Kelly Bedard

I am not the person to talk about Necessary Angel’s current production of 4.48 Psychosis. Abstract, poetry-driven contemporary theatre is not my cup of tea to begin with, but more than anything I say I’m not the person for this task because 4.48 Psychosis is a deeply personal piece about a woman whom I never […]

  Lorenzo Pagnotta

Warning.  Both this show and this review are heavily experiential. I was just thinking the other day how much I miss those long gone days of university productions that were staged professionally, but with the much-needed energy and liveliness that fresh and ambitious minds can bring to live theatre.  I’ve been a bit bored lately, […]

  Lorenzo Pagnotta

This show has led me to realize that “falling” in love is a rather ominous term.  It appears that relationships are doomed from the beginning, especially ones that have started off as a coup de feu: too intense to really survive their original spark.  It seems like this is the case between Anabel (Julia Lederer) […]

  Kelly Bedard

I read the original version of Without You when it was first released in 2006. It was a lovely book, full of emotional memories and revealing frankness nestled among the awkward prose and insider-y Renthead bait. I, like almost every theatre-loving girl of my generation, have a very special place in my heart for Rent […]

  Kelly Bedard

I’d heard so many great things about Melody A. Johnson’s one-woman show Miss Caledonia that my expectations were sky-high. There’s something just so incredibly charming about a woman who grows up and ends up spending much of her writing and performing career paying tribute to her country-girl mother and the much-smaller dreams that led to […]

  Kelly Bedard

The stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ first person account of elf life at Macy’s is as smartly sarcastic and belly-shakingly funny as you’d expect from the famous essayist, but what struck me most is how not-so-dark the heart of his dark comedy is. I would even go all the way to sweet. Insofar as a […]

  Kelly Bedard

On Dundas East, in Regent Park,  there is a fantastic new Toronto theatre. The Aki Studio Theatre in the beautiful Daniels Spectrum community centre is a truly great space: a big convertible black box that feels at once expansive and intimate- the perfect place to house Keith Barker’s new play that touches on how one […]

  Kelly Bedard

Hirsch is the studio production thrown into the Stratford 2012 season at the last minute. It doesn’t really belong in a tangible way, but it’s about an eccentric former Artistic Director, so why not? Alon Nashman is great as John Hirsch- an inarguably fascinating figure in Canadian theatre and the world at large- and I […]