“I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?” -Benedick to Beatrice (IV.i) The 2012 Stratford season isn’t very good. 80% of the reason I say that is Much Ado About Nothing. There are places to improve Henry V, Charlie Brown, The Matchmaker and so much else, but they […]
I’ve always liked Humber River Shakespeare, mostly because I always like Shakespeare- anywhere, in any form, by any company- but their 2012 Macbeth is by far the best thing I’ve ever seen from them. It helps that I attended their very first (and only, this season) show at Casa Loma. A relatively bare-bones company, Humber […]
I have seen a lot of Shakespeare in parks, but I am fairly new to other theater presented outdoors. The last show I saw from Apollinaire was Cyrano de Bergerac, also in Mary O’Malley Park. Even though it was not Shakespeare, that text has a certain poetic bombast that doesn’t feel out of place when […]
Next year, The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is getting a new Artistic Director. Antoni Cimolino isn’t actually all that new, he’s been with the festival for decades (remember when he played Romeo to Megan Follows’ Juliet?) and is currently its General Manager. But his promotion means a lot for where the festival is going. And, predictably, […]
This was a tough Fringe. On one hand, I did a terrible job of getting out to shows, only seeing 9 in total (plus whatever I take in at Best of Fringe). On the other hand, part of the reason I was so unenthused about long days of Fringing was that I wasn’t impressed with […]
The National Ballet of Canada is a fascinating place. It’s where national treasures like Karen Kain and Rex Harrington earned their world-renowned reputations and are now guiding the current wave of tremendous talent as Artistic Director and Artist-in-Residence. It’s home to some of Toronto’s most beloved performers, some of the world’s most talented dancers and […]
Shakespeare in the Park doesn’t have to– and shouldn’t– be artistically confined by the fact that it takes place in the summer, and the Public Theater is commendable for often putting on shows that seem in argument with the very theater in which they take place. But sometimes, when the thermometer goes way up and […]
Rick Miller’s wackado Macbeth retelling, currently masquerading as a fourth Shakespeare production at the Stratford Festival, uses a comprehensive cast of voices from one of TV’s most successful crazy experiments, The Simpsons. When this silly one act was appearing at fringe and comedy festivals, or when it played at The Factory Theatre last September, it […]