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Plays (And Audiences) In Their Infancy | Sprouts performers Richard Lee, Jesse Gervais, Ashley Ball, and Simone Saunders help put five new theatre pieces for kids on their feet.

SIX NIGHTS AT THE THEATRE!
Crix Pix Six Tix
If you’re a theatre lover on a budget, you probably know already that Six Tix is one of your greatest allies: it’s a pass that admits you to six upcoming plays by six of Edmonton’s top theatre companies for a bargain price of $90. Kick off the 2009-2010 season by attending Northern Light Theatre’s Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen, and then you can sample The Dazzle at Shadow Theatre, Catalyst Theatre’s remount of Nevermore, and world premieres of Mark Stubbings’ Dry the Rain, and the Teatro la Quindicina musical Everybody Goes to Mitzi’s. Call TIX on the Square at 420-1757 for full info.

FIVE PLAYWRIGHTS!
Putting The “Todd” In “Toddler”
The Sprouts Festival (Stanley A. Milner Library Theatre, June 13-14, 1pm) is eight years old, and so are many of the people who’ll be in the audience, listening to staged readings of five new plays for kids. Julie Golosky has written a musical about a girl whose singing voice helps save the Northern Lights, Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull combines theatre and origami in his fable about two mice battling evil, and the Journal’s Todd Babiak has a tale of a mime who learns to speak. Sounds fun; plus, if you want to recruit someone to write for kids, why not go with a playwright whose name sounds like “toddler” and “baby”?

SEVENTH CIRCLE OF HELL!
Tony Tantrum
The Tony Awards were broadcast Sunday night, and Arts News feels like ranting. Not about Billy Elliot winning 10 Tonys, including Best Musical — it looks like a decent enough show, although Next to Normal seems more compelling — but about the terrible job the producers did of selling Broadway to the home audience. Would it have killed them to axe the numbers from Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys to make room for some scenes from the nominated plays? And we’re praying Bob Baker never succumbs to the temptation to bring Shrek to The Citadel — even the two-minute clip of that show was unendurable.