I’m picky when it comes to holiday traditions- the market is too crowded, turkey is dry, and I really think George Bailey needs to learn to control his temper. But I very quickly attached to the tradition of the Shaw Festival’s Christmas Carol + festive musical two-show day. Throw in a stroll down Niagara-on-the-Lake’s picturesque […]
The National Ballet of Canada’s 2025/26 season is off to a strong start with a pair of contrasting productions that showcase the company’s range and up-and-coming stable of talent, though one is far more inspiring than the other. First at bat was what’s sure to be the season MVP (I saw it the night […]
Shrek the Musical (Young People’s Theatre) Young People’s Theatre’s production of Shrek the Musical is lean, green, and utterly joyful. It’s one of the biggest productions in the company’s 60-year history and that investment pays off with a strong ensemble, William Layton’s vibrant set design, and an overall high standard of production that could easily […]
The trouble with adapting most children’s books is that they are very light on plot. Niagara’s Carousel Players’ two-person production of Where the Wild Things Are (originally adapted for the stage by TAG Theatre in Glasgow) suffers from this problem- it’s only 65 minutes long and still feels like they’re filling for time. What felt […]
When we watch Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at the Canadian Opera Company, we are offered more than a simple narrative — we’re invited into a space of ritual and reflection. Christophe Gayral’s staging (originally conceived by Robert Carsen in 2011) evokes how I imagine an ancient Greek tragedy performed: stripped of excess, yet […]
This much-maligned production I think gets a bad rap that’s only partially deserved. There’s a lot that it gets right, it’s just that what it gets wrong it gets very wrong and those things are super distracting (and unhelpfully weighted towards the end, making them more memorable). I’ve long been a fan of the […]
I try to review the full Stratford season every year and, with very few exceptions, have done so with great consistency since 2010 (I missed the 2022 late openers and I think a Henry VIII at some point?). This year I’m supposed to be on maternity leave but the thought of missing out completely just […]
A very strong ensemble of some of Shaw’s (and Canada’s) best highlight this strange(r than usual) Will Eno show, an adaptation of Ibsen’s epic Peer Gynt that falsely claims you don’t need to know the original to follow along. You absolutely need to know the original in order to feel rooted at all in this […]