check out us out at iTunes!
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