Stratford’s big flagship production this year is Chicago, promising programming for its darkness and modernity compared to the festival’s usual musical fare. With two leading female characters and a few great supporting ones, the musical also presented a great opportunity for the festival to highlight some overlooked talent and maybe even recruit some new stars. […]
Onstage at Oshawa’s Regent Theatre for four days only, this thrice-postponed iteration of a homegrown cult hit is a shaky attempt at commercial theatre production with community theatre limitations. I admire Mansfield Entertainment’s concept of bringing large-format theatre to a community that could use a serious arts infusion and the professional designation should mean that […]
We’ve been waiting for this one. The young Shakespeare enthusiasts who came up watching Slings & Arrows only to graduate into a decade of shy Shakespeare from the festival we were indoctrinated to adore, this is the production we’ve been waiting for. We wanted new blood, we wanted new ideas, we wanted someone under the […]
Gaslight The 1938 play that inspired the idiom “gaslighting” has dipped briefly into the public domain, allowing the Shaw Festival to commission Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson to adapt the story into this new version. It’s a clever thought, giving audiences the backstory behind such a ubiquitous concept (one that is very much not self-explanatory) […]
The landing page for all of our Shaw & Stratford Festival reviews from the 2022 season. Stay tuned as this page will update throughout the summer.
After a 2 year hiatus from writing reviews due to the pandemic, I was welcomed back by Driftwood Theatre’s Bard’s Bus Tour opening performance of King Henry Five. In keeping with the past few years, it was fitting that the show did not go off without a hitch. Due to weather conditions, the performance was forced […]
Every second of this vibrant new staging of Adler & Ross’ 1955 musical comedy about a team in need of a win is packed with delight. From stage magic that rivals anything in The Cursed Child to the thrill of rooting for a new star, The Shaw Festival’s Damn Yankees is the most fun I’ve […]
Everybody is the dream. If you ever hear someone question the goal of modernizing and diversifying the country’s biggest and most entrenched theatres, tell that person about Everybody. This production is why that forever and always struggle is important. Beyond just issues of fairness and the importance of representation, it’s important because real success means […]