CHALA HUNTER & NATHAN BARRETT
A slick salesman pitchin' to buy a farmgirl's land gets himself shot in the leg. Will he fall in love? Bleed to death? See the error of his ways? Or, will she blow his brains out? A kinetic dance-theatre piece about fracking and it's human implications.
$10 at the door
MI CASA THEATRE
Nick and Emily from Mi Casa Theatre (Ottawa) are partnering up with the boys from Videofag (Toronto) to make some music videos. At the end of the week we're going to play the cabaret songs and lullabies we've been working on, film some live stuff, tell some funny and embarrassing stories and have some drinks. And you're invited.
Part concert, part tell-all autobiography, part schadenfreude. Come get down with us!
PWYC
A PLAY BY DANIEL KARASIK
DIRECTED BY ALAN DILWORTH
FEATURING ED PASTKO, STEWART ARNOTT, MIRIAM FERNANDES
Mysterious and gently poetic, The Biographer is the story of a father searching for his daughter amid the wreckage of an abandoned seaside carnival where he believes she disappeared, and a meditation on the ways we redeem ourselves — or fail to — through the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. The new play by CBC Literary Award winner Daniel Karasik, directed by Alan Dilworth.
PREVIEWS: Thursday, May 2, Friday, May 3
OPENING: Saturday, May 4
Tuesday-Saturday @ 8 PM, Saturday-Sunday @ 2 PM
Until Sunday, May 19
$15/20 at the door (cash only), $18/23 in advance via www.secureaseat.com
WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY STEWART LEGERE
DIRECTED BY CHRISTIAN BARRY
Presented by The Accidental Mechanics Group
May 23- June 2
Wed-Sat 8pm, Sun 2pm
El Camino or The Field of Stars is a dark, playful, queer solo performance that combines storytelling, confessional theatre, and stand-up comedy that tells the story of an unnamed man attempting to unpack the damage caused by the deep-seated homophobia he experienced in his most recent relationship. As the protagonist, Stewart Legere weaves together tales of a doomed relationship, a trip to Italy gone wrong, and a mysterious fascination with El Camino de Santiago de Compostella, an ancient walking pilgrimage through France and Spain. Working through fear, awkwardness, and shame, he charms, cajoles, pushes and pulls, provokes, and consoles his way through stories of love, loss, and the complex struggles of a young queer couple dealing with internalized homophobia. El Camino or The Field of Stars is a confessional tragicomedy shared with wild abandon.
When it premiered at the Queer Acts Festival in Halifax in 2011, the show was enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike, and Legere's performance was referenced by Halifax alternative weekly The Coast when they declared him Best Male Theatre Actor that year. Don't miss this funny, startling, uniquely intimate show during one of the first ever extended theatre runs at Videofag.
"Lovely, memorable, inspiring show... involves you and draws you into its world."
- The Coast
"Stewart Legere is one of those people who exudes affability, charm, and pure joy... He has the ability to nourish your soul, just by being there in the room with you and telling stories."
- The Way I See It Theatre Blog
Tickets: www.elcaminostars.eventbrite.ca
$15 in advance, $20 at the door
A SCREENING CURATED BY MARCIN WISNIEWSKI
An intriguing and personal exploration of the immediacy and intimacy offered by the smart phone technology. Based around the ambiguous phrase “What’s Your Sex?”, the screening will present new works by Toronto based artists Julian Calleros, Kiley May, and Mark Pariselli along with submissions from various smart phone users.
Presented by Inside Out Film Festival, Videofag, and Trinity Square Video.
AN EXHIBITION BY KEITH COLE
An exhibition of works on paper and an installation by the incomparable Keith Cole. Expect some couch-wrestling.
Opening reception June 4, 7-10pm
AN EXHIBITION CURATED BY KEN MOFFAT
WILL MUNRO, FASTWURMS, PETER KINGSTONE, DARRYL VOCAT, LEX VAUGHAN, JOHNSON NGO, CHASE JOYNT, NINA ARSENAULT, AND MORE
This blockbuster exhibition will feature work exploring masculinity and it's representations, by a whos-who of the Canadian queer art world. Curated by Videofag's thinker-in-residence Ken Moffat.
Opening reception June 13, 7-10pm
A PLAY BY JANE MONTGOMERY GRIFFITHS
DIRECTED BY JESSICA RUANO
SAPPHO …in 9 fragments by Jane Montgomery Griffiths makes its Canadian premiere June 2013 in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, presented by Jer’s Vision. Directed by Jessica Ruano, and featuring Victoria Grove, this politically-charged and visually-compelling solo performance achieved critical and popular acclaim in London, England with a sold-out extended run.
