Spoiler-free Review   Annie Baker is one of America’s greatest living playwrights, a master of naturalistic contemporary storytelling rife with mysterious spirituality and painfully honest but sugarless emotion. You should run to the Coal Mine just for the privilege of seeing her work, let alone seeing her work thoughtfully presented by a fantastic trio of […]

I’ve really missed rom coms. I enjoy alt indies with a hip ironic spin or whatever we’re calling things to avoid using the phrase “romantic comedy” these days but I love an honest to god oldschool rom com- those candy-coloured, big-kitchened, unapologetically earnest studio things sometimes called “chick flicks” that are so good at sniffing […]

 

I rewrote the title of this article about four times. I worry that the one I settled on is misleading- it sounds like an old timey newspaper headline declaring that the new production from Unit 102 Actor’s Company misses the mark- but everything else I came up with was a pun or just generally stupid […]

 

There’s profundity in boredom, or at least that’s what most Waiting for Godots seem to argue. It’s an impossibly dull play to watch, purposefully so; the theatre usually has at least one groaner, one snorer and maybe a blunt high schooler or two complaining that it’ll all start again after intermission and nothing’s likely to […]

 

Melora Hardin is always in charge. Known as the hard-ass from corporate always squashing the Scranton Office hijinks, Sarah Pfefferman’s uncompromising ex on Transparent, and the high-end event planner keeping Brian Austin Green’s Wedding Band in line, Hardin has made a career as an authority figure who says no to pretty much everything and never […]

 

It’s time, once again, for the On DVD series featuring new releases from Paramount & 20th Century FOX.  Criminal Minds (The Twelfth Season) Season twelve was something of a watershed year for the stalwart FBI drama. It was the first season without fan favourite heartthrob Shemar Moore (he guests in the season finale but that’s it) and the […]

Party Today (Panic Tomorrow) is an apt name for The Second City Toronto’s silliest and least political mainstage show in a few cycles. There are moments when the bold political humour that made the last revue so impactful shows back up (Brandon Hackett makes a police brutality joke out of nowhere and its lack of […]

 

I was really hard on the Stratford productions I didn’t like this year but it was actually a pretty strong season and the things that were good were Really good. This is them.   Tartuffe Director Chris Abraham’s instinct to present classic texts in a contemporary setting is one of my top five favourite Chris […]