It's already begun. Late nights staying up, leafing through my dog-eared copy of the TBA guide, marking and re-marking which events to attend and in what order. ("How fast could I run between events on opposite sides of town without looking like a lunatic?" has been a question at the forefront of my mind.) However, once the festival begins, I won't have much of a reprieve from these restless nights planning - they'll simply be replaced by the sleep-depriving performance glory that is the WORKS.

AudioCinema pre-TBA. Photo courtesy of AudioCinema

For those of you who haven't been to TBA before, the WORKS is, simply put, where all of the festival converges. Where else can you buy a beer for the hardworking PICA staff (which you certainly should do), nosh on deliriously good late-night snacks from what always proves to be an exciting kitchen, talk with friends, volunteers, and performers (!) about what you've seen and, if you're lucky, catch a surprise performance or two by festival participants who drop by for a late-late night drink? Nowhere else.

That is why it is so hard to find much time for sleep during the 10 explosive days of the festival. From film to dance to drag to cabaret to puppets to simply great music that makes you move, I can't even begin to pick standouts from amongst the line-up performing each night. And to top it all off, every performance is intimate - the stage and the crowd coalesce into one beautiful whole. Whether the performers are crooning to you or sweating for you, it is always entertaining, always unpredictable and always the venue where performers and audiences alike come to have fun and lose sleep.

Posted by Patrick Leonard