Alexander Franks
Content warning: This piece contains mentions of emotional/psychological manipulation, trauma, and suicide…
Kelly Bedard
After I saw Brigadoon, the Shaw Festival’s magical staging of a reimagined classic musical, I right away sat down to write about the experience. At least for me, the night I saw it, the mood I was in, Brigadoon was a fully contained theatrical moment about which I had plenty to say. Another staff writer […]
Kelly Bedard
15 years ago, Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman adapted for the stage a novel by Gregory Maguire that was itself an adaptation, or perhaps more accurately a revision, of The Wizard of Oz. The novel was dark and strange and long, full of deeply unlikeable characters and bleak allegorical observations about a world more real […]
Kelly Bedard
Party Today (Panic Tomorrow) is an apt name for The Second City Toronto’s silliest and least political mainstage show in a few cycles. There are moments when the bold political humour that made the last revue so impactful shows back up (Brandon Hackett makes a police brutality joke out of nowhere and its lack of […]
Kelly Bedard
The 2017 Dora Awards were handed out on Monday night at the beautiful Elgin theatre on Yonge Street, complete with a VIP cocktail reception and sprawling after party that took over multiple floors of the historic building. The Toronto Alliance of the Performing Arts (also known as TAPA)’s annual event is the most glamorous night […]
Kelly Bedard
This is not a review. The Company Theatre’s production of John– a dense, complex, hilarious personal epic by celebrated playwright Annie Baker- is extraordinary on a hundred different levels and every single person who has seen it (or certainly written about it) has said pretty much the same thing. I’m usually skeptical of consensus but […]
Vyasar Ganesan
*spoiler alerts for those of you who haven’t seen the musical, but I haven’t even seen the movie* To start, I understand that Legally Blonde is a comedy. Much of this article reads like someone deliberately missing the joke to discuss a hot-button issue. But remember: any production, before it reaches opening night, goes through […]
Kelly Bedard
This year’s Toronto Fringe Festival was lauded as one of the best in recent memory. There were dozens of good shows and more than a couple great ones. Favourites like Wasteland, Cam Baby, A Good Death and Life After were discussed with enthusiasm and general consensus over Dark ‘n’ Stormys in the Fringe Club at […]
Vyasar Ganesan
I don’t much care for Shakespeare, but I wonder what my father thinks of King Lear. There was a magnificent (and free) production of the tragedy in Central Park in summer 2014, casting a white-bearded John Lithgow as the mad king. On a stark, distressed wooden platform, the geezer spat fire and lightning at his […]
Fabiana Cabral
Originally published on July 13, 2015 on Fabiana’s personal blog The Educated Procrastinator … Don Aucoin of the Boston Globe wrote a piece thunderously applauding Patti LuPone’s recent stage antics: during a performance of Shows for Days, the actress reached into the audience and plucked away a texter’s cell phone. Aggravated with what she sees […]
Theresa Perkins
After a few days of recovery (and work), it is time to share some thoughts on the spectacle that was the 2015 Tony Awards. For the first time in years, I saw nearly all of the nominated shows (and numerous shows that failed to make the American Theatre Wing’s list of nominees), so I stepped […]
Kelly Bedard
Before The Howland Company was The Howland Company- long before they were a producing theatre company at all- they were a reading group. It all began back in late 2012 when a group of friends and theatre colleagues gathered in future Howland founding member James Graham’s living room to read Bachelorette by Leslye Headland. As […]
Theresa Perkins
For theatre fans, the holiday season means more in New York than jam-packed stores, high-kicking Rockettes, and the dreaded SantaCon. The new year brings with it the uplifting promise of hope – hope that the spring season will bring unique, creative, and unforgettable new productions to the Broadway stage. You see, there is a certain […]
Kelly Bedard
Purists will hate this Macbeth. The theatrically skeptical will find it heady and ridiculous but, mostly, it’s the purists who will hate it. Director Sophie Ann Rooney takes huge, ambitious leaps of interpretation and some of her key cast members don’t have a clue how to speak the verse. They absolutely have a point, the […]
Kelly Bedard
The new National Ballet of Canada season has begun with the emotional gutpunch that is Manon. My intention was to review that production- the knockout leading performance from Jillian Vanstone and scene-stealing guest turn by American Ballet Theatre’s James Whiteside (whom I’d really like to see the National steal); the brutality of the choreography and […]
Kelly Bedard
The Soulpepper Academy is one of the most consistent breeding grounds for up and coming theatre artists in the country. Albert Schultz’s proven eye for talent and an excellent combination of training and mentorship throughout the 2-year program has resulted in a slew of promising players class after class. The program keeps expanding (there are […]
Jess Couture
[Editor’s Note: Jess Couture (one of My Sports’ founding Contributing Authors) wasn’t scheduled to help us review the Toronto Fringe. In fact, she’s only in town for a couple of days. But she happened to accompany me when I went to review One Legged Dancer. Jess has years of experience working with the disabled community so […]
Melanie Hrymak
Okay, everybody, I have something to say and to be honest, I am a little nervous about it. I am a member of the independent theatre community in Toronto and I am very proud to say so. I have been living in the city for almost four years and, in that time, have met some […]