Stratford programmed a duo of dark and twisty Shakespeare plays to launch its refurbished Tom Patterson theatre this season. Though the wildly expensive renovation seems like a huge change when you first enter the beautiful new building, the actual experience of watching a play on the relatively similar stage remains pretty much the same. The […]
Kelly Bedard
Stratford’s big flagship production this year is Chicago, promising programming for its darkness and modernity compared to the festival’s usual musical fare. With two leading female characters and a few great supporting ones, the musical also presented a great opportunity for the festival to highlight some overlooked talent and maybe even recruit some new stars. […]
Kelly Bedard
We’ve been waiting for this one. The young Shakespeare enthusiasts who came up watching Slings & Arrows only to graduate into a decade of shy Shakespeare from the festival we were indoctrinated to adore, this is the production we’ve been waiting for. We wanted new blood, we wanted new ideas, we wanted someone under the […]
Kelly Bedard
The landing page for all of our Shaw & Stratford Festival reviews from the 2022 season. Stay tuned as this page will update throughout the summer.
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2019 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present…
Dom Harvey
The safest compliment for art is that it knows who it’s for. Stratford’s roster in a given year mostly consists of sober, supposedly thoughtful pieces aimed at some cross-section of a reliable clientele: there will be something for the Shakespeare crowd, a high-concept work that tickles critics pink, and maybe a disappointingly rote dalliance with […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Playwright Erin Shields’ contemporary reimagining of Genesis was the big buzzy hit out of the Stratford Festival last season. Staged by director Jackie Maxwell in the intimate studio theatre, Paradise Lost captured the audience’s imagination and forced […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2018 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. We poll the whole staff when deciding on nominations every year and sometimes more than one of us will be advocating for a particular performer. When it came to Daren A Herbert’s Outstanding Leading Performance in […]
Kelly Bedard
Once again, this year’s coverage of The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is brought to you by one of our favourite local businesses, Foster’s Inn. Strike that, aside from the festival itself and maybe Rheo Thompson, Fosters is unrivaled as our favourite place in Stratford. The only restaurants that come close are Down the Street and Pazzo. […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Soulpepper alum Qasim Khan is nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor this year for completely redefining the key supporting role in arguably Shakespeare’s most under-explored work, misunderstood comedy All’s Well That Ends Well. Parolles is usually a simplistic jerk but […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Canada’s biggest and most famous theatre company- The Stratford Festival- sometimes gets bogged down by its traditional style and aging demographics. Outstanding Direction nominee Keira Loughran rejected all of the stodginess that plagues the festival with her bold, […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Dan Chameroy is a very big deal to me. He’s a big deal to a lot of people in the Canadian musical theatre scene but he’s especially important to me. He’s the first live performer I remember being […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Prolific sound designer and composer Debashis Sinha is nominated for the third time in two years for his stirring and complex work on Stratford’s epic Breath of Kings. We caught up with him to discuss his latest Outstanding Sound […]
Lisa McKeown
Kate Hennig’s contemporary history play traces the story of King Henry VIII’s sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr (Kate) – beginning with his awkward and aggressive pursuit of her, her negotiation of their marriage (and sex life, which was pretty impressive), to Kate’s attempt to be both a mother and political advocate for Mary and […]
Kelly Bedard
Little Night Music All I knew about A Little Night Music going in was “Send in the Clowns”, arguably the crown jewel of Sondheim’s canon. It would have been best to leave it that way. It turns out that Hugh Wheeler’s book has none of the subtle ache or bittersweet poetry of the musical’s standout […]
Kelly Bedard
All My Sons This Arthur Miller drama feels a-typical for the company that’s made its name on Shakespeare and its money on musicals. Though modern drama isn’t Stratford’s usual racket, Martha Henry’s smartly cast and emotionally wrought production might be the best thing at the festival this year (well, maybe second to Breath of Kings: […]
Kelly Bedard
The Aeneid Under the guise of greek mythology, playwright Olivier Kemeid (with translator Maureen Labonté) and director Keira Loughran have snuck an honest-to-god contemporary piece of full-length theatre into the Stratford Festival. A shamelessly modern story about the refugee crisis told through physical theatre (something you rarely see even in the studio) with a young, […]
Kelly Bedard
The Tom Patterson theatre is great; it allows for fully in-the-round staging (or in-the-rectangle, rather) and it’s big enough that the kings aren’t undermined by a crowd too small for their thundering speeches but it’s small enough that we can see them up close for the men they are underneath the crown. I wouldn’t wish […]
Kelly Bedard
I have just one rule about adaptations and that one rule makes or breaks my assessment of said adaptation’s worth, every time. I need there to be a reason it’s been adapted. In adapting Victor Hugo’s novel into the Schönberg & Boublil musical, Les Miserables gains the group-think momentum of a rousing war anthem and the haunting ache […]
Kelly Bedard
Set in Newfoundland in 1985, director Jillian Keiley’s production of Shakespeare’s irresistible pastoral is simple, lighthearted and creative. A bare stage gets its sense of place from the actors (designer Bretta Gerecke‘s comical ’80s costuming, accents of varying effectiveness) and the audience. The crowd is armed with grab bags full of participatory aids like bleating […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2015 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. The last time the consistent, versatile and always delightful Mike Nadajewski was nominated for a MyTheatre Award it was for playing a religious figure in a musical. This time he’s nominated as a scientific figure in […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2015 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. There are three actors nominated for playwriting this year (also known as playwrights nominated for acting), including the always brilliant Gord Rand who joins the Nominee Interview Series for a third time to talk about his Outstanding Actor-nominated […]
Kelly Bedard
There’s something of a false hierarchical narrative around Shakespeare performance that suggests the grander the stage, the stronger the performer, the mecca that is the Stratford festival theatre serving as the (Canadian) pinnacle where only the best of the best are allowed to tread the boards. If you’re somehow unconvinced that this narrative is nonsense, […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2015 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. One of the definitive leading men in Canadian theatre at the moment, the prolific Evan Buliung has been a part of many of our favourite productions since MyTheatre first began. Under the guise of discussing his 2015 MyTheatre […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2015 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. In one of the Stratford Festival’s biggest all-star casts, 2nd year company member Karack Osborn completely stole the show as the irrepressible Tony Lumpkin in director Martha Henry’s take on classic comedy She Stoops to Conquer. The Best […]
Kelly Bedard
Warning: this is a bad one. I encourage you to just not contemplate going to see Carousel. Read my reviews (and see the productions) of Sound of Music, Oedipus Rex, Love’s Labour’s Lost or (ideally) The Last Wife instead. Is this the single most ridiculously terrible production I’ve reviewed on any stage at any budget […]