The Casting In Acting Up Stage/Obsidian’s current production of Michael John LaChiusa & George C Wolfe’s gin-soaked narrative poem The Wild Party, two principal roles always or often played by white actors are being played by black actors. This one choice has dominated the majority of the conversation around the distant but moodily effective […]
In Girls’ “Ask Me My Name,” Hannah is getting into her life as a substitute teacher and immediately hits it off with another teacher named Fran. He asks Hannah on a date and it goes pretty well until Hannah suggests they go to an art show she knows will be terrible. Seriously. Can Hannah just […]
An evening spent discussing quantum physics might not sound like your cup of tea. But this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, and Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen, about the fateful 1941 meeting of two famous physicists in Nazi-occupied Denmark, strikes a very relevant note. Porpentine Players performed this challenging and timely play, […]
Even after 10 seasons, Grey’s Anatomy continues to remind me of why it deserves to stay on television. The writers have an amazing way of creating character centric episodes that don’t seem forced upon. They also have a really great way of introducing new characters and suddenly making you fall in love with them in […]
There’s something deeply satisfying about discovering a competent, innovative cover version of one of your favourite songs. I have a great deal of admiration for artists who not only re-record someone else’s tune, but reinvent it and put their own spin on it in a way that showcases just as much artistry as the source […]
The two one-act plays that make up Spiel Players’ double bill- currently playing as part of Fraser Studios’ 2015 indie season- are both new adaptations of strange, challenging work from radical French playwright Marguerite Duras. They both revel in meandering, poetic language and the pointed vagueness of their character portraits but that is where their similarities […]
There really are not enough wonderful things to say about The Object Lesson, part of the World Stage series at Harbourfront Centre. I have not seen such an enchanting piece of theatre in a long time. It’s truly a shame that its run is so short as it would offer many, I feel, the chance […]
All it takes is one well-placed, often shocking line to permanently cement a show in my mind. In Necessary Monsters, John Kuntz’s new play, I ran into that line about halfway through the two hour performance, at the pit of this nested, Russian-doll-of-a-show. An upper crust, philanthropic socialite (actually a performer in drag (Thomas Derrah) […]