Stratford Speculation

One of the most fascinating parts about hanging around Swan City during opening week, is that you get hear the buzz concerning what's being planned for Stratford's next season.

Rumours are harder to come by these days, since the new Cimolino regime is proving a lot more tight-lipped than the old Monette one, but here's a few things being whispered behind programs at intermissions:

The Festival Theatre next season will present nothing but Shakespeare and two of the plays most frequently mentioned are Hamlet and Henry V.

The musicals will move to the Avon Theatre and the most likely choices are Cabaret and The Music Man. The chatterati say that Eric McCormack may finally return to the Festival as Harold Hill in The Music Man.  It's a part he played on Broadway in 2001.  McCormack began his career at Stratford, but left in 1989 and hasn't been back since he became a mega-star during his years on Will and Grace.

Canadian Eric McCormack, (Will on Will and Grace) may be reprising his role in The Music Man.

Adrian Noble, the former Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company will be one of the guest directors next season.

Christopher Plummer will definitely be returning, but all lips are sealed concerning his vehicle, although some gossipy sources insist it's going to be a play by Bernard Shaw - maybe Heartbreak House or Caesar and Cleopatra.

-Richard Ouzounian

Not cleared for takeoff

The DVD discount bin at one of the retailers in the departures level at Pearson's Terminal Three isn't exactly overflowing with options. 

There are maybe 50 different titles, and we can see why they're on sale.  There are few Academy Award winners amongst the lot.

Some titles seem to be particularly slow sellers,  judging by the number of copies available. A closer inspection reveals why. 

They're the kinds of movies that could give air travellers the creeps, especially if they're looking for something to watch in-flight on their laptops:

·       Donnie Darko Excellent film, but an early scene involving a jet engine hurtling from the sky and striking a private home doesn't inspire confidence in aircraft design.  There's a disturbing parallel with 9/11, so much so that the film's original 2001 release was drastically reduced.

·       Airplane! Not just the 1980 original of the Airport parody, but also the 1982 follow-up Airplane II: The Sequel.  Several copies of each are available for sale, but travellers may be having trouble with gags about a jet in danger of crashing and a space shuttle hurtling towards the sun.

Airplane! is not necessarily recommended for in-flight viewing, writes Peter Howell.

·       Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The Steve Martin and John Candy laugher suggests that all forms of travel are simply hell on wheels.

The people who stock this DVD bin either have a weird sense of humour, or they don't understand the fears of air travellers.

-Peter Howell

Harbourfront's new night light

Residents in the Harbourfront area might have thought the city was being invaded in the wee hours this morning as darting lights flooded the dark sky.

But be calm Torontonians and come out from under your beds, it was only another practice run for Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's huge light installation, Pulse Front: Relational Architecture 12, which will be officially launched on tonight night as part of the Luminato festival. The Mexican-Canadian artist likes to work at night, and has been doing so for the past couple of nights.

Pulse Front consists of 20 powerful spotlights along the boardwalk behind the Power Plant. Passersby will be able to touch Lozano-Hemmer's sculptures which will react to people's heart rates, changing the matrix of lights in the sky from dusk to midnight.

It's to be the largest light installation ever produced and is touted as being visible up to 15 kilometres away.
For condo dwellers who live mere metres away on Queens Quay, you may want to pull your blinds for the next 10 days.

Busking like rabbits

Check out the busker with a bunny in the Beach.

Michael was strumming his quatro - sort of a cross between a mandolin and a guitar - outside the Shopper's Drug Mart at Queen and Lee this afternoon. And grooving to the tunes while perched in his shoulder like a fuzzy parrot was Jazz the rabbit.

Whiskers and nose twitching, Jazz seemed content in his work. Michael brings him along every day. Don't the curious passersby make him, ahem, jumpy? Nope, says Michael.

"He's called Jazz for a reason. He loves music."

That was worth the loonie tossed in his basket. Next time, I'll bring a carrot for Jazz.

-Linda Barnard

Ariannarama

Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the just re-launched and, I must say, gorgeous Huffington Post flew into Toronto from L.A. on the red eye yesterday morning to speak to the packed Power Within conference along with Hilary Swank and Mia Farrow. Her topic? Fearlessness – which also happens to be the title of her new bestseller. Huffington made the interview rounds yesterday, taping a segment with CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos – and it was not surprising to discover that the two chatted in Greek. Huffington, née Stassinopoulos in Athens, also talked with me in Greek when I interviewed her for the Star last week, and also when we met up at the convention centre where I introduced her to the audience of 3,400.

AP

Toronto's writing community is in a tizzy with Arianna Huffington in town.

Later, at the tony Atelier on King West, Huffington was toasted by the usual media suspects, a.k.a. friends of National Post gossip columnist Shinan Govani. Quaffing the bubbly were Rachel Sklar, the HuffPo’s Toronto-born media editor, CTV’s Seamus O’Regan, CBC’s Carole MacNeil, HGTV’s Lynda Reeves and a whole lot of wannabe writers just dying to get on Huffington’s celebrity blogroll.

As Huffington dryly observed, she had no pockets for all the business cards people were pressing on her so she had to "stuff them into her bra."

