Dedication is the key ingredient responsible for the future success of Nightwood Theatre’s Lawyer Show, which casts 28 lawyers as actors in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. After I interviewed director Kelly Thornton about the play for my column on April 16, she invited me to attend a rehearsal so I could see the company’s process first-hand.

Rehearsals take place three times a week and generally run from 6:30pm until 10pm. Professional actors Christine Brubaker and Pragna Desai do text coaching with some actors while others run lines and blocking (the actors’ onstage movements) with Thornton and her team of theatre professionals. The rehearsal I attended had the cast staging “Pyramus and Thisbe,” Dream’s play within the play. But I witnessed much more than a simple rehearsing of the mythological tale of two lovers: I saw the blood, sweat and tears of lawyers turned actors.

This is one hard-working, committed bunch. Actors took notes on their scripts, bent and worn from use. I saw one actor overcome a fear of heights and climb atop a (small) stack of boxes in order to rehearse her part. Others asked serious, detail-oriented questions about intonation and movement. Some improvised and caused the small team of observers (me included) to erupt into giggles. Others paid close attention as Thornton moved among her players, demonstrating her direction. A room full of lawyers? I would have never guessed. These guys looked like seasoned acting pros.

This is probably the result of working with stage vets like Thornton, Brubaker, Desai and company. Brent Vickar, who plays Egeus in the production, credits the calibre of the professionals putting the show together with the quality of his experience. “I love, love, love theatre, and I have lots of respect for people working in theatre,” Vickar told me at rehearsal. This respect seems to boomerang back and forth between Nightwood and their lawyer-actors, creating what seems to be a very safe, encouraging atmosphere where everyone is supported. Vickar also mentioned that life’s inevitable stress falls away while he’s rehearsing. In short, he is having a ball.

This week, I finally I found the time to watch Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. I am happy to report that, like Moore’s other films, Capitalism perfectly manipulates the moving image, splicing film together to hammer home viewpoints just as expertly as the early documentary filmmaker-godfathers of montage, Eisenstein and Vertov. By the end of the movie, I was so convinced of Ronald Reagan’s evil, capitalist ways and their impact on present-day America that I was ready to get out and protest...something...anything! I escaped my own reality and slid perfectly into Moore’s.

Such is the power of the well made documentary film. Yesterday marked the opening of Hot Docs, Toronto’s annual documentary film festival, North America’s largest documentary film festival. There are 166 films featured in this year’s fest, with filmmakers hailing from more than 40 countries.

Not only are there a ton of intriguing films to choose from, but the festival also happens to be very well priced: single tickets are only $12 each, and Late Night screenings (films showing after 11pm) are only $5. Even if the economy is still slightly wilted, we can all afford to screen several selections at this year’s Hot Docs fest.

My shortlist begins with the weekend’s first must-see, And Everything is Going Fine, playing tonight at 6:30pm at the Bloor Cinema and at the Isabel Bader Theatre tomorrow (Saturday, May 1) at 1:45pm. Directed by the acclaimed Steven Soderbergh, the documentary cuts together archival footage of famed theatrical monologist Spalding Gray, who died in an apparent suicide in 2004. Spalding was a minimalist genius who gave monologues about his life in theatres large and small using only a desk and a notebook, a glass of water by his side.

I had the pleasure of seeing Spalding perform live in Arizona when I was 8, and I was such a big fan (I was particularly fond of his small role as Barbara Hershey’s OBGYN in Beaches) that I somehow managed to meet him. He was so gracious that he took me backstage and talked with me at length — I later heard that he spoke about me on stage during the following night’s performance. Soderbergh’s footage in And Everything is Going Fine gives Spalding one last chance to monologue about his often tragic life.

After the jump: Leanne offers more Hot Docs picks and insights.

It’s not easy to describe Coachella, the mid-April music festival that arrives each year like a second Christmas. All wrapped up in the twin presents of Palm Springs sunshine and desert sand, the festival hosts a variety of artists ranging from DJ gods like Tiësto to electro-reggae-dancehall-spinners Major Lazer and sweet vocalists like Charlotte Gainsbourg and She & Him’s Zooey Deschanel.

The tunes blast constantly from five stages for three full days at Indio’s Empire Polo Fields, all clean cut grass, soft and warm under bare feet. It’s a trip just to walk around from stage to stage, catching sound bytes on the way from one show to another. Just to bring the point home: this year, a friend of mine caught Devo pumping “Whip It” while passing by on a leisurely stroll to get water.

I, however, made it a point to catch the Canadian bands on offer at Coachella this year. Newmarket’s own Tokyo Police Club played a tight indie rock set on the main stage last Saturday, which I took in right at the front of the crowd so I could get the best look possible at my fellow Canadians making it big in California. Tokyo Police Club is a young band with only two LPs (and the EP that launched their careers) out on the market, but they’ve been successful enough to get slotted on the main Coachella stage at a set time late in the day when the grounds were teeming with what felt like all 75,000 concert-goers.

Toronto’s violin genius, Owen Pallett (formerly known as Final Fantasy), also made an appearance at Coachella this year, rocking a Sunday afternoon set while the sun beat down. Pallett, winner of the inaugural Polaris Prize in 2006 for the album He Poos Clouds, is an engaging performer as well as a sought-after arranger — he co-wrote the string parts on both Arcade Fire albums.

After the jump: How Canadian musicians went from Queen West bars to the main stage at Coachella, and why that's totally awesome.

Toronto’s Nightwood Theatre has a very clear mandate: to “forge creative alliance among women artists from diverse backgrounds in order to develop and produce innovative Canadian theatre.” The company’s upcoming fundraiser production of The Lawyer Show, which casts 28 members of the legal community as actors in an updated version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a natural extension of this mandate. While the cast is made up of both women and men, this production combines the talents of professional directors, designers and coaches with those of a diverse group of lawyer-actors to produce a truly original Shakespearean show.

The concept of creating a “lawyer show” isn’t new — Vancouver’s Touchstone Theatre, the Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa have all produced one — but Nightwood is the first Toronto theatre to jump on the bandwagon, and it’s a brilliant move. The show raises money for Nightwood by requiring cast members to purchase a certain number of tickets, which they then re-sell to family and friends. Everyone wins: Nightwood raises much needed cash, and the lawyers get a chance to shine on stage.

While this might sound like nothing more than a crass effort at fundraising, there is more to this endeavor than meets the eye. Nightwood’s award-winning artistic director, Kelly Thornton, is charged with the task of directing The Lawyer Show’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and she couldn’t be more enthusiastic about its value. After auditions were held, lawyers thanked her profusely just for the opportunity to try out for a role. During the audition process, Thornton pushed lawyers to be as silly as possible, and it sounds like they were all grateful for the artistic release.

After the jump: How now, spirit, are the lawyers doing with the Bard's material? And how will these new-found (or rediscovered) acting chops help in the cast member's day jobs?