The awkward reality of the moment is that right now, mere weeks (sometimes days) after many of Toronto’s mainstay artistic institutions finally reopened their doors, ’tis somehow once again not the season to be promoting live in-person experiences. It’s Christmas, we’re all vaccinated (you are vaccinated right? RIGHT?!), and it’s been forever since we’ve been […]
The first thing that happens in the 50th Anniversary Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, aside from those iconic guitar riffs and the exuberant cast storming down the theatre aisles, is Judas stealing the microphone as Jesus prepares to tell his own story. Over the course of a mere 90 minutes, the mic stand that will […]
For all its traumas and sadnesses, the pandemic was, at the very least, an immensely clarifying experience. With our lives irreparably disrupted and access to so many things denied, it very quickly became obvious how I truly felt about the things in my life that had become routine. My character-defining love of television stood firm […]
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra welcomed audiences back to Roy Thomson Hall last week with a short intermission-less concert of contemporary classical music chosen to honour what we’ve lost, celebrate where we are, and welcome the company’s new music director Gustavo Gimeno whose 2020 grand debut was the victim of almost uncannily terrible timing. The […]
Workman Arts’ Rendezvous with Madness is one of the first festivals back on its feet since the Covid-19 lockdowns. After two years of fear and solitude, the mental health-focused event is an apropos re-beginning as many audience members slowly re-engage with the arts scene outside of their televisions. RWM this year is serving as […]
Three Tall Women It’s difficult to separate Stratford’s fine production of this enjoyable and alienating Edward Albee play from the experience of seeing it. A holdover from the cancelled 2020 season, Three Tall Women was the lone indoor performance in the Stratford 2021 season. It was staged in the intimate studio theatre with very little […]
I’m a firm believer that there is room for this kind of thing. I didn’t particularly like it, but I’ll defend its validity until I’m blue in the face because that’s how Shakespeare survives. For this co-production with Why Not Theatre, Stratford has cast 13-year-old Eponine Lee in the female title role. This raises […]
Finally There’s Sun My very favourite thing at the Stratford Festival this year, Finally There’s Sun is the concert production that puts into words the subtext of every other show- after more than a year of darkness this, right here, this sitting together in a theatre, it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. […]