Designed by Ana Ines Jabares, Lighting by Sarah Crocker, and Sound by Luca Romagnoli.
Within a secluded cavern, Ancient Greece’s first love poet laments her erasure from history, while a chorus girl named Atthis is seduced into a modern-day Sapphic romance.
“Uncommonly exhilarating”
★★★★ EXEUNT MAGAZINE
“Victoria Grove is fantastic, she is magnetic and mysterious, dominating”
★★★★ REMOTE GOAT
"Stunningly athletic and entirely sensuous”
★★★★ THE LADY
“Written, directed, and executed with passion”
★★★★ FEMALE ARTS
7:30PM, $15/students and arts works, $20/adults
Preceded by The W.O.W. Project on June 14
CASEY MECIJA & FRANCIS MECIJA
A father and daughter collaborate.
A comment on kinship, diasporic labour, devotion, and the factory as a site of creativity.
Francisco Mecija works at a beer-brewing factory as a mechanical engineer. At work, in his spare time he has been designing and building household items from materials that he's found in the factory. He has built knives, book-ends, shoe horns, dumbbell sets, cutting boards, music stands, picture frames, and small stools. All of these items share a distinct aesthetic in their design and choice of material. We will display these items in order to provoke questions about what qualifies as an art object. We will also exhibit a collaborative piece, created with the intention of forging closeness with my father.
June 16, 7 - 10pm, FREE
A WEE PERFORMANCE FESTIVAL PRESENTED BY
BIRDTOWN & SWANVILLE
June 20 - 23, 8PM
$10 at the door
Stay tuned for our announcement of the full line-up!
A PUNK OPERA BY HENRI FABERGÉ
in collaboration with Juliann Wilding, Alex Tindal, Kayla Lorette, Miguel Rivas, and Roger Bainbridge
Henri Fabergé and company are adapting their sensational, raunchy monthly cabaret Feint of Hart into a two-part extravaganza at Videofag. This multidisciplinary hurricane in a teapcup (film! theatre! music! comedy!) chronicles the fictional early years of Fabergé at the Boyce Navel Academy. A sprawling cast of Toronto artists enact these fever dreams, and Juliann Wilding concocts magic as artistic director and costume designer.
July 4 - 6 & July 11 - 13, 8PM
$10 at the door
CO-PRESENTED WITH TEAM VECTOR
A weekend of gaming and gays
This two day pop-up arcade and exhibition will feature works that address the theme “Queer Arcade” in unexpected ways: video games made for any platform, experimental GAYmes, Queering of traditional games, ROM hacks, machinima, board games, RPGs, card games, arcade ephemera, and more!
July 27 - 28, 7PM - 10PM
Opening night reception on July 27
AN INTERVENTION BY ERIC MOSCHOPEDIS & MIA RUSHTON
with an installation by Heather Kai Smith and Shawn Dicey
Hunter, Gatherer, Purveyor—a project in art and social engagement—brings together elements of craft, performance, and civic participation to create edible art objects made from local vegetation and civic water sources—popsicles! Composed of three primary public actions, Hunter, Gatherer, Purveyor includes: a) the finding and collecting of fruits, grasses, flowers, bark, roots and other edible plant life that grows in specific neighbourhoods in a city; b) the processing of these ingredients into community-specific ice teas and; c) the conversion of Videofag into a tea shop on the final weekend of the intervention (September 21 and 22, 11am - 4pm). Throughout the highly public and performative process Moschopedis and Rushton are dressed as hybrid park warden/vendors and act as naturalist and huckster, hunter and gatherer.
Through a series of performative gestures Hunter, Gatherer, Purveyor responds to the social and geographical context of a city and the distribution of the city’s indigenous and planted flora. By creating a performance for a highly specific and intimate site—the participant’s mouth—this project seeks to reintroduce a discussion about economics, ecology, and place by tasting class difference and geography. What better way to reimagine a city than to cool down on a hot summer day by eating and tasting a popsicle made from flowers found in an affluent community, vegetables located in a derelict garden, or berries sourced along the banks of a river?
Videofag will be purveying Eric and MIa's tea September 21 and 22, 11am - 4pm
A GRINDR-POWERED THRILLER BY ZACK RUSSELL
September 26 - October 12, 8PM
A PLAY BY MITCHELL CUSHMAN
A WORKSHOP SHOWING PRODUCED BY OUTSIDE THE MARCH
November 14 - 17, 8PM
PWYC at the door