Before we announce the winners of the 2014 My Theatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Back with his second My Theatre Award nomination in a row, the chameleonic Jeff Lillico is not only one of our favourite actors, he’s one of the most highly regarded in the country with credits from every […]
Inner Monologue: “Do not talk about how period costumes and British accents on a proscenium stage is so boring and standard and Shaw Festival-y that you want to scream. Don’t talk about that, Kelly. Just move on, choose not to care this year, choose to get over it. Focus on the amusing captions that director […]
This was a fabulous season for the Shaw Festival. Out of ten productions, there was only one I thought just wasn’t very good (sorry, Juno). Everything else was a mix of the delightful, if common (Arms and the Man, The Philadelphia Story, most things at the Shaw), the astounding (The Mountaintop) and the inspiringly baffling […]
This is a very good season for The Shaw Festival. There isn’t a single truly bad production in the lot, Cabaret is making a splash, and The Mountaintop is a strong dramatic achievement. Among the more standard fare, Juno & the Paycock leaves something to be desired but everything else ranges from fairly to thoroughly […]
The strongest all-round cast of the Shaw season so far is about 70% of the reason that When We Are Married really works. Then there’s the 20% that comes down to the charming and insightful material itself (JB Priestley’s text is not groundbreaking but it is intimate, funny and sweet without being silly, which is […]
I don’t think we talk about Kate Hennig enough (related note: I saw her understudy in both Stratford shows last year and was thus Hennig-starved in 2013), so let’s talk about Kate Hennig a bit, shall we? In the Shaw Festival’s lunchtime show, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, four musical theatre actresses take on […]
Juno and the Paycock suffers from a simultaneous case of too much plot and too little, issues that do, counterintuitive though it may be, go hand in hand. Upon reading Belfast-raised Jackie Maxwell’s director’s note, I was intrigued by playwright Sean O’Casey’s Irish civil war drama. Unfortunately, the moments of war-torn tension and aching loss […]
I’m supposed to tell you that The Mountaintop is about Martin Luther King Jr.’s fictional encounter with a motel maid the night before he is assassinated. That’s not what The Mountaintop is about. I mean, technically, yes, that is what happens in the play but The Mountaintop is much much bigger than that. It’s just […]