In the span of 3 hours, you get six calls. Six calls ranging about ten minutes. Some of these calls you may interact in and some you may just listen. This is your theatrical experience. Theatre delivered over the phone to you. Stories created for this time of shutdown and distancing delivered to your designated […]
Pearle Harbour’s Chautauqua- presented at Theatre Passe Muraille, written and performed by Justin Miller in his Critics’ Pick Award-winning role- is what’s been missing in theatre. With the political climate, we are starving for a noble leader and Pearle Harbour steps up to fill that role. The show is set in a mid-century wartime tent, similar to what […]
A theme you will find in my reviews of Luminato shows is that I tend to feel like the festival is not really for me. I have fairly conventional theatre taste and fairly passive political beliefs (at least among the liberal consensus of my community) so Luminato’s artsy, brazen, avant-garde vibe is really just not […]
In & Of Itself, currently playing at the Daryl Roth Theatre until the end of 2017, may be the smartest, most surprising, and most personal show that I have ever had the privilege of seeing, or more appropriately, of being a part of. Members of the audience are participants, to varying degrees, just as much […]
Sarah Marchand and Matt Jones have collaborated to write and create a theatre ASMR experience: the show incorporates elements of ASMR (in both performance and social media) while telling the story of a young woman battling insomnia and anxiety. If you haven’t heard of it, ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It’s the soothing […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of SummerWorks Reviews Situational Anarchy (A) This was a very succesful SummerWorks and a lot of the credit for that goes to the vast array of excellent storytelling shows. Graham Isador’s evocative punk rock solo show is yet another strong showing in that category. Filled with rage […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Weird: The Witches of Macbeth (A) Absolutely exquisite and mind blowing in its execution, Weird is the story of Macbeth as told from the perspective of the three witches. This play is a visual treat, with the three actresses performing arial stunts throughout the […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Knots (A) It’s a big task keeping an audience engaged at 10:30pm but Lucy Meanwell and Jake Runeckles have no problem doing that whatsoever in their show Knots. You might think a show about a topic as broad as knots sounds too experimental – […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Blind to Happiness (A) An absolute must see. Tim C Murphy shines as a socially awkward dishwasher, an aspiring poet/line cook, and a PhD Psych student, breathing life and depth into each character, as well as many off stage ones as well. He immediately […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Bitesized (A-) As the opening monologue states, this is a show about things you love. It’s also about harder subjects (the environment, our treatment of native peoples, sexy Justin Trudeau). Through 16 short plays, the talents of this troupe are apparent – showcased are […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews Happiness™ (A-) A tight, impressively choreographed number about two travelling salesmen selling, you guessed it, happiness. Impressive performances from both cast members – Tony Adams and Cory Thibert are able to navigate through tricky subject matter and ranges of emotions with ease, drawing us into […]
Immersive theatrical experiences rely heavily on setting to properly integrate theatregoers into the action of the show. It is a bit like rounding up sheep for the actors and designers who need to direct the attention of patrons to specific areas of a room without confining people to chairs.* AccousticaElectronica, a theatrical experience originally developed […]
An experience like no other is taking place at the Ovalhouse Theatre. Invisible Treasure has no script, no actors and no plot. Dan Barnard and Rachel Briscoe’s creation focuses on the use of technology. It is an interactive “performance” of sorts where the spectators make up the story. It brings together complete strangers in an […]
“You have a brave heart and a beautiful soul and it can be clearly seen by anyone who bothers to look closely” is (loosely paraphrased) one of the last things Rebecca Northan said to her co-star at Tuesday’s performance of Blind Date at Tarragon Theatre. I don’t know if she says that every time- the […]
Click Here for our full coverage of the 2015 SummerWorks Festival. An Evening in July (A-) The outdoor square and refreshment room of St. George the Martyr Anglican Church in Grange Park are currently littered with recognizable objects from a bygone era: a Country Life magazine from June of 1963, a dead carriage clock, a […]
Click Here for our full coverage of the 2015 SummerWorks Festival. That Syncing Feeling (A) This interactive event is really two pieces tied together by your cell phone. The first, “Tethered Together” is a celebration of communication and intimacy as participants are guided into an anonymous confessional conversation with another audience member via text message. […]
Get lost down the rabbit hole, immerse yourself in the madness and enter the freakishly wonderful world of Alice. Hidden away in the Waterloo Vaults, a beautiful and unique experience has been created as Les Enfants Terribles explore Lewis Carroll’s timeless novel. Alice’s Adventures Underground is an interactive theatrical piece consisting of a maze of […]
Click Here for the Full List of our 2015 Toronto Fringe Reviews. Let’s Start a Country! (B+) This show is a fun, interactive piece in which Gerard Harris and Al Lafrance build a new micro-country with their audience. Part civics lesson, part parody, you get to name your country, choose a flag, construct basic laws, […]
You should really crack a beer before reading this review. Or two. Here are the rules: – Take a drink every time I use a period. – Two drinks if I insert a footnote.* – Finish your drink if I manage to arbitrarily incorporate the name of a complex math problem into this review.*** How […]
In 1926, Bertolt Brecht, the innovative German theatre director (and playwright, and theorist), spoke about the future of theatre, saying simply, “we pin our hopes to the sporting public.” Imaging traditional theatre as a sinking ship, he dreamed of a world where people get as excited about theatre as they do about, say, a basketball […]
Beertown. I know what you are thinking. It’s either a magical land or the name you gave the part of the restaurant that you “annexed” last Thursday night during Happy Hour after you finished a beer tower all by yourself. You are absolutely right (about the magic – I saw nothing last Thursday, I promise). […]
After seeing a total of seven productions at this years SummerWorks theatre festival in Toronto, I decided to grade my reactions on an ascending scale. This began with two shows that somehow either went over my head or never really near it at all: Show and Tell Alexander Bell and Entitlement in Part 1, followed […]
This looks awesome. Why am I not going to be in Toronto for this?! Why?! Why? Waaaaah. Okay, I’m done whining—while you’re probably scratching your head going, “I don’t even know what you’re whining about yet. Explain, please”. Oh, my darling reader, you’re so polite—anything for you. ZED.TO is an interactive theatre experience in various locales […]
I wasn’t in The American Repertory Theatre’s (A.R.T.) acclaimed Sleep No More. And I haven’t even seen the version in New York. But if you saw the version in Boston, then I might have been lurking in the shadows behind you, wearing a black mask. If you haven’t seen the show at all and are […]