"I proclaim this Dora Day". City Counsellor Kyle Rae quoted Mayor David Miller's sentiment towards yesterday's Dora Mavor Moore Awards Nominee's ceremony. The 68th floor of the BMO financial building was full of many of today's leading theatre aficionado's, who came to see who would be anointed the coveted Tony's of Toronto.

Susan Payne of BMO financial reiterated the importance of theatre to Toronto culture by saying that "...no area was more in tune with the social pulse than in the theatre".

Since 1978 the Dora Awards have awarded theatre professionals in dance, theatre, opera, theatre for young audiences, musical, and independent categories. What started then as 10 awards has expanded to 35 this year.

The The Luminato Festival is in full swing this week and here are some of the theatre projects involved that sound interesting and different.

Spiegeltent'ntavern - Cabaret meets circus in this production. Naughty showgirls, bawdy boys, skits, musical acts, acrobats and all in a huge tent of mirrors. Oh yeah and there's a lot of beer too. Sounds like a night out for all in a serious visual feast!!! Brought to you by Harbourfront Centre and running until June 10.

Risk Everything - Poland theatre company TR Warszawa shows us what their world of George F. Walker looks like in this unique opportunity to see a Canadian play on Canadian soil done by a foreign theatre company. Grzegorz Jarzyna, Polish master director, attempts to capture the underworld of addicts, prostitutes and petty criminals using a mix of dry humour, film and TV clips, and real life on the streets. Runs to June 10th at the Harbourfront Centre.

Escape from happiness - George F Walker's name is all over the place in this festival including three of his pieces running in rep at the Factory. This one, the third and final installment ,deals with the continuing troubles of Nora and her family. Runs to Jun 17 at Factory Theatre.

Sorry about the delay this week - viruses, crashing computers, computers out the window, etc. Just your usual online week.

Anyway. On that note. Here are my picks of theatrical productions getting a lot of talk this week.

Escape From Happiness - George F Walker's third piece of his East End Plays was a masterpiece of direction and performance when it was first reprised in last year's season and has come back in rep with Better Living. The East End Toronto family gets even more insane in this wild family comedy. Runs to June 17th at Factory Theatre.

Leaving Home - The Canadian classic that gave Canadian playwrights their first real voice. The story of a young man who battles his father in a way no one else in the family had dared. Runs in rep to June 16th.Soulpepper

Collected Stories - Role revearsal in this tale of a writing teacher and her prize student who begins to achieve a higher success than her elder. A tricky two-hander.Tarragon Theatre

"There is a country so at the heart of the world the world has forgotten it, where one might seek in submission the unanswered need..."

Fiona Reid, one of Canada's leading actresses, fresh of her induction into the Order of Canada, speaks as the Homebody in Tony Kushner's newest play Homebody/ Kabul. An eerie silence fills the air as this play foreshadows its venturing into the unknown world of the Middle East; the Middle East pre-911 that we know very little, if anything, about.

Reid joins several other successful and prominent actors in this production, which, due to the content, demanded the best of its talented performers.

Homebody/ Kabul tells the story of a mother who believes her destiny is in Afghanistan. The play takes place pre-911 and at a time when the Taliban ruled supreme in the region. The Homebody disappears upon her arrival there and the play truly begins at that point as her husband and daughter arrive there in the hopes of finding her. As time wears on we see the culture clashes and also their hopes struggling to keep themselves out of harms way. We also begin to learn how life exists in this harsh environment.

This week has three shows, just opened, that are all power pieces written by some of the best playwrights of the last 20 years. It is for this reason all us 'contemporary peeps' can relate and enjoy these plays.

Homebody/Kabul - Tony Kushner's work is already legendary. His two-part masterpiece Angels in America was a huge success and had a TV movie of it made starring Meryl Streep and Al Pacino. This one, his newest, stars Fiona Reid as a British woman who disappears while in Afghanistan and the ensuing investigation of that event by family and friends. Runs until June 9th and brought to you by Mercury Theatre.

Collected Stories - I saw this play in New York about ten years ago and it starred the recently deceased theatre giant Uta Hagen in a performance I told her felt, 'like you improvised the whole thing' . The story of an aged successful writer and her protege who eclipses her fame is a great play about age, betrayal, ambition and friendship. It's like a good tennis match! Mea Culpa Productions brings us the story this time, a first in the city, which runs until June 3rd.

Better Living - The Luminato Festival is getting warmed up and the theatre portion of the Festival includes the Walker Project. George F Walker is one of Canada's most successful playwrights and TV writers. His East End Plays, written all in the 1980's, surround a dysfunctional crime family in a hilarious and often touching manor. Better Living explores the return of their father after a long absence. Runs until July 1st in rep with Escape From Happiness at the Factory Theatre

Photo of Fiona Reid in Homebody/Kabul

The Theatre Centre was to have closed last year and, as it would seem with many of the theatres in Toronto, was to become part of the new Condo-mania that has swept the land. Still, though, shows continue to be produced in its almost perfect second stage, renegade, underground environment hidden behind the Great Hall at Queen and Dovercourt. The atmosphere is one of seclusion and intimacy. The facilities however are top notch and walking into the theatre one always gets the sense of its professional atmosphere. So it was with great pre-enjoyment that I was able to return to it to see Theatre Archipelago's newest production of Twilight Cafe; a two-hander about love and abuse and control and redemption.

Twilight Cafe surrounds Stanley and Sara, two lovers caught between the cultures of the past and present day Caribbean experience. The show begins when Sara returns to the small restaurant her ex-husband runs to discuss their lives and their pasts. Through the next 90 minutes we are subjected to their pain and joy as they take us through both their lives' histories in an attempt to find meaning to who they once were, who they are and who they can never be. From passionate love to outright violence the play runs the gambit of emotion and shows us the various sides to relationships, good bad and ultimately... ugly.