Virtual Shows that Caught Our Eye This Week

I have decided that I hate the term ‘new normal’. I’ve heard it often in the past couple of weeks and it’s really grating on my nerves. Should we pine to go back to our ‘old normal’? No! I really do (mostly) like the slower pace of things as they are now. But I think there has to be a happy middle ground where we can all find a balance that includes doing a bit less, or doing more things with meaning each day. We have all had time for reflection in the past few weeks, and whether we have taken that opportunity or not, we have a chance to really delve deeply into what holds meaning for us.

One of the things that holds meaning in my household is the arts. The kids dance, my partner is a theatre creator and writer, and I write (not enough, but that’s a whole other thing!) And we all love being a part of a thriving arts community. So now we are looking – as are all of you – for online options to continue to participate in and support the arts. Here are this week’s varied performance options that you can watch from the comfort of your own home while we all continue to be responsible social distancers. Please keep checking back here on the regular to see if there’s anything new coming up.

Continue reading Virtual Shows and Concerts for the Week of April 13, 2020 →

Virtual Shows that Caught Our Eye This Week

As another week of social distancing starts up, I am definitely starting to feel the cabin fever set in. And I’m an Introvert, so I’m sure that took longer than for a lot of you! I’m also finding that the amount of screen time that I – and my kids – are getting between work (me), school (them), dance classes and extracurricular activities (all of us) is starting to seem a bit overwhelming. So this week I am setting a goal of 90 minutes (responsibly!) outside in the fresh air each day. But that doesn’t mean that I still won’t use my screen time to get my arts fix!

Here at Mooney we are going to continue to do what we can to keep this list updated daily as new events cross our desk to give you all sorts of performance options that you can watch from the comfort of your own home while we all continue to be responsible social distancers. Please keep checking back here on the regular to see if there’s anything new coming up. See you online!

Continue reading Virtual Shows and Concerts for the Week of April 5, 2020 →

Virtual Shows that Caught Our Eye in Toronto for the Week of March 30, 2020

We’re trucking right along digitally this week. If you’re like me most of my time is learning (or relearning!) technology. The kid’s dance classes are on YouTube and Zoom, their school is (a bit) virtual (and a lot of having experiences and hands-on things at home), and work has moved to MSTeams and eLearning platforms. But I have learned that my favourite way of getting in touch is by making a phone call and hearing someone’s voice.

We’re doing what we can here to keep this list updated daily as new events cross our desk, and we’ll keep at it to give you all sorts of performance options that you can watch from the comfort of your own home while we all continue to socially distance. Please keep checking back here on the regular to see if there’s anything new coming up. See you online!

Continue reading Virtual Shows and Concerts for the Week of March 30, 2020 →

Virtual Shows that Caught Our Eye in Toronto for the Week of March 23, 2020

So we’re going digital this week! We are all being responsible and doing lots of social distancing, but I have found the digital world to be just crammed full of amazing content in the past week. Concerts, authors doing book talks and readings of their own material, play readings… the content is endless! And with new digital options cropping up each day we’re having a hard time keeping up! But we’re doing our best. It just means that you’ll need to keep checking back here on the regular to see if there’s anything new coming up. See you online!

Continue reading Virtual Shows and Concerts for the Week of March 23, 2020 →

(Megan Mooney jumped in with Leanne in writing this one)

Shows that Caught Our Eye in Toronto for the Week of March 16, 2020

**UPDATE: In addition to theatres and theatre companies making the responsible decision to cancel, the province has now called a state of emergency and called for all theatres, restaurants and bars to be closed. Therefore, only performances streaming online will be listed.

** UPDATE #2: We are updating this post through the week with some live online performances (Not just from Toronto). Keep checking back for more updates!

This has been a really hard playlisting to write. I’m sure that comes as little surprise to any of you who follow us. We at Mooney on Theatre love theatre – everything that we do at Mooney comes from that love. And, like you, we have many family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances who are being deeply affected by the loss of their live shows.

We will continue to do our weekly playlisting post to get information out there on any programming that is still running. That said, while we always encourage you to support the arts – in fact, we feel supporting the arts is vital – we also strongly believe that social-isolation is essential right now. So, if you do attend an event, be sure to follow all the guidelines of no touching, keeping a big distance from people, lots of thorough handwashing, coughing into your elbow, and if you’ve found a way to do it (I haven’t) not touching your face.

We will not be sending any of our writers out to review shows for the next couple weeks, but that doesn’t mean there will not be content on Mooney on Theatre. Folks are working on some exciting feature pieces in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

Now to the actual listings:

We have been doing our best to make sure that this list is as up-to-date as possible, and only shows still running are listed. But please be aware that because the landscape is ever-changing, we can only do so much to keep up. If you decide to go to a show, we recommend confirming in some way that it is still running before heading out.

To track the cancellations we’ve been following along social media, and of course, using the emails we’ve been getting to update us. But another fantastic resource you can access is Intermission Magazine. They have a list going at Covid-19 Theatre News Updates – it is a bit out of date at the time of this article’s publication, but I expect it will be updated shortly with the most up-to-date information on closures, postponements, and other related news.

We’re going to skip the ‘reds‘ this week.

Continue reading Toronto Playlistings for the Week of March 16, 2020 →