Actually called the CanStage TD Dream in High Park, this is an annual event where one of Shakespeare’s plays is performed outdoors at High Park. I was invited by a friend who was already going with a group.
High Park was much larger than I expected. The grounds have an outdoor pool, baseball stadium, tennis courts, and even a small cabin (of sorts) that’s used for a regular chess club. The grounds look like this:
Even on my skates, going from the top of the map (the main entrance) to the centre takes several minutes.
At this point, a sidestory about how I like skating too much and asking directions too little. Skating to my destination in High Park was fine until I exercised some egregious judgement. I encountered a staff member that was waving people up a unpaved trail. Not seeing anything that looked liked a stage, I asked the staff member if the road that bent around the corner would take me closer. I got a “yes, but not all the way”, which in my opinion should have been “not really, it’s only 30 second walk from here”. i.e. accurate, but misleading.
As you might imagine, I continued skating. It gets pretty steep downhill after that point, perhaps an average 20 degree slope for a minute. After several more minutes of travelling, I realize it isn’t working out. The idea of skating back up a huge slope isn’t very appealing, so I take a detour up another incline that seemed more gentle.
To shorten the story, from the centre I unknowingly went southeast to the far east side, then north again back up to the top, and then northwest to the main entrance. Partway through I gave up on the uphill climbs and switched back to walking. So despite arriving half an hour early, I was half an hour late for the show and quite tired. The stage is that green rectangle just northeast of the centre of the map.
When I finally did arrive, I had some trouble adjusting to the speech style while trying to absorb the storyline and characters. Ignoring the show to read the printed program helped. The play they had chosen was “Much Ado About Nothing”.
The show was enjoyable overall. I wasn’t particularly enthused by the story, but it was light, comedic entertainment. There is also a very different feel when present at a live show; the actors had a wonderful mastery of tone and posture that made the phrases more lively, carrying naturally in the open air. I’m also glad I brought a long shirt and tearaway pants – the bugs came out as the sun set.
Unfortunately, we were prohibited from photography during the play. I even asked if “no flash photography” meant “flashless photography ok”. I did manage a reasonable picture of the stage afterwards though:
In the future, I should bring a chair or pillow. The seating looks like this:
I think I’ll go next year, too. It’s very different from my usual routine of enclosures, artificial light, and bytes.
