Drama is where the Stratford Festival tends to swing for the fences, doubling down on heavy hitting actors playing incredible tragedy on big stages through brutal runtimes. A sampling of the dramatic plays in the 2019 Stratford season reveals some of the festival’s greatest strengths even as the drama gets harder and harder to witness. […]
After I saw Brigadoon, the Shaw Festival’s magical staging of a reimagined classic musical, I right away sat down to write about the experience. At least for me, the night I saw it, the mood I was in, Brigadoon was a fully contained theatrical moment about which I had plenty to say. Another staff writer […]
The Merry Wives of Windsor is an obtrusively fat play in many senses. With about 472 disparate characters and plot threads, it’s in desperate need of trimming. It also packs in more fat jokes than a fratty comic on twitter. It’s a gruesome, empty bit of silliness redeemable only by its surprisingly wily female characters […]
With the help of some of the best and brightest Shakespeare fans in the world, we’re diving deep into 38 plays in 35 episodes (Henrys IV & VI only get one episode a piece; sorry, Bill). In every episode of The Shakespeare Series, I’ll be joined by a different guest (or guests) to discuss a different play 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 […]
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 […]
Many Shakespeare plays present an imposing barrier to entry even for educated audiences. Directors devise increasingly inventive ways to make them accessible or relevant – or at least to have their own fun and leave their own mark on the work in the guise of doing this. Othello weds a simple plot, touching on familiar […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Elizabeth Saunders-Brown is a theatre director, teacher, writer and actor, known for her work on Slings and Arrows, Orphan Black, and Alias Grace, among others. She has been nominated for Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Play for her […]