afatchineseboy

(photo of the original 2024 Theatre Passe Muraille/Silk Bath Collective production)

Credits in alt text!

Photo by Jae Yang Set and Costume by Julia Kim Lighting by Noah Feaver

Did you like Woking Phoenix?
Do you wanna see it again?

We're applying for funding to do a tour in 2027 and are looking for testimonials from folks who loved the show/it impacted! If you're down, lemme know! We're stoked to send it across Canada and wanna make a great case to the jury!

Worth the trip to Montreal for Opening Night of Marie-Leofeli Barlizo’s The Healing, dir by Aaron Jan, choreo by Hanna Kiel, with voice actor Josette Jorge, dancers Chelly Li & Tyler Quincy Yan. Playing as part of Centaur Theatre’s WinterWorks until Sunday only.
centaurtheatre.com/shows/the-he...

the reveal is I'm behind all of the reddit slander against you

LOL neither new (unnecessary) song from WICKED FOR GOOD got nominated.

Nam Nguyen's Quiz Icarus was my favourite new play of the year. Hearing the odd vulnerable story of two Torontonian trivia champs who dared to compete on Jeopardy was almost as exhilarating as watching Nguyen turn into a giant showboating dick as he beat audience members at a game he's so good at.

@whynottheatreto.bsky.social Mahabharata part 1's beautiful poetic threat that Munish Sharma's Bhima invokes on the Kuravas made me shake. Ravi's vision and stagecraft alongside the beautiful score will stay with me for a really long time. Canstage has a good thing going with these 2 parters.

Riel Reddick-Stevens' Sex Goddess was my favourite show of @toronto-fringe.bsky.social. Like watching a queer, r-rated family channel original video game on on cocaine. I'm really biased, but it's nice to see really stupid theatre (men in suits are hiding inside of grandma) that's done this well.

Trailer | Bande-annonce Macbeth Muet This video can be used for promotional or theatre season montage purposes, provided credit is given to La Fille Du Laitier  Drawing inspiration from the silent…

La Fille du Laitier's Macbeth Muet was an incredibly specific fever dream that made me understand macbeth in incredible detail (all without saying a word). Someone's gotta program this in Toronto or anywhere. Tours easily, easy set up and lots of beautiful gore (and eggs).

On the other side of the budget was El Kabong Theatre's production of Letts' bug. Inspiring seeing a Toronto director with no money smash it by having a story-first high-craft vision that enhanced the material. Seeing Nick Eddie attack those speeches with razor precision was a chef's kiss. Wow.

YouTube video by Stratford Festival Anne of Green Gables (Official Trailer) | Stratford Festival 2025

@stratfest.bsky.social's Anne of Green Gables is an all time fave for me. Really clean, smart direction, fantastic adaptation and remarkable to see a TYA show that doesn't talk down to kids. I'll be remembering this for a really long time. Best of the year and cried every time at a new spot.

I saw 52 plays this year (not including the 3 I worked on).

As I wait for my laundry to finish, here's what I loved

also, BUG at the King Blackbox is SENSATIONAL. Been a while since I've seen a play in Toronto that made me feel this tense and direction this specific. So shocked to see work of this caliber with a minute fraction of the budget of every theatre in Toronto. Closes Thursday (they got extended).

rough news today

winter is here because 90 minute naps happen regularly and consistently

Zootopia 2 corrects the ‘cop-a-ganda’ record of the first movie with punny style Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde re-evaluate their platon-ish relationship – with policing as a means of creating positive change in the world

Yesterday, I saw Wicked: For Good and Zootopia 2.

One was an unnecessary sequel about the plight of animals, brought to life onscreen in garish colours.

The other was Zootopia 2.

Here's my Critic's Pick review of Disney's best sequel in years.

www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/film...

this doesn't change the way I think about narrative, but just a pondering. Because Will Parry keeps talking about how moved they were by girl in the bubble and how they're glinda, so sure, yes.

I wonder if in the blockbuster, we forgive disjointed plot for these powerful moments - in a similar way to dance, but in a container that still favors narrative though in a sloppier way.

Superman - which has a kind of meandering second act, but sticks the landing in act 3. Or the Fast and the Furious films (wicked is better than these), which at it's peak succeed for sequences of action.

I think about Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie that doesn't really have clear character arcs, but is really popular because of it's overall tension and well choreographed combat (a theatre artist in Hamilton tried arguing to me that Cap is a dynamic character but hmmm...). I think about

it all, if sometimes having incredibly effective moments versus a cohesive linear plot is also something that can lead to commercial success? this isn't something I'm interested in pursuing in my own work, I just think I'm always interested in the populist response to things

Purely looking at the moments alone, I found the moment after For Good incredibly moving (the stuff through the door was like a nicer version of the Bear season 2's ending), the Wicked Witch of the East stuff really well put together and No Good Deed to be standouts. But I wonder - with the MCU of

is linear. Whereas in dance the container is based on moments. So then, why is Wicked part 2 incredibly popular? Is it Gay Avatar/MCU - where fight sequences (songs in Wicked's case) are what people are really watching it for? Or are these moments more than the sum of it's parts?

gave me pause. This friend who messaged me said that Wicked succeeds not because of it's linearity, but because of moments it lands very effectively - beyond Defying Gravity. She compared it to contemporary dance (a form I'm starting to work in). I don't know if I buy this myself because the form

(still not great, but I never have the ick when I see the musical. i'm a little let down, but never more). maybe it's because theatre is a more abstract form for me versus film (we have to imagine Oz beyond the set, versus in the movie the Emerald City is fully revealed in CGI). But still, this DM

Because Wicked is a linear plot, framed with rising/falling action, this perspective doesn't ring true for me. Even though it's act 2 is wonky, I think I buy the sort of non follow through of No Good Deed more in the musical versus the movie.

A colleague Dm'd me about this saying that Wicked succeeds as a piece of subtextual fiction for her rather than cathartic fiction with a linear plot, especially from her perspective as a sapphic. I'm not queer, but I wonder if this holds true for other queer folks who've seen the movie.

In No good deed (absolute banger), Elphaba vows to be more wicked. We don't see this in the action of the movie - though in the OG, she kidnaps dorothy after this, which i guess is more wicked than her mild/ineffective activism. She immediately gives up as soon as she finds out fiyero is dead.

I'm still thinking about Wicked part 2 and how frustrated it made me versus the musical (which also has a weak act 2, but feels less frustrating somehow).