A few days before going to see Shakespeare BASH’d’s production of Cymbeline, an article title flashed before my eyes as I scrolled through my Facebook feed, “Can Shakespeare still surprise?” Coincidentally, the post had come from Shakespeare BASH’d’s Facebook page, and as I was just about to watch the show, I chose to bypass the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Catherine Rainville is a multi-hyphenate artist whose work performing, directing, producing and designing for site-specific indie favourites Shakespeare Bash’d has never failed to thrill and surprise us. She’s nominated this year for Outstanding Supporting Performance in a […]
I think I have a new Christmas tradition. I’ve always known the story of A Christmas Carol, but it’s never been a big part of my life. It’s the one with the crotchety old man? Bill Murray was in the movie? In The Three Ships Collective production, however, there are no low blows, and it […]
Theatre company Shakespeare BASH’d “is an actor initiative that… produces Shakespeare’s plays in social settings”, “with simple staging, clear and sympathetic language, and an emphasis on the text and actors telling the story”. (This is all cribbed from their program.) They stage their work in pubs and bars, in the round, and have progressively gotten […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Producer/performer Lauren MacKinlay not only gave a nomination-worthy performance in local playwright Michael Ross Albert’s The Grass is Greenest at the Houston Astrodome at Freedom Factory Gallery as part of the Toronto Fringe’s site-specific programming, she was the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Eliza Martin was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated from Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts with a Drama Specialist before attending the Theatre and Drama Studies program at both University of […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Thomas Gough is a staple of Toronto theatre, and a veteran of many shows at Campbell House, who has worked extensively with Outstanding Direction nominee Sarah Thorpe. In Soup Can Theatre/Three Ships Collective’s site-specific reimagining of […]
Many Shakespeare plays present an imposing barrier to entry even for educated audiences. Directors devise increasingly inventive ways to make them accessible or relevant – or at least to have their own fun and leave their own mark on the work in the guise of doing this. Othello weds a simple plot, touching on familiar […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Richard Young is an actor/screenwriter known for his work in film and television (Taken, Kim’s Convenience, The Strain) but it was his standout performance in a site-specific play at last summer’s Toronto Fringe that earned him […]
Christmas cheer is descending on the city, and nowhere more than at Campbell House. The historic museum is the perfect venue for The Three Ships Collective’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, a rare example of a site that is from the same era as the story and retains its aesthetic. Most authentic Victorian buildings are […]
Over the last three months, Spur-of-the-Moment Shakespeare Collective’s ensemble…
David Morton’s new play The Wider Earth, staged at the Natural History Museum is a confident and educational new piece of work that quite literally spins you through the great adventure of a young Charles Darwin. Fast-paced and fun, this play cleverly lays out the building blocks of Darwin’s theory of evolution, incorporating clever set […]
I am always interested and excited to see performances (dance, theatre, music) that are setting-specific, designed for the performance space. There is something special and unique that happens when a show is cultivated with and using its setting. There is so much strength, and significance, that can be derived from setting. The Talking Treaties Spectacle […]
Be sure to check out our Full List of Fringe Reviews BikeFace (A) BikeFace is as if Kate Beaton’s Velocipedestrienne comic came to glorious life. BikeFace is more specifically the theatrical realization of writer Natalie Frijia’s real life journeys across Canada on her bicycle. Performer Clare Blackwood imbues the one woman sequences with the restless […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud…
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. We’ve already heard from composer Barbara Johnston so it’s time to talk to the other half of the dynamic duo who created the wonderful faux-karaoke songs at the heart of site-specific Fringe hit Maddie’s Karaoke Birthday Party. […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. A rising star in the new wave of Canadian Musical Theatre, composer Barbara Johnston is a Fringe favourite whose work has been performed on stages around the world (and remember when Alison did a musical about […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Some of the most fun we had at Fringe last year came at an immersive party at the Monarch Tavern. Maddie’s Karaoke Birthday Party was just that- a karaoke birthday party for a girl named Maddie- […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. A Soulpepper Academy alumnus and Resident Artist, Ken MacKenzie has designed some of the most beloved productions in recent Canadian theatre history- Kim’s Convenience, Alligator Pie (which he also co-created), and you should see his latest- […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards…
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Stephen Joffe has the sort of unique intense energy that, when casting the role of unpredictable cousin Ziggy in the Storefront’s site-specific epic Tough Jews, both the writer and director had the same “it has to […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. For about ten years, I only knew Luis Fernandes as the most memorable beer guy at the Skydome (the man knows his baseball). In 2016, I discovered that he’s actually a theatre creator- a co-founder of […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. It could be argued that no single playwright had a bigger impact on the 2017 Toronto indie theatre season than Michael Ross Albert. He has two plays nominated for Outstanding Production and together they totalled 12 […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. As business-minded (and brilliantly besuited) Ben, Blue Bigwood-Mallin quietly anchored the rambunctious Outstanding Ensemble-nominated cast of the Storefront Theatre’s site-specific indie hit Tough Jews. Though he claims that he doesn’t “generally come across as super friendly”, […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. The wonderful Anne van Leeuwen is a force in Toronto indie theatre. She’s got this crazy indomitable spirit that manifests itself in pure ambition and prolific output as a director, a performer, an artistic director, and […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Last year’s winner for Outstanding New Work, playwright Polly Phokeev returns to the same category this year with The Mess, the second instalment of her How We Are series, developed with her creative partner Mikaela Davies. A […]