Check out our Full List of Fringe reviews HERE and see below for my report from my first day of shows at the Toronto Fringe Festival.   Tachycardia (C-) The first show on my Fringe schedule fell victim to that very Fringe-y problem of artistically indulgent accidental silliness. Nadine Bhabha and Joel Edmiston begin the play […]

Soulpepper’s wildly successful 2013 production of Angels in America is onstage again this summer. After winning two My Theatre Awards in April (Best Actor- Damien Atkins & Best Director- Albert Schultz), the 6-hour epic lured us back to the Young Centre today for another round. Revisiting roles they played a little less than a year ago, […]

The Toronto Fringe Festival had 150 shows this year. We never had any hope of covering them all with our small but spirited staff of 4 but we were determined to come as close as we could. So, over the course of ten days, Kelly, Justis and Thea (with a 2-show assist from Marty and […]

 

Theatre 20 occupies a very specific and somewhat strange space in Toronto theatre. They produce work very rarely but, when they do, it’s event theatre- a big musical with a top-notch cast; something worth dressing up and hiring a babysitter for. Company is their biggest show yet. My favourite Sondheim piece, the contemporary musical’s complicated […]

 

Cineastas I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this Spanish-language exploration of the lives of filmmakers but what I found was a profoundly moving and wonderfully inventive piece of ensemble theatre. The cast was extraordinary in their versatility and emotional depth (Javier Lorenzo in particular pulled at my heartstrings in multiple roles) while the […]

I just spent an hour and a half with Shakespeare Bash’d Artistic Director James Wallis and his wife/collaborator Julia Nish-Lapidus. The conversation sprawled- I asked them what fans of their previous Fringe hits The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing could expect from their upcoming Love’s Labour’s Lost; they sung the praises […]

 

Please excuse the vulgarity of this review’s title; Kat Sandler‘s immersive dialogue has a tendency to catch on and affect my vocabulary for a few hours after I leave the theatre. The upsetting news is that, having just taken in her thrilling new work about three rough-edged foster brothers looking to break into the cockfighting […]

 

Canadian Stage’s Intermission is a new immersive event series inspired by the current programming of the company. Vol. I drew on Robert Lepage’s hit from last season, Needles and Opium, and the upcoming multi-media piece Helen Lawrence, using music and media to suggest the underground art scene of the 50s and 60s. The series seems […]