34 This morning I was reading the arts section of the paper and found out some news about the Toronto theatre community. I personally have always been an enthusiastic and strong supporter of the Toronto theatre community and the Toronto arts community as a whole therefore I felt that my blog was a good place to respond to what I had found out. Okay, I'll start with the good news and those of you who have seen at least some Toronto theatre over the last little while will either agree or disagree with me that this counts as good news. A while ago, at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre they showed a production of the late Sarah Kane's Blasted. Blasted is famous for being controversial due to the graphic violence, sexuality, and overall shocking content that is depicted on stage. The shock value is worth it to see a strong and overtly honest view of the darker side of modern, western existence. The acting in this play was phenomenal, especially David Ferry who shone through as the slightly misogynistic, cynical yet extremely afraid, journalist lead. According to today's Globe and Mail arts section Blasted received 5 Doras last night. In my opinion at least this is well deserved. Congratulations to the cast and crew of Blasted for receiving 5 Dora awards last night. I still refer to Blasted and can remember each and every scene in tremendous, vivid detail. Another theatre piece that I saw this year called Through The Leaves received two Doras, a play with the actor who plays the lead in Da Vinci's Inquest. Congratulations to the cast and crew of Through the Leaves as well! Okay now for the bad news: Toronto's annual music and theatre festival Summerworks was rejected for a grant from the federal heritage minister. The real reasons for that grant being rejected are unknown because the rejection letter, which was quoted in the article uses language that is quite vague and general and doesn't really tell us anything. Fortunately, Summerworks is still continuing this year's festival but they are suddenly in need of last minute fundraising and the ticket prices will be a bit higher. Some believe it is linked to a play that was featured in last year's Summerworks in which lead the Harper government to falsely accuse Summerworks of supporting Terrorism without even seeing the play themselves. Hopefully Summerworks can receive the money that they need and I, personally am horrified that such a thing would occur. Best of luck to the Summerworks music and theatre festival who recently received massive funding cuts and hopefully it will all work out in the end.
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