-Antonia Zerbisias

Hit Parade

I often joke to out-of-town friends that there's a parade every weekend in the Greater Toronto Area. But recently I started wondering if it was true. (Purely from a journalistic perspective, of course, not because I was procrastinating on my editing duties or anything)

Everyone thinks of the biggies: the St. Patrick's Day parade, the Santa Claus one, the Pride Parade, etc.

But there are a lot of smaller, more obscure ones that boost the number of parades in the GTA to well over 52 annually (about 300 street closures in Toronto alone due to parades and other events) so I won't bother to do the math, but suffice it to say there are a lot.

Here then, are a few less obvious ways to promenade, march and otherwise get your parade on this summer:

Mammoth Parade, June 2, Streetsville, Mississauga. Part of the Bread & Honey Festival (mmmm, you had me at bread) this 35th annual event is being marshalled by Hon. Col Dave Devall (the CTV weather guy who magically draws umbrellas out of thin air)

Polo Pony Parade, June 22, Gormley Polo Centre, Richmond Hill. Who doesn't want a pony? Especially when a whole bunch of ponies go trotting around for a good cause at the Polo for Heart fundraiser.

Teddy Bear Parade, July 29, Benares Historic House & Bradley Museum, Mississauga. Sing it with me: "Today's the day the teddy bear's have their pic-nic." And to work up an appetite, the teddies, and their owners, take a little stroll around the museum grounds. 

Filipino fluvial regatta, Aug. 17-19, Harbourfront Centre Parade with a splash: part of the Filipinos Making Waves festival at Harbourfront will recreate the Philippines' famous river parades on Lake Ontario. 

-Shauna Rempel

Free vote

Did you take some pretty sunset shots at the cottage this weekend? Or would you just like to humiliate a buddy with a poster of him passed out in front of the campfire?

We won't judge, but you're certainly welcome to. You're encouraged to play art critic at the HP Gallery (111 Bathurst, in the Waddington's Building) where voting on the Contact photo festival's Portfolio Reviews ends tomorrow (Tuesday) at 5 p.m.

After you've voted for your favourite fine art, commercial or documentary works, head on over to the Print Centre and make some art of your own with a free print of your choice up to 44 inches wide.

The portfolio with the most votes receives $3,000 and a handy-dandy HP printer at a ceremony next Tuesday at the Drake.

-Shauna Rempel

Low and behold

The windows are still mostly covered up at 362 Bloor St. W., formerly the Spice Kitchen and before that Shakespeare's Cafe, but the new sign is now in for the Annex's latest eating establishment.

And what a sign: lurid red, blue and yellow neon, depicting a cartoonish pig, chicken and cow. They're the namesakes (soundsakes?) of restaurant Grunt, Cluck and Low, which according to the Star's Amy Pataki was slated to open this month.

I'm guessing the meat-serving restaurant's star chef connections (It's being opened by Paul Boehmer and the ribs are to be supplied by Marc Thuet's new Atelier Thuet catering kitchen) won't be enough to save it from disgruntled Birkenstock-wearing, vegetarian Annex folks.

Inevitably the name will garner it some nicknames, none of which can be published on a family blog. 

-Shauna Rempel

Think global, screen local

Was anyone listening to Meryl Streep's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes this year?  Her delightful diatribe urged moviegoers to demand more from their local theatres than the top-grossing films that dominate screens everywhere.

Seen Spider-Man 3 yet?  You'd be hard pressed to find a theatre that's not playing the blockbuster -- many even have it on multiple screens.  That includes Rainbow Cinemas' Market Square, which has it playing on two of its six screens.  Every time I pass the outdoor marquee with the current listings, I wonder why Sarah Polley's highly acclaimed directorial debut Away from Her is not on it.

The movie stars Gordon Pinsent, someone who lives close by and is a common sight shopping at the market on Saturdays.  I've seen Sarah Polley shopping there as well.  Aside from the fact that this movie has been lauded by critics near and far, it is a local movie, involving Toronto residents who deserve better than this.

If we really need a typically Canadian reason to distribute this movie more widely, there's always the fact that the New York Times raved about it.  Isn't that usually what it takes to convince us of our worth?

Rise up, folks, rise up.  Cinema managers are accessible by telephone.  Make the call.

-Barbara Turnbull

Can you Marketplace the Face?

So, like many other Toronto Facebookers, I've become aware that the social networking site has a classified section (reg. req'd). A friend has already found a potential loft, and loftmate, on the Toronto-specific version of the Marketplace, which includes job postings, several entreaties to join groups and thereby Help (them) Win $7000 From 102.1 The Edge, as well as an offer to trade one pair of double D silicone breast implants for a pair of butt implants (pretty sure that's fake)

The highly addictive site has just become even more addictive, and now it's encroaching on the territory of other compound-name websites, the mighty Craigslist and LiveDeal.ca, owned by my employer Torstar. (Not to mention further beleaguering the already beleaguered hard-copy classified sections of this and other newspapers).

But not all Facebookers are happy with the new feature. Under the "Wanted" category, the members of group Sick of Facebook Adding Garbage declare, "It's a social network, not a store, stop trying to get us to buy things from you and other people."  Looks like they won't be sending any $1 gifts any time soon.

-Shauna Rempel