There is no doubt that when Daniel MacIvor enters the stage, he does so with seasoned confidence. He appears a bit agitated while dressing the stage, a picture here, a nice scarf there, perhaps even pandering a bit to an audience that is eating it up, quick to laugh at his antics. The mood shifts […]
Minorities has a provocative set, mannequins placed across the back of the stage are costumed in various traditional Chinese clothing, with red duct tape placed across eyes, mouths and torsos. The backdrop is a large red screen with a projection of line drawn figures filling out a crudely constructed crowd featuring Chairman Mao in the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Frank Cox-O’Connell is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist who came up through the Soulpepper Academy and has gone on to help create some of the most interesting work in the last decade of Toronto theatre. He’s […]
Choreographer Crystal Pite’s work is always deeply thrilling—her ability to bring an audience into a transformed alternate reality is her trademark. In Revisor, her second collaboration with writer Jonathon Young, we are witness to a darkly surreal world that is presented to us both as farce and warning. Revisor is a militaristic period fantasy, heavy […]
What does it mean for a performer to take on a role? Prince Hamlet, Ravi Jain’s radical reframing of the Shakespeare classic remounted here by Canadian Stage and Why Not Theatre, juggles contradictory answers to that question. Jain describes his mission as “challeng[ing] what stories are being told and who gets to tell them”, which […]
Every season there are a few shows that diligent theatre-goers know not to miss. They come in various forms- remounts of proven hits, highly anticipated new works, sometimes a rarely produced text, or just a really well-cast classic- but they bring with them a sense of anticipation and a boatload of sky-high expectations. Right now […]
This can be a difficult time of year for people. The pressures of holiday shopping, the long days without much sunlight, work and family obligations, all conspire to ratchet up the pressure, especially for those who suffer from anxiety and depression. So it’s heartening to see Canadian Stage programming a show about depression that’s ultimately […]
Billed as “music theatre”, Njo Kong Kie’s first production in his residency with Canadian Stage is more of a concert with multimedia aspects than it is a piece of theatre. Inspired by his experiences picnicking in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, composer-pianist Njo Kong Kie cleverly uses this juxtaposition of life and death to create music that […]