In my opinion, Parade, as a text, is a grand achievement in musical theatre. The fact that it is only Jason Robert Brown’s second (arguably third) best work is therefore astounding but we’re not here to discuss the composer or Alfred Uhry’s book (again). StageWorks Toronto was coming off of Urinetown when they chose Parade and […]
I went to see Wild Dogs on the Moscow Trains because I really enjoyed Anthony MacMahon’s script for The Frenzy of Queen Maeve at last year’s festival and was looking forward to seeing My Theatre Award nominee Ewa Wolniczek perform another of his pieces. To my surprise and delight, I found that Wild Dogs is […]
Just one more, I promise. This is the last one. And I promise this one is nice. This one is really nice. Because this was the thing I liked. This was the Only thing I legitimately really liked over the course of the entire Fringe Festival without previously liking the company, the text, the director […]
After two instalments of highly critical Fringe complaining (Part 1, Part 2– my colleagues were much nicer), I have two productions left to discuss. One was pretty good but not as great as I wanted it to be, one was one of the highlights of the year in theatre so far. But what they share is the participation of artists […]
Click Here to read Part One of my Fringe 2013 saga. Fuck Shakespeare sounded like something I might like. It was about a playwright (I love stories about writers; I generally find that writers do a good job writing them- who’dathunk?) and supposedly incorporated Shakespeare somehow. That’s more than enough reason than I need to […]
As soon as I sat down in the Annex Theatre for my first-ever Toronto Fringe experience, I realized that I had already made my first Fringe mistake. I failed to select a seat that would allow for an easy escape. Striding across the stage in the middle of a performance in order to leave is neither a good idea […]
The two most recent productions in Soulpepper’s 2013 season have been lively re-interpretations of texts that can only be described as classics. The first, Michael O’Brien and John Millard’s anachronistic take on Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, was a goofy romp-like good time and little more. The sublime pleasure of having the great Dan Chameroy […]
I seem to have terrible luck with The Toronto Fringe Festival. Actually, let me amend that: some years I have terrible luck with The Toronto Fringe Festival. I seem to remember 2011 being just full of win. 2013? Not so much. I caught more bad breaks in my attempts to cover this year’s festival than […]