Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. As set and lighting designer for immersive company Outside the March’s ambitious production of Annie Baker’s movie theatre-set The Flick, 5-time Outstanding Design nominee (and 2014 winner) Nick Blais problem solved and innovated on countless fronts […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Originally hailing from Edmonton, Amy Keating is a Toronto-based actor onstage (Mr Marmalade; Passion Play) and onscreen (Killjoys). A Dora award-winning co-founder of the Outside the March theatre company, she has appeared in many of their productions, […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards…
He appears suddenly, striding purposefully towards the corner of the stage and warily watching as the choir of thirty or so rehearse a piece under the direction of Claire (Raven Dauda). His presence is immediately unnerving – we know he’s going to do something terrible, but when, or what, and how will it involve these […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Jake Epstein is a Toronto-born actor and singer whose work has ranged from iconic Canadian TV (Degrassi: The Next Generation) to the Broadway stage (taking over the titular role in the much-written about Spider-Man: Turn off the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Originally from Calgary, Felix Beauchamp is a bilingual performer who has worked in both English and French across Canada both onstage and on film. His work extends into clown work and music as well: he’s a […]
Take a look at our full list of 2019 Fringe reviews HERE News Play (A-) Madeleine Brown has concocted another show with a unique, funny and disarmingly rich story. Siblings and Joy (Charlin McIsaac) and Phoebus (Greg Solomon), one a writer and the other an illustrator, are forced via lack of work, as well as blackmail, […]
Take a look at our full list of 2019 Fringe reviews HERE. The December Man (B+) This December will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, where fourteen women at École Polytechnique were murdered in an act of targeted, violent misogyny (their pictures line the wall of the Eastminster performance space). One question that […]
At first glance, magicians would seem to have it rough in the twenty-first century. No matter how much practice and skill goes into mastering a seemingly inexplicable trick, one whose origins may go back centuries, the audience’s wonder is more likely these days to be tempered by a quick google search, where a mercilessly quick […]
Two small, run-down apartments are the settings for two new George F. Walker plays, which taken together complete his Parkdale Palace Trilogy (begun with last year’s The Chance, which I must confess to not having seen), which are being staged at the Assembly Theatre in a double bill. Put on by Low Rise Productions and […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of SummerWorks Reviews Third World (B+) & ZAYO (A) Movement and stories of obstacles overcome merge in these two fascinating, viscerally performed dance pieces. dancer FLY LADY DI opens Third World with a brief, funny and insightful summary of her relationship to dance as a discipline. What […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Birds Make Me Think About Freedom (B+) This ensemble work is a powerful and powerfully collaborative look at the abusive history of multiple mental institutions in Ontario, from the 19th century to the closure of the remaining centres (of which there were sixteen in […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Anatomy of a Dancer (A-) Breakaway Entertainment are putting on an exuberant song and dance show about the life of Gene Kelly, careening through eleven pieces in under an hour that show off its talented troupe of young dancers. Robbie Fenton and Maddison Hayes-Crook, […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Moonstruck (A-) When an improv show is good, there’s really only so much you can really say in attempting to give it a review. The improvisers of Moonstruck (created by Sarah Hillier and Paloma Nuñez) are putting on an ecstatic, high-energy hour that ensures […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Everyone Wants a T-Shirt! (A-) Exuberant, absurdist and smart, this Prairie Fire, Please production is a hilarious satire of the modern millennial corporate dilemma. Written by Madeleine Brown, It tells the story of Beatrice Little (Brittany Miranda), a young woman whose failed pitch for […]
Trauma reverberates through a life in ways that are almost always unquantifiable, and it is a state that lends Bryony Lavery the title of her 1998 play, produced by Seven Siblings Theatre and onstage at the b current studio theatre in Artscape Wychwood Barns. All three characters are caught in an emotional paralysis, frozen as […]
On April 16th, 350 artists, arts administrators, arts critics, and arts everything else gathered at The Great Hall in Toronto to celebrate another year of creativity, ambition, talent, and hard work as we looked back on the productions that defined 2017 in Toronto Theatre. With help from sponsors like Dufflet Pastries and our generous patrons […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Outstanding Supporting Actress nominee Mamito Kukwikila is an actor, writer and producer who came to Toronto from London in 2014 and who has recently begun appearing onstage throughout the city. Her brief but affecting performance as Laura […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. While Andy Trithardt is an actor whose exciting and varied work has been visible on Toronto stages for awhile now, he’s also become increasingly relied upon for his sound design, which has become almost ubiquitous in […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. A performer in both theatre and film, Tennille Read is well-established on Toronto stages in works from writers such as Hilary McCormack and Kat Sandler. Along with Hilary Carroll, Michelle Langile, and Lesley Robertson, she co-founded […]
Bathroom intimacy is a key part of any romantic relationship. Worst opening sentence ever? I stand by it only because Filament Incubator’s production of Becky Tanton’s How to Drown Gracefully is often just as upfront (if more elegant) about its characters’ entwined romantic and physical sufferings, and it sets the whole thing, even in scenes […]
The social world envisioned by Oscar Wilde in his famous novel is overpopulated with vain and calculating social-climbers. It remains a merciless, appropriately florid thesis on how desire and vanity exist in tandem with artistic creation, almost inevitably corrupting the soul of both the artist and the subject of their art. In this updated adaptation, […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Hyena Subpoena (A-) Before the lights go down, the stage is set up as a campsite: a tent, a pile of wood for a fire, a thermos. And indeed, it often feels like Cat Kidd is telling us a kind of story over a […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Multiple Organism (A-) Puppetry, shadow-play, nudity, digital cameras, tooth brushes and breast-filled vistas all combine to make the most surprising and playful show I’ve seen at Fringe so far. Imagine if South Park were less about libertarian politics and more about the sexual adventures […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Self-Ish (B+) It says a lot about the strength of Diana Bang’s performance in this one-woman piece (and my shoddy pre-viewing research) that while I was watching it I assumed it to be an autobiographical work, pulled from the actor’s life. I have no […]
The lights go down, the famous crashing motif begins and the curtain immediately flies up to reveal the chapel of a massive Roman church, into which an escaped prisoner appears, searching for refuge. Giacomo Puccini’s famously sensational work cuts through all the introductory formality (no overture!) and instead plunges us straight into the drama, sparing […]