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1. Urban Craftwork

   If you’ve ever wanted to airbrush some stallions onto your Skule letterman, NAOMI SKWARNA shows you how to make it happen

   10/22/07 by Naomi Skwarna

   Did you cut the neckband off your T-shirt for that DIY look? Do you know what “felting” is? Maybe you just like making lampshades out of Popsicle sticks? That’s cool—but you could stand to be a little cooler, Popsicle Pete. Even if shelling out sweet coinage for more courses is not at the top of your to-do list, check out...

2. Stealth Book Reviews

   NAOMI SKWARNA goes undercover, bringing you the latest in speculative criticism

   1/29/08 by Naomi Skwarna

   Let’s get down to brass tacks: while The Varsity reports on a lot of topics, contemporary lit isn’t one of them. There are a large number of factors involved, i.e. the books that we receive from publishers tend to be on the historical biography side, and you wanna know the trendy titles gracing the shelves at your local bookstore. For...

3. Theatre Shakedown (with a side of fries)

   Brendan Gall and Daniel Karasik talk it out, while NAOMI SKWARNA eavesdrops from an adjacent table

   1/29/08 by Naomi Skwarna

   The big wheels of the Toronto theatre scene are watched as carefully as any Britney, Angelina, or Tom. The difference, in this hermetically-sealed world, is these folks tend to watch each other, and the whisperings, gossip, and schmoozing stays inside the box. The off-stage drama is often more interesting than what’s gracing the stage of your local teatro. Who better...

4. Fringe Benefits

   Naomi Skwarna and Chandler Levack search for diamonds in the rough at Toronto’s Fringe Festival

   7/14/08 by Naomi Skwarna and Chandler Levack

   Through rain, heat and more rain, the 20th Annual Toronto Fringe Festival threw down a mixed bag of theatre, dance, and comedy this year. The annual juried fest is bound to offer up its hits (and misses), but this round saw a remarkable variety of talent from here and abroad. Some say that the growing selection of performances makes it...

5. Generations

   Three U of T alumni who made it. Three students hungry to get there.

   1/20/09 by Naomi Skwarna, Shoshana Wasser and Wyndham Bettencourt-McCarthy

   Literature - by Naomi Skwarna On a slushy Tuesday morning, Toronto author Sheila Heti (The Middle Stories, Ticknor, and the soon to be released How Should A Person Be?) and U of T English specialist Fan Li sit down to toast and omelets at Aunties and Uncles to talk about writing, the happiest day, and narrating your own life. Sheila...

6. Review: Spring Awakening

   3/23/09 by Naomi Skwarna

   It’s not typical for a big musical to leave the houselights up while an ingénue sings her way through the first number, but that’s just one of many elements of the national tour production of Spring Awakening that makes this subdued cast all the more resonant. Focused on a small group of provincial German youth in the late 19th century,...

7. Q & A: Michael Redhill

   In which we pretend to know what a lacuna is

   Mar 3 by Naomi Skwarna

   Michael Redhill: I should warn you, in interviews I usually just answer “yes” or “no.” Naomi Skwarna: That’s fine. I’ll fill in the blanks. M: You can make it up as you go along. N: All right, Michael, I have several interrelated questions. M: I’ll be the judge of that. N: You’re the 2010 Writer-in-Residence here at the University of...

8. Flick city

   The Varsity reports from the Toronto International Film Festival

   9/13/07 by Jordan Bimm, Radheyan Simonpillai and Naomi Skwarna

   Two years ago, director Gavin Hood, then unknown to North American audiences, premiered a film called Tsotsi at the Toronto International Film Festival. Toronto’s audiences fell in love with his little, South African gangster film and gave it the People’s Choice Award. Five months later, Tsotsi won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Now Hood returns to the festival’s...

9. Pay-What-You-Can Culture

   Making sure you don’t have to starve to support those starving artists

   9/1/07 by Naomi Skwarna and Chandler Levack

   Welcome to The Varsity’s guide to navigating the vast Arts & Culture scene in Toronto. Our selections are either free, pay-what-you-can (PWYC), or inexpensive, so you won’t have to worry about the old pocketbook in most cases. Do find out the hours of operation be- fore you head over to these theatres, galler- ies, and museums and make sure to...

10. A funny thing happened on the way to Hart House

    Sondheim’s Roman farce is set to kick off U of T’s theatre season

    9/10/07 by Naomi Skwarna

    Hey freshmen! (Or is it “freshpersons?” Have we gone that far yet?) Are those constant toga parties wearing you down? Put those beer-stained bedsheets back where they belong and take yourself out for a different strain of Greco-Roman entertainment. How about taking a look at what’s shaking the stage at U of T’s grandest playhouse, Hart House Theatre? Hart House...

11. Something happened on the way to the funny

    Performances save the day in passé production

    9/17/07 by Naomi Skwarna

    Hart House Theatre’s season kickoff production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum holds much enjoyment: an energetic and appealing cast, some creative—if not limiting—set design, plenty of dynamic dance numbers, and a terrific band. The quandary then is the show itself, an old chestnut which, despite noble efforts from many of the performers, was just...

12. Fair Fort York

    Colonial drama suffers despite an interesting premise and setting

    10/4/07 by Naomi Skwarna

    Site-specific theatre is a unique opportunity, particularly when it features as distinctive a locale as Toronto’s historical garrison, Old Fort York. Crate Productions, whose two previous site-specific plays include Stephen Belber’s Tape—a snappy psychodrama that maximized the claustrophobic, semi-rundown Gladstone Hotel to great effect—and Adam Rapp’s disturbing Blackbird, staged in an abandoned Yonge St. apartment. Their latest offering, The Fort...

13. Haentjens wins Siminovitch theatre prize

    French-Canadian director honoured for versatile body of work

    10/31/07 by Naomi Skwarna

    In a country where a life in the theatre is not the most lucrative path to follow, the annual Siminovitch Prize is beacon of encouragement, rewarding the accomplishments of a theatre artist in the peak of his or her career. The $100,000 prize benefits not only the winning director, writer, or designer, but the entire community of artists they work...

14. Lecture Theatre

    U of T’s own Hannah Moscovitch mounts her new play *East of Berlin* at the Tarragon

    11/12/07 by Naomi Skwarna

    Hannah Moscovitch is not your typical English specialist. While daylighting as a student at U of T, she has also managed to cultivate a stylish and cerebral body of theatrical work. The Ottawa native—who originally trained as an actor at the National Theatre School—has a busy year ahead of her. Her latest play, East of Berlin, is currently enjoying a...

15. Theatre Interview: Bloody Caesar

    U of T student Anthony Furey’s bold vision serves up more than just a side order

    11/22/07 by Naomi Skwarna

    Julius Caesar: not the most uplifting play within the Shakespearean Folio, but one that bears a story ripe with intrigue, politics, and, of course, lots of blood. Hot on the heels of Hart House’s season opener, A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, Shakespeare’s great historical tragedy is centralized through the complex figure of Brutus and the...

16. Abstinence goes all the way

    Tom Perotta’s latest is a sharp portrait of small-town America

    1/10/08 by Naomi Skwarna

    There is something more than cheeky about a Tom Perotta novel. Although marketed as popular fiction with a big screen adaptation around the bend, they also play host to a mean literary streak. This doesn’t destabilize his output; rather, it makes Perotta exciting and slightly unpredictable. He’s got what you might call authorial moxie. In previous novels like Election or...

17. Mouthing off

    Audience gets lost on the farm in Tarragon’s latest überCanadian offering

    1/14/08 by Naomi Skwarna

    The prospect of Maureen Hunter’s latest, Wild Mouth, had me gritting my teeth before the curtain even went up: another Canadian farm drama featuring prairie winds and thick skins. It proved to be more than that, although it took its time. Wild Mouth is set in Saskatchewan, 1917, bringing together hardworking British ex-pats the Reids and the visiting Anna McGrath...

18. From the Editors

    Let’s All Love Toronto

    1/29/08 by

    I lived in New York this summer. It was the ultimate experience: viewing Television sludge through “Marquee Moon” in Central Park (they broke up eight seconds later), slow dancing to vintage soul in Bushwick, foreign films at the Film Forum, smoking cigarettes on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel, strutting down Avenue A augmented by too much Brooklyn Lager and...

19. Trampoline

    “We do shitty things really well here!” The Varsity straddle-jumps over T.O.’s most elastic lecture series

    1/29/08 by Naomi Skwarna

    Tell someone, anyone, your roommate even, that you’re going to Trampoline Hall next Monday, and you’ll either be met with an excited, “Oh man, are they sold out?” or a curious look and vocalization. Trampoline Hall is not a springy launching pad for human projectiles per se—it’s a little more metaphysical than that. Structured around three short lectures, each delivered...

20. The Varsity Magazine: All Arts

    1/29/08 by

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