My expectations were high going into Oleanna at Red Sandcastle Theatre. Grace Gordon and James McGowan are extremely accomplished both on stage and on TV. The play tackles very relevant material about power dynamics, authority and sexual harassment. Carol (Gordon), a young student, seeks to address her failing grades and confusion with course concepts by […]
How We Are (Workshop Production) Written with complex, moving insight by Polly Phokeev and directed with sensitivity and detail by Mikaela Davies, How We Are explores the consequences of taking a friendship to the next level. A drunken night between two best friends (played by Sochi Fried and Virgilia Griffith, both brave, exposed and extraordinary) […]
A Mamet play is all about the language. Everything you need to know is right there in the half sentences and blustering speeches, the interruptions, the curses, that strange combination of grandiosity and hyper-realism. In the slice-of-life one-act Lakeboat– with the exception of Stephen Macdonald, whose leading performance as a sensitive recruit is marked far more […]
Creditors (Coal Mine Theatre) The final piece in Coal Mine Theatre’s fantastically successful inaugural season is a dark domestic drama from August Stringberg set in a 19th century world of rampant misogyny and even more rampant psychotic jealousy. The solid production benefits greatly from director Rae Ellen Bodie’s background in dialect coaching (there’s a clarity […]
With the weather warming up and city-dwellers coming out of hibernation, the Toronto theatre community is providing plenty of places for them to go. You could head down Yonge Street to see Once (starring the always likeable Ian Lake) or to The Annex for The LOT’s Hairspray (with the amazing Matt McKay as Seaweed) then […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2013 My Theatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Motor-mouthed scene stealer Jordan Pettle is one of the most consistently entertaining performers in the impressive Soulpepper stable. His immense charm and indefatigable stage presence infuse every show he’s in with enough energy to save even […]
Mamet is a fantastic playwright; one of my favourites. His work is dark and invasive but also incredibly funny. In the right hands, Mamet can be extraordinary to watch or, rather, listen to. He writes in incomplete thoughts, long-winded musings, and abrupt expletives- essentially, he writes how we talk. At least the fast-talkers, he writes […]