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 […]
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 […]
This season’s Shaw Festival programming on the Royal George Theatre’s iconic proscenium stage showcases a strong assortment of styles and themes ranging from trademark execution of a Shaw classic, to a freshly adapted childhood favourite, hyper-stylized Chinese fable, and a noir vision of a twisty whodunnit. As current Artistic Director Tim Carroll continues to […]
2023 isn’t the Shaw Festival’s strongest season but the floor is really high out in Niagara-on-the-Lake and even a so-so season that’s getting a bit eclipsed by Stratford’s best work in years is still full of some really great theatre. CLICK HERE to read about the shows in the Spiegeltent & Outdoors at the […]
When the Court House Theatre closed in 2017 and the Shaw Festival downgraded to just three formal venues, the easy assumption was that the festival would accordingly shrink. On the contrary, the expansion of programming in the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre has kept the average mainstage number around 10 or 11 every summer while current […]
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 […]
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. […]