Coming off the exceptional one-two punch of August’s Mary’s Wedding/Murder for Two, I was excited to return to Gananoque’s Thousand Islands Playhouse for a second set of shows as they close out their 2024 season. Unfortunately the combination of Jesus Christ Superstar and Arun Lakra’s Sequence proved less of a slam dunk than what I’ve […]
Despite the Assembly Theatre’s proscenium setup and the show’s relatively conservative (though definitely present, fair warning) use of audience participation, 13 Plays About ADHD All At the Same Time is an immersive experience. The first work in a long time from one of the city’s most interesting creative minds, 13 Plays is writer/director Alec Toller’s […]
Co-written by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan and directed by Lauzon, and originally produced in 2022 at the Stratford Festival, this Canadian Stage remount depicts the story of a fictional residential school in Northern Ontario in 1939. An English teacher, anticipating a visit by King George VI, enlists her students in a production of All’s […]
Theatre As fall formally begins and the major Toronto theatre companies launch into their 2024/25 seasons, two star-studded and atmospheric tragedies take centre stage. Each directed by their host company’s reliably inspiring artistic director, Crow’s Theatre’s Rosmersholm (Chris Abraham) and Buddies in Bad Times’ Roberto Zucco (ted witzel) both offer short but heady translations […]
Once again this season, as is often the case, the strongest pieces at the Shaw Festival reside in the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre. Directed by Philip Akin, The House That Will Not Stand is a complex and moving mandate-era exploration of freedom and family. Written in 2014, Marcus Gardley’s New Orleans-set drama explores an […]
My favourite Stratford production so far* this year is undoubtedly The Diviners, Verne Thiessen & Yvette Nolan’s grand adaptation of Margaret Laurence’s novel of the same name. Staged with beautiful fluidity by Krista Jackson with Geneviève Pelletier, the production contains some of the season’s grandest celebration and its quietest tenderness. The great Irene Poole […]
For the past few seasons, my favourite programming at the Shaw Festival has been Outdoors at the Shaw, a somewhat informal series of concerts and variety shows the bulk out the mainstage programming. These performances would take place across the festival grounds, at the outdoor BMO stage, and, starting last season, at the fun and […]
The Shaw Festival’s mainstage programming this year runs the full gamut from the best in the biz to completely disappointing. At the top of the heap, the most reliable man in Canadian Theatre- Crow’s Theatre artistic director Chris Abraham- takes on the ridiculous farce of One Man, Two Guvnors. It’s a nonsense script full […]