Posts by: Nicholas Leno

“This river I step in is not the river I stand in,” postal worker Albert Jackson reads from a sign on his daily route; what feels like a misplaced line of poetry soon sets up an entire performance. The Postman, based on the trials and tribulations of Toronto’s first black postal worker Albert Jackson, is a show that of…

A note from Hayley: Nick and I have wanted to do a joint review for a while now. We were fortunate to both be free last week to see Annabel Soutar’s new piece The Watershed, playing at Canadian Stage as part of PANAMANIA. Keeping in kind with the play itself, which played with the use of Skype, Facebook chat and emails…

“This story is not going to be real, but it’s going to be really felt,” Ravi Jain, Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre, says in a hokey Indian accent, imitating his grandfather. Dropping the accent Jain goes on, “Stories help us discover our future, and connect us to our past.” Gimme Shelter, playing at the Young Cent…

When I first heard that Robert Lepage had written, directed, and would perform a one-person show for the PANAMANIA Festival about his life growing up in Québec, the first word that came to my mind was – dare I say it? – indulgent. “An entire show about Lepage, by Lepage?” I thought to myself. “Should I buy a biography…

One of the best parts about covering the St. Catharines theatre scene is being able to see both the germination of a production and the work of friends and colleagues at the same time. When Essential Collective Theatre popped up on Facebook with a new show titled Senior Stories and a list of senior citizens homes they…

Chris Abraham returns to Stratford’s Festival Theatre with another unique take on one of Shakespeare’s classics. After witnessing cross-gender casting and queer romances in Chris’ interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year, I phoned him up to get the 411 on his new production of The Taming of the Shrew. Mean…

Ashes to Ashes; dust to dust; Pinter what are you trying to tell us? Stray Theatre takes on a double bill in what makes for a dark and slightly depressing Sunday afternoon in the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre. Retired Brock University Professor Peter Feldman directs both productions, hitting audiences with Pinter…