Toronto Fringe’s winter mini-fest Next Stage is in a tricky spot. It plays host to the first productions of every year in Toronto theatre; the audience full of hope and anticipation and ready to have the bar set for the year to come. Curated and titled as it is, it’s not hard to expect something […]
At some point in life, we have all been Evan Hansen – feeling alone and invisible to the world. Unfortunately, in the technological age, the chatter surrounding a person who feels alone is magnified to a digital roar and sometimes that roar bares its teeth at the outcast in the form of online bullying. Steven […]
I was a full half hour into opening night of The Life when I heard the first not-so-great vocal performance. There wasn’t another in the 2+ hours that followed. There’s very little good acting to be found in this hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story but, by god, Call It a Day Productions has found some great voices for […]
Bad Hats Theatre’s all-new musical adaptation of Peter Pan is brimming with wonder and enthusiasm. Co-adapters Fiona Sauder and Reanne Spitzer have updated the tale to cure a few of its sorrier gender issues and speed up the pace. The excellent ensemble cast is vibrant and goofy without neglecting their characters’ emotional realities. And Landon […]
*spoiler alerts for those of you who haven’t seen the musical, but I haven’t even seen the movie* To start, I understand that Legally Blonde is a comedy. Much of this article reads like someone deliberately missing the joke to discuss a hot-button issue. But remember: any production, before it reaches opening night, goes through […]
“The world we live in today needs a good story”. The packed house at the Toronto opening of Come From Away had been standing for awhile when Claude Elliott, former mayor of the tiny Newfoundland town of Gander, said those brutally true words. We’d been standing since the second the lights went to black at […]
I love Seussical the Musical. I think it’s just about the cutest thing in the world, Ahrens & Flaherty’s songs are catchy beyond belief, and there’s more intellectual and emotional complexity in the storytelling than one might ever expect from such silliness. “A person’s a person no matter how small”, “tell yourself how lucky you […]
Original musicals are hard to develop and expensive to produce so you don’t see that many of them crop up in the Canadian theatre landscape. Chasse-Galerie (both its quality and its trajectory) is a reminder that it can be done and why it’s worth doing. James Smith’s music and lyrics are toe-tapping delights, many of which […]