Strong design elements and performances give Girl in the Machine,…
Steve Fisher
From the shadows at the back of the theatre, a haggard looking man appears. He’s running, breathing hard, and as he approaches us, we see his eyes are wide with confusion and fear. “Why can’t I remember what’s happened to me?”, he cries aloud. So begins The Runner, Christopher Morris’ harrowing and gripping new play, staged […]
Dom Harvey
Scorch, Stacey Gregg’s award-winning play about one teen’s struggle with gender identity and the legal system, is ‘based on a true story’. Beneath that lifeless description Scorch’s real power is in telling the true stories of a larger family of people, who find their right to write their own story under attack, without claiming to […]
Mary-Margaret Scrimger
Pearle Harbour’s Chautauqua- presented at Theatre Passe Muraille, written and performed by Justin Miller in his Critics’ Pick Award-winning role- is what’s been missing in theatre. With the political climate, we are starving for a noble leader and Pearle Harbour steps up to fill that role. The show is set in a mid-century wartime tent, similar to what […]
Amy Strizic
The production of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, performed at the Theatre Passe Muraille, is truly a wonder. A perfect stage for a one-man play, actor Bob Nasmith shines. Like the beacon of Canadian theatre he is (if it’s not too overblown to say), Nasmith commands the stage with the gravitas of person and character […]
Kelly Bedard
In the Backspace inch of your LIFE: episode 1/the pilot (The Theatre Circuit) The first episode of a three-part saga about Italian-Canadian (they might be American; Italian-North American at least) brothers who can’t get out of each other’s way, inch of your LIFE‘s pilot is a cleanly directed, excellently paced introduction to a memorable set […]
Kelly Bedard
Eat, Buy, Repeat (The Second City) This “Guide to the Holidays” from the Second City Touring Company is charming and fun if a little imbalanced in quality. We begin with a group song about coping in the hellfire that is 2016 but the fact that no one in this cast can sing becomes a problem […]
Kelly Bedard
Secrets of a Black Boy (Playing with Crayons/Theatre Passe Muraille) A constantly evolving mix of storytelling and narrative theatre, playwright Darren Anthony’s moving and evocative Secrets of a Black Boy brings five very different black men together for one last game of dominoes before their community centre closes. The play begins with a theatrical montage […]
Kelly Bedard
This new adaptation by Matthew Thomas Walker (who also directs) of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian masterpiece written 84 years in the past and set 524 years in the future is big and bold for a company only on its third project. The script is a little bloated, full of draggy exposition that could certainly be shown […]
Kelly Bedard
Scarberia (Young People’s Theatre) As the lights dimmed on Evan Placey’s coast-jumping, Shakespeare-referencing, mind-bending one-act about two sets of teenage boys tied together by a young woman who goes missing in Scarborough, Ontario and shows up in Scarborough, England, the early-high school audience began muttering that it was “too complicated” and “confusing”. It is really […]
Lisa McKeown
In case you missed it the first time around, you’re in luck because Pyaasa is currently being remounted at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille. Written and performed by Anusree Roy, this is a one-woman show detailing the story of a family of Untouchables in India. Set in Calcutta, the story revolves around 11 year-old Chaya, only […]
Kelly Bedard
Slip (Circlesnake Productions) High expectations are a tricky business. They’re why you should never rewatch an Oscar Best Picture winner, why everyone took the 2013 Jays season so hard, and why Justin Trudeau might be a little bit doomed. After the effusive praise I heaped on their last production Dark Matter (winner of the 2014 […]
Thea Fitz-James
“I wanted to write about obsession, about creativity, about risk-taking, about love and loss,” playwright Carolyn Smart writes about Hooked, now playing at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. Certainly all of these elements and more are present in this intimate montage of the lives of 7 women. This eclectic one-woman show exemplifies not only the […]
Kelly Bedard
On Monday March 30th, the Toