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…

While viewing the Stratford Festival’s production of All My Sons by Arthur Miller, at one moment I found myself on the edge of my seat, the next on the brink of sleep. Though the script is chock-full of gripping tension, shocking deceit, and skeletons in the closet, the structure of the show is like that of a ping-pong…

Talking lions, beavers, and fauns, oh my! Brace yourselves for an evening of spine-tingling magic, ancient prophesies, and extraordinary creatures — The Stratford Festival and director Tim Carroll’s production of C.S Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe will awaken your inner child and your imagination. Members…

Playing this season at the Stratford Festival, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s A Little Night Music is dazzling and decadent but is short on a little, well, music — or at least, in some cases, a little musical prowess. A light-hearted romp through the romantic lives of Swedish high society at the turn of the 20th c…

“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…

Sarah Bradford writes: No talk of kings and queens, nor of heroes and dastardly villains — the Shaw Festival’s 2016 production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town places a spotlight on ordinary people in an extraordinary way. Director Molly Smith strips to its essence an American classic about life, love, and death. Dr. Gibb…

St.Catharines’ annual In The Soil Arts Festival 2016 was a weekend full of brilliant Canadian talent and a resounding passion for the arts. This year ITS co-produced a one-of-a-kind theatre experience created by DopoLavoro Teatrale (DLT) entitled That Ugly Mess That Happened in St. Catharines. The 72-hour show engages…

Despite this being the DARTcritics third year covering the RHIZOMES at the In the Soil Arts Festival, trying to review such a diverse collection of interactive exhibits remains a challenge.  Made up of short performances, art installments, and presentations from local artists — housed for the 2016 festival in the Maril…

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…

Rarely have I seen such intricacy in the interweaving of artistry and topicality as in the thundering whisper that is Quote Unquote Collective’s Mouthpiece. Playing this weekend at the in the Robertson Theatre as part of St Catharines’ In the Soil Arts Festival, Mouthpiece appears to tell the story of one woman’s attem…