Well late August has been a bit thin in terms of live performances but September. sees things back with a bang.

• • Opera Revue has a Verdi and Weill show at the Redwood Theatre.
  • Coal Mine Theatre is opening with Annie Baker’s Infinite Life which played to rave reviews in London and New York.  Previews are on the 6th to 8th with opening on the 10th.  The play runs until the 29th.
  • Crow’s opens their season with Ibsen’s Rosmersholm.  Previews run from the 3rd to the 10th with opening night on the 11th.  The run continues to October 6th.

• On the 12th the Happenstancers have a concert at 918 Bathurst called Babesd in Toyland.  There’s some mozart but it’s mostly contemporary rep featuring works by the likes of Harrison Birtwistle and Unsuk Chin as well as two new songs by matthew Ricketts, to texts by Edna St. Vincent Millay to be sung by Reilly Nelson.
• On the 13th The Canadian Institute for Czech Music and Opera By Request present:
  Dvořák’s Jakobín in concert with chamber orchestra at Trinity St. Paul’s.  I saw the Canadian premiere 10 years ago and wasn’t thrilled though that was partly at least because it was messed up technically.  Maybe it will be alright this time?
• On the afternoon of the 15th the COC orchestra and Ensemble Studio members have a free concert at Harbourfront.
• Buddies in Bad Times invite us to “Witness the living through the eyes of the dead” with Bernard-Marie Koltès’ Roberto Zucco.  It’s a noir drama about a serial killer set in 1980s Eurtope.  Previews on the 15th and 17th, opening on the 19th and running until October 5th.
• Canadian Stage has Jani Lauzon’s 1939 which featured at Stratford last year.  It’s about a Shakespeare productuin at a Residential School.  And it’s Jani whose work I admire.  It’s playing at Berkeley Street with previews on the 15th, 17th and 18th.  Opening night is the 19th and it runs to October 6th.
• The free noon hour concert series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre kicks off on the 25th with the traditional opener by the Ensemble Studio.  Curiously there’s more opera the following day when Paul Groves and the Rebanks Family fellows from the GGS will present scenes staged by Anna Theodosakis.
• Also on the 25th (preview on the 24th) CORPUS present Mukashi, Mukashi at the Theatre Centre.  It looks at two iconic characters of Western and Japanese folklore: The Wolf and the Crane through a variuety of traditional and modern Jaoanese and Western genres; from Bunraku to Looney Tunes.  It runs until the 29th.
• And if the 25th wasn’t already silly enough Riot King and Spindle Collective Pare opening SAMCA by Natalia Bushnik and Kathleen Welch.  It’s a site specific horror musical and it;s staged at Black Creek Pioneer Village.  It’s not really my thing but Riot King were responsible for last year’s rather good production of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer so it will probably be good of its type.  It runs until October 5th.
• Confluence open their season on the 25th and 26th with a concert at heliconoan Hall curated by Andrew Downing and celebrating Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams.