The Harold Experience This Assembly Improv show invokes the Harold Technique of audience participation to get suggestions from the crowd on which the theme of the show is based. The night I went, actors came down and bantered with the crowd, asking questions and making fast and funny connections between audience members until finally one […]
Pencil Kit Productions’ The Hungriest Woman in the World is certainly an interesting show. It bills itself as a ‘sexy and elliptical new play’ by Canadian poet and playwright Shannon Bramer. It follows a young woman – Aimee (Nora Jane Williams) – as she escapes from the loneliness and confusion of her own life into […]
I went back and forth on the title of this On Stage in TO roundup, the options being “small to big” and “best to worst” because both descriptions apply to the shows I’m about to discuss in the order in which I’m going to discuss them. Read into the pattern what you will- perhaps small, […]
In a strange and morbid way, Echo Productions has exceptional timing. Their debut of Charlie: Son of Man, a theatre production about the murders orchestrated by Charlie Manson, opened just two weeks after the icon died in prison. It is inconceivable that Echo Productions could have planned this but their play was perfectly timed for […]
A&R Angels is a story about two songwriting guardian angels who use their music to pull people back from the brink of suicide. Though late in their career, their music is failing to connect with people the way it used to. They only have a few chances left to prove they still can still be […]
My expectations were high going into Oleanna at Red Sandcastle Theatre. Grace Gordon and James McGowan are extremely accomplished both on stage and on TV. The play tackles very relevant material about power dynamics, authority and sexual harassment. Carol (Gordon), a young student, seeks to address her failing grades and confusion with course concepts by […]
Poison, currently on at The Coal Mine Theatre, is a story about two people. Actually, it’s a story about three people. We open on a man (Ted Dykstra) waiting in a lobby. Eventually, a woman (Fiona Highet) enters. There is immediate tension. What follows is a simple but heartbreaking story about grief. Originally written […]
I was at the opening night of actor-writer-comedian Daniel Stolfi’s Another Trip Around the Sun at The Bad Dog Theatre. The opening act for the night was improv duo Probably Pregnant (Lisa Gilroy and Natalie Metcalfe) who almost had us rolling off of our seats. A persistent Natalie begs Lisa to join her at the […]