What can audio plays do that live in theatre plays cannot? As the pandemic as gone on and there is now a possible clear light at the end of this painful path, I continue to wonder about the future of theatre. Will there be a mainstream return to conventional live form of theatre in the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Sarena Parmar wrote Outstanding New Play nominee The Orchard (After Chekhov) based in part on her experience growing up on an orchard in British Columbia. The Cherry Orchard adaptation had its world premiere at the Shaw Festival […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Play nominee Shawn Ahmed was so good in The Orchard (After Chekhov) that I couldn’t wait until the end of the play to tell as many people as possible; I tweeted about him […]
Arguably the greatest challenge faced by a festival with as strict a mandate as The Shaw Festival’s “plays by Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, and plays about the period of Shaw’s lifetime” is the issue of relevance, or perhaps freshness is a more accurate word for the issue since I honestly believe you can find […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Arinea Hermans is a bright and bubbly triple threat straight out of theatre school. She’s already made an indelible mark on 2018 in the “Disney”-ish hit musical Rumspringa Break but what’s cool about her 2017 Outstanding […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Anyone who follows @MyEntWorld on twitter knows how obsessed I am with @AdrianShepski, the bold, irreverent, unapologetically silly account run by the hilarious Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski. It’s particularly fun, then, to see him in serious theatrical roles like […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. If you’ve been to the Shaw Festival in the last decade, you’ve probably seen the stunning Moya O’Connell play one of the great parts in the 19th/20th century canon- Hedda Gabler, Tracy Lord, Maggie the Cat, even the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. The acting company at The Shaw Festival is second to none because of stalwart all-stars like Patrick McManus. Usually you have to travel to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the privilege of seeing Patrick in productions like 2016’s Outstanding Ensemble-nominated Our Town […]
People, especially non-millennials, love to talk about millennials. We’ve been dissected, scrutinized and written about to truly remarkable extents. The latest Survivor season was all about examining what makes us different and pitting us against our predecessors Generation X (a millennial won, by the way; is it so millennial of me to point that out?). […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. There are many reasons to make the trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake to visit the Shaw Festival; the opportunity to see Outstanding Supporting Actress nominee Marla McLean perform is one of the very best of those reasons. Natural, empathetic, and preternaturally […]
I’m calling the Shaw Festival’s Uncle Vanya a “must-see” without having really seen it. I’ve attended the show twice and can, by cobbling some pieces together, confidently say it’s the brightest light of their generally disappointing season. But I’ve never seen it the way you will see it if you do as you’re told and […]
Following a successful run at the Chichester Festival Theatre, a trilogy of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s plays (adapted by David Hare) are now showing at the National Theatre in London. Regarded as the first of his four major plays, The Seagull is an interesting commentary on the struggle to create ‘the new’ against the obstinacy […]
Toronto Theatre is killing it so far in 2016. Here’s the lowdown on the latest, starting with the best. Mustard (Tarragon Theatre) The first non-indie offering from indie Toronto’s most prolific mainstay is a great introduction for the many unfortunate individuals who have managed to make it this far without seeing a Kat Sandler play. […]
The Broadway comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, written by Christopher Durang and directed by Jessica Stone (based on the original Broadway direction of Nicholas Martin) is a fun modern romp peppered with Chekhov references and further seasoned with tomfoolery and nostalgia. Two siblings, Vanya (Martin Moran) and the adopted Sonia (Marcia DeBonis), […]
Chris Abraham knows how to assemble a cast. The Seagull- his latest production for Crow’s Theatre, currently playing at the Berkeley- sports the director’s most perfectly constructed ensemble yet with some of Canada’s greatest actors each playing their strongest notes with a key lack of background noise to distract from Chekhov’s incisive story about art and […]
As you likely already know (because we talk about it All The Time), earlier this month we hosted Toronto’s inaugural My Theatre Awards ceremony. The awards have been around since 2010, but this was the first party. Because it was the first party, it took a ton of planning. In the process of all said […]
Chekhov wrote The Seagull over a hundred years ago for a Russian audience longing to laugh in the misery of their daily lives. This month, the Huntington Theatre Company brings this classic to their stage with a keen sensitivity to Chekhov’s purpose. While some reviewers and audience members may disagree, I found the play wonderfully […]