Corbin (formerly Spooky Black/Lil Spook) was my big surprise hit of 2017. His past material was enjoyable despite the laughable lyrics and aesthetic, but his low-pulse sadboi trap&B style wasn’t aiming very high. this rebirth on the other hand is truly something to behold. No way in hell was I expecting Spooky fuckin’ Black to […]
The Theatre Centre has started 2018 off with a bang. Bears, the newest creation by Alberta Aboriginal Performing Arts and Punctuate! Theatre, is everything you could hope for in a theatre production. It is filled with surprises, twists and wonder. Floyd, played by the talented Sheldon Elter, is being hunted through the wilderness of western […]
He lives in a pineapple under the sea and now that pineapple has come to Broadway. The new Broadway musical SpongeBob SquarePants is perhaps the best musical that it could be given the fact that it is about a psychedelic world where a sponge, a squirrel and a starfish go on bizarre adventures under the sea. The […]
Star Trek: Discovery returns with a bang, but also an uncharacteristic sense of confidence and playfulness (which may well be due to the return of Jonathan ‘Riker’ Frakes to the directors’ chair) but also, unfortunately, this otherwise excellent episode evokes one of sci fi’s worst tropes: the result is still a great start to the […]
Originally written (and performed) by Dave Deveau, My Funny Valentine is a play based around the true story of a gay teen who was killed by his classmate in 2008. The narrative weaves through the surrounding community in the aftermath, and shows us the ways they are processing (or not processing) their grief, and the […]
Death and marriage are all the rage on Toronto stages at the moment with four current productions totally preoccupied with one or both. The most prominent is Groundling Theatre Company’s Lear, the young company’s best-to-date by miles. The press release for director Graham Abbey‘s well-focused production claimed that the company was presenting “Lear with […]
Good Morning, Viet Mom “I can’t talk about my mom without talking about my dad. I can’t talk about my dad without talking about the divorce. I can’t talk about the divorce without talking about family. And I can’t talk about family without talking about my grandma.” And just so, playwright and comedian Franco Nguyen […]
The antechamber shows are short, 30 mins pieces, and some of my favourite Next Stage offerings. This year brought two high-energy clown pieces. Leila Live A self-described “real life Persian Princess,” Leila Live (pronounced with a short /i/), offers a 30 min clown/drag cabaret, with singing, puppetry, original song writing, rapping, and of course, lots of laughs. A […]