It isn’t often that a play begins with a three-minute sequence of a man making a sandwich, and ends up becoming one of the most touching pieces of theatre you can imagine. Essential Collective Theatre’s production of The Drawer Boy, directed by Monica Dufault and written by Michael Healey, brings us back to the summer…
A haunting opening number asks us to “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd,” and attend it we did, with pleasure. The Shaw Festival’s production of Sweeney Todd, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler, and directed by Jackie Maxwell, transforms the Festival Theatre into the gritty underbelly of Lond…
What do you get when you mix the tale of Romeo and Juliet with a touch of Twelfth Night’s Viola, and then the story of Shakespeare himself? A smorgasbord of laughs, tears, and exploding ovaries. Directed by Declan Donnellan, Stratford Festival’s North American premiere of Shakespeare in Love is a witty, and surprisingl…
Dayna Tietzen as Cassie. Photography by David Hou. A five, six, seven, eight! As a musical theatre buff, I brought high expectations to this show, and it fan-kicked them all the way into the balcony. A Chorus Line was one of the first musicals I fell in love with in high school, and I spent hours pirouetting (badly) ar…
Imagine if you will, racism, colonialism, sexism, imperialism…and any other “ism” you could possibly imagine being tackled in just one short hour. I give you the world premiere of The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, which presents controversial subject matter with brutal honesty and more than a litt…
“And what’s a woman worth? What’s life worth? Without self-respect!” These questions are posed in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, directed at the Shaw Festival by Eda Holmes. Sex work and feminism, two of the show’s themes, are hot-button topics in 2016—I can only imagine the taboos against them when the play was first perfo…
Hayley Malouin (Jean) and Nicola Franco (Emma). Photos by Kendra Neaves. What do frogs, shoes, veal, and shampoo have in common? Besides the obvious answer (absolutely nothing), they make up some of the hysterical elements of Refraction Theatre Collective’s production of At Wit’s End. Showing at the Robertson Theatre d…
Trophy at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche. For many, the prospect of sharing intimate stories of their life with complete strangers could be daunting — listening to these strangers tell their very personal stories may also fill you with apprehension. Facing this discomfort is the premise of STO Union’s Trophy, playing at the an…
