Who knows where it’ll go but the pilot of ABC’s new sitcom Speechless was one of the strongest comedy debuts I’ve seen in ages. Simultaneously championing inclusion and skewering those who loudly champion inclusion, the latest from producer Scott Silveri is a delightful middle finger to hypocrisy while also serving simply as a fun family […]
Kill Your Parents in Viking, Alberta (Storefront Arts Initiative & Blood Pact Theatre) A vibrant, fraught, fast-paced new tragi-comedy from playwrights Bryce Hodgson & Charlie Kerr, the oddly named Kill Your Parents in Viking, Alberta plays out in real-time in the kitchen of young mother Susan (Allie Dunbar, hilarious in her immovability) as she attempts […]
The Second City’s latest mainstage revue is as honest as it is funny, as biting as it is charming, and as surprising as it is (mostly) consistent. Every member of the cast brings a different style and point of view to the table, all hilarious in their own right but especially effective together. Created […]
There’s still a lot we don’t know about Pamela Adlon’s new half hour show on FX but I’m pretty sure it’s already great. We know she’s one of Louie CK’s most consistent and trusted collaborators (she played his love interest on both Louie and Lucky Louie) and they’re making this show together (he directed the […]
Tennessee Williams’ semi-autobiographical memory play about a regretful Southern Belle and the miserable adult children who’ve grown up on her repetitive tales of questionable glory days is one of the playwright’s greatest poetic achievements and the piece that made his name when it premiered in 1944. Tom Wingfield’s nostalgic monologues that frame the flashback action […]
Sean Patrick Flanery wrote a novel. Do you know who Sean Patrick Flanery is? Around the turn of the century, he was tied for first place as my favourite Sean Patrick in Hollywood (the other was Sean Patrick Thomas; remember him?). Flanery was the love interest in a ridiculous 1999 romantic comedy called Simply Irresistible. […]
It’s time, once again, for the On DVD series featuring new releases from Paramount Home Distribution and Elevation Pictures. The Movies Everybody Wants Some– I was shocked by how much I loved this slice-of-life period comedy by Richard Linklater. A charming boy ensemble of baseball players during the first week of college in 1980 with one of the year’s […]
“Master Harold”… and the Boys This South African-set one-act by Athol Fugard takes a long time to get going but, once it does, it’s a gut punch. The idea is that James Daly’s charming brat Hally is super chummy with the two black men who work at his family’s diner (his parents are offstage dealing […]