Before we announce the winners of the 2015 MyTV and MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. The only 2015 performer nominated by two different branches, Christine Horne is up for both a MyTV and MyTheatre award this year for her season-stealing Guest Actress turn on the woefully cancelled Canadian medical drama Remedy and […]
Hatched begins with an iconic image, Mamela Nyamza, topless and back to the audience in a long clothespin tutu, strong and statuesque, beautifully silhouetted by the artistry of lighting designer David Hlatshwayo. The dance begins with Nyamza couruing en point across the stage, her back still to the audience and still beautifully silhouetted, her clothes […]
Written by Jane Taylor, directed by William Kentridge, and produced by the Handspring Puppet Theatre (War Horse), Ubu and the Truth Commission is a large scale production created by some of South Africa’s biggest names. Revived for the 2014 Grahamstown National Arts Festival in celebration of South Africa’s 20 years of democracy, Ubu and the […]
On the cusp of second wave feminism and nearly a decade into Apartheid rule, Athol Fugard created a female character that would, against all odds, defy the roles society would try to force her into. Queeny, played by Masasa Mbangeni, holds the center of the action while the remaining characters orbit around her. James Ngcobo, […]
A large paper scroll leads us up the stairs to the Berkeley Theatre. On the landing Mamela Nyamza is crouched on the floor, scrawling over and over “I must not have a big bum,” “I must not have a big bum”. As we continue up the stairs we can see how line-by-line the written form […]
Australian acrobatic company Circa has livened CanStage with a refreshingly new and desperately needed contemporary circus show. Opus is 75 non-stop minutes of circus feats, but also shows the audience a new side of modern circus. It was a difficult transition, it seemed, for many patrons to adjust their pre-show anticipation into respectful awe and […]
Canadian Stage’s annual Shakespeare in High Park (formerly known as Dream in High Park but apparently that was too confusing) is always fun for its picnic-under-the-stars tone, even if the plays are bad. Which is important, because this year’s productions aren’t exactly good. Neither is a complete loss- both Titus Andronicus and the slightly more […]
Canadian Stage’s Intermission is a new immersive event series inspired by the current programming of the company. Vol. I drew on Robert Lepage’s hit from last season, Needles and Opium, and the upcoming multi-media piece Helen Lawrence, using music and media to suggest the underground art scene of the 50s and 60s. The series seems […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2013 My Theatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Laura Condlln is the first person to make a third appearance in the Nominee Interview Series. A rare back-to-back-to-back nominee, Laura was first up for our Best Actress award for 2011’s Merry Wives of Windsor before becoming […]
There are two sides to assessing pretty much any contemporary theatre piece- there’s the play, and there’s this production of it. With the current Canadian Stage production of Nina Raine’s Tribes, this line becomes quite blurry. This is the Canadian premiere of a fairly young and wildly lauded text so one gets the sense that […]
Read Part I HERE. London Road (Canadian Stage) Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork’s verbatim musical is a strange beast. It tells a very docutheatre story in a very docutheatre way (which you know I’m not that into) but then incorporates another theatrical medium that stands generally on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from […]
I have no idea who Robert Lepage is. Shame on me. Well, I haven’t been all too familiar with any of the directors whose work I’ve discussed for this website – some famous, others not. It’s clear that my background is not in theatre. Lacking a refined perspective, I once again assert the minor (but […]
Both of CanStage’s current productions are contemporary one-act contemplations of female power as attained through sexuality (to put it as simplistically as I possibly could). In The Flood Thereafter, the mythological sirens are represented in the figure of Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster as a brash and modern young woman paid to unceremoniously remove her clothes once […]
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 […]
15 AUGUST 2012- I am about to watch a show directed by my favourite Canadian playwright (Morris Panych). The set is fascinating to me. I love absurdist drama, and the designer (Ken MacDonald) has made appropriately bold choices with this fantastical set that feels like an even larger than life version of a cute doll house. The […]