Kiss Me, Kate is a tough piece. It requires actors not only to pull off Shakespearean text, but also to dance with expert skill and stretch their range with Cole Porter’s operatic score. It’s not beginner’s musical theatre. Therefore, The Longwood Players’ choice to present this classic is a bold choice. While Director Anna Waldron […]
I just spent an hour and a half with Shakespeare Bash’d Artistic Director James Wallis and his wife/collaborator Julia Nish-Lapidus. The conversation sprawled- I asked them what fans of their previous Fringe hits The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing could expect from their upcoming Love’s Labour’s Lost; they sung the praises […]
The A.R.T.’s and the OBERON’s The Donkey Show is old news; while a refreshing and imaginative retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream when it premiered in Boston in 2009, and though the appeal has not worn-off completely, the production is on its way out the door. In its place, the Boston theatre scene demands something […]
Two very different productions of two of Shakespeare’s most popular plays are currently gracing Toronto stages. One, a clever inside-baseball exploration of Twelfth Night, best suited to the sort of audience who has already seen the melancholy comedy too many times. The other a faithful bare-bones rendering of the bard’s most enduring tragedy, Romeo & […]
*sigh* It’s now been 2 years since Stratford put on a Shakespeare production truly worthy of the festival stage. Last year’s Cymbeline was pretty good and there are 2 near-great productions in this year’s lineup (Othello and Merchant of Venice) but nothing with the excitement of 2011’s fabulous Twelfth Night and thrilling Titus, or the […]
In live theatre, you know that anything can happen – props don’t work, actors skip a couple of lines, or segue into ad libs. It is what makes it exciting and fresh. When the live theatre is outdoors, the elements of chance are higher, from planes overhead drowning out lines to picnicking (drunken) audience members […]
There were 9 Shakespeare productions happening in and around Toronto this summer (that I know of). I missed only one of them (Mother Nature really didn’t want me to see The Taming of the Shrew, even though it was directed by one of my favourite theatre artists in town!). The best was Shakespeare Bash’d’s no-frills […]
The National Ballet of Canada is a fascinating place. It’s where national treasures like Karen Kain and Rex Harrington earned their world-renowned reputations and are now guiding the current wave of tremendous talent as Artistic Director and Artist-in-Residence. It’s home to some of Toronto’s most beloved performers, some of the world’s most talented dancers and […]