Zillah Ferguson

From the moment one enters VideoCabaret’s Deanne Taylor Theatre, they are immediately transported into an immersive experience. With the stage positioned in the centre (aka in the round), an anticipatory crowd seated around it on all four sides, the arena theatre setup allowed for a more intimate, hard-hitting and seriously hilarious experience. Billed as a friendly family troupe, but certainly not a family-friendly, Childhood by Cheap Wine is an uproariously stellar show that is rotating parts...

Prepare to be bowled over by sketch comedy troupe The Rhinoceros Collective at this  year’s Toronto Fringe Festival! Consisting of six members – Frank Behar, Chelsey Bowler,  James Goldman, Spencer Pearson, Becca Robitaille and Le Truong – the group bring an  electric energy to the stage in a 59-minute sketch show that is both delightfully silly and smart. Made up of three segments with three specific audiences in mind (that on paper appear to have no real connection): cavemen, chess and the Ill...

Choosing to record a comedy special may seem daunting enough, and conceivably, it is - especially so for those who go hard with video in addition to an audio version. How about upping the ante by adding a third medium of animation to the mix? That’s just what Ava Val did for her debut comedy special So Brave that premiered this summer. Inspired by and playing off of what well-meaning, but tone-deaf strangers will tell her, entitling this special So Brave is emblematic of what Val has been doing...

It’s not every day that one gets to experience a one-man show where every character is fully fledged out and palpable, but that is just one of the many wonderful things about the strong performance Anand Rajaram gave in Crosstown. An adaptation of the novel Crosstown by Richard Scrimger, the eponymously named show made its world premiere on July 5th at the Tarragon Theatre. The play, set in Toronto, features a plethora of characters ranging in ages, genders and accents (West Indian, German and S...

On the precipice of the release of his debut album, Inter-Dan-Mensional, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan Galea and Scott Thompson, executive producer and contributor on the album. Spanning across 19 tracks, Inter-Dan-Mensional takes its listeners on a musical and comedy journey of Galea’s life, traveling through various dimensions of self, having contagious fun along the way. It starts off very appropriately for a Canadian with Galea introducing himself and thanking all those for listening to the album. He sets the scene, letting his audience know that we are about to, “Experience multiple Dans from multiple Dan-mensions.”