Luminato Festival 2011

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■ Meow Meow
Meow Meow is an Australian-born actress, dancer and cabaret performer who tours internationally. Gray has been particularly active in the UK where she appeared in La Clique at the Roundhouse and created the role of the Maîtresse in the West End musical adaptation of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg at the Gielgud Theatre.

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■ NXNE
North by Northeast (or NXNE) is an annual music and arts festival held each June in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival’s main focus is live music, particularly emerging talent. Acts that have had break out appearances at NXNE at small venues early in their careers include Lizzo, Daniel Caesar, Run the Jewels, The Lumineers, Grimes, Gary Clark Jr., The Arkells, Feist, and Billy Talent.

Wouldn’t you know it? This is a lost article for Luminato Festival, originally filed in June 2011, but never made it over from Vox.

Just a brief explanation, but I made a backup of W♥M’s website on Vox in 2015, but it was forgotten on a long-lost hard drive. I recently discovered the drive and having been restoring a decade of lost photos (starting with SXSW 2009). The same thing with Luminato Festival, it was lost to the internet since 2015, so I am happy to put things back online with this Flashback article.

I am happy to say that Luminato Festival is still around, and celebrating their 20th anniversary, spanning nearly a month of celebration in June 2026, in Toronto. The great Penn & Teller is the headliner with their “50 Years of Magic” shows.

My adventure to Luminato Festival 2011 was by accident. I was in town for NXNE (to take place that week), and stumbled to the free festival in David Pecaut Square park, and saw their Broadway’s Night Out show. Think of it as Shakespeare in the Park, but with better production.

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Luminato presents Broadway’s Night Out
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 at 12:01 AM

What a nice surprise, but I ended up seeing some of Canada’s finest stage performers at the Luminato presents “Broadway’s Night Out” on June 13, 2011, at David Pecaut Square, in Toronto, Canada. It was a free show, all shows at the Square are free (until June 19th). It’s really too bad that I just missed They Might Be Giants, who appeared on Saturday, June 11. If I had known, I would’ve flown in a day earlier to catch them for free.

Anyway, the cast from Jesus Christ Superstar started off the night with a great set of songs from the musical. Vocals are wonderful, very loud and commanding. Sometime even a little gospel. They ended their set with the title song, “Jesus Christ Superstar”.

Shawn Hitchins and Sharron Matthews were the co-hosts for the event, and they kept us entertained as stagehands were busy setting up set for the next performer.

Hitchins and Matthews performed a medley of famous Broadway hits, including “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. I get the impression that they’ve been doing comedy improv or standup for a while.

Hitchins would later on give out prizes to the best singers, as we all sing along to Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain”, The Sound of Music’s “Do Re Mi”, The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “Let’’ Do the Time Warp Again”, and ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”.

There were also three main cast members from My Fair Lady doing some selected songs from their musical, starting with the very British-y song, “Why Can’t the English”.

My favorite of the night was clearly Meow Meow and her crazy comedy cabaret. I think she’s quite famous in Australia, and I can see why, she’s absolutely mesmerizing to watch. The highlight of her show was when she asked for three volunteers to help her do “the greatest love song”.

The Luminato series of free movies and outdoor concert event is happening all this week. See more details at luminato.com.