Kelly Bedard

Click Here to read the rest of our reviews from Toronto Fringe 2023.    Constellation Prize (A-) The premise of this astrological musical sounds a little goofy but Alessandra Ferreri & Steven Suepaul’s incredibly strong book infuses genuine tension and honest emotion into the story of the twelve astrological signs fighting for their status after an application […]

  Kelly Bedard

Click Here for a full list of our 2022 Toronto Fringe reviews.    At the Table with Keith Brown (A) I hate to be tricked but I love hyper-specific skills that can only be mastered with good old fashioned decades of practice. So magicians often present a bit of a problem for me. What works […]

  Kelly Bedard

While in-person theatre with a traditional seated audience is still making its way back slowly, one type of live event currently thriving in Toronto is the immersive experience. In the past couple weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to check out three major immersive shows happening downtown and, though none really blew me away, I cannot […]

  Duncan Derry

At first glance, magicians would seem to have it rough in the twenty-first century. No matter how much practice and skill goes into mastering a seemingly inexplicable trick, one whose origins may go back centuries, the audience’s wonder is more likely these days to be tempered by a quick google search, where a mercilessly quick […]

  Kelly Bedard

Be sure to check out our Full List of SummerWorks Reviews … And You’ll Never Believe What Happens Next (A) The sneaky dissonance of this latest storytelling show from Pressgang Theatre’s Graham Isador adds an intriguing layer of unspoken complication to an already rich and rewarding hour. Demonstrating once again his uncanny knack for structure, […]

  Kelly Bedard

To supplement their mainstage season of big American tours, Toronto’s one real commercial theatre presenter Mirvish Productions has been bringing in slightly smaller shows produced by Canadian companies to occupy the mid-sized mid-town venue formerly known as the Panasonic (it’s now the CAA Theatre, which I doubt I’ll ever get used to). In general, this […]

  Kelly Bedard

Toronto’s (Canada’s?) most ambitious professional theatre company is undoubtedly Soulpepper. The artist-led organization has never been shy about making their mark on the city but lately they’re expanding at a rate worth noting. This is especially noticeable at Christmas time, a season which used to consist of just two signature productions remounted in alternating years […]

  Kelly Bedard

The most annoying thing about the new Showcase/Syfy show adapted from Lev Grossman’s 2009 novel The Magicians is honestly just that it’s called “The Magicians” (and the promotional image to the right, that’s also very annoying for lots of reasons both feminist and aesthetic). It’s your basic CW-ish college-age fantasy drama. The mythology is complicated, […]