Though indie theatre is still scrambling to exist, Toronto’s mid-tier theatre scene finally feels well and truly alive again. This April was the first time since early 2020 that there were so many openings that critics had to pick and choose and I’m thrilled to report that I haven’t seen a bad thing all season. […]
Touting an 8+ year development process, countless participating artists, and the longest list of donors and grants I’ve ever heard, the Shaw Festival’s long-awaited presentation of Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata premiered yesterday with a double header of its two parts: Karma and Dharma. Everything about the way Mahabharata is being presented feels like the […]
At about the fifteen minute mark of seeing this show, a thought crossed my mind that whined, “Oh (insert expletive) me, is this gonna be art with a capital (insert expletive) A?” But what I found myself instead was a state of deep intimacy, emotional connection and an environmental love. From the theatre performance group […]
The libretto (Hedwig Lachmann) to Richard Strauss’ Salome is loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name. The iconic artists added their own exceptional flair to a barebones bible story where we don’t even have a name for the girl known only as the daughter of King Herod and Herodias. Early historians would […]
Alice in Wonderland in all of its iterations has primarily focused on Wonderland being a mental representation of Alice and her current situations. Whether it was from the original story about Alice embracing the nonsensical and learning to question, or the American McGee games that took Wonderland and Alice to more mature/darker realms of living […]
If you believe a hair salon an unlikely place to find community, you’d be wrong. In fact, in Trey Anthony’s iconic play ‘da Kink in my Hair, directed by Weyni Mengesha, it’s even more than that: it’s a place of healing, a forum where the vulnerable or voiceless step into the spotlight for a moment. […]
The expansion of the Shaw Festival season to include a duo of holiday shows every December has proven to be a truly winning innovation. The mini-season in the winter forms a welcome bridge between the festival’s regularly scheduled April-October season and makes the company feel like a full year player rather than a summer getaway. […]
On stage until December 18th in a well-cast and capable production at Crow’s Theatre, Lolita Chakrabarti’s Red Velvet tells a fictionalized account of the life of Ira Aldridge, one of the first Black actors to become a prominent Shakespeare performer. The production is a testament to Crow’s heads up approach to casting within the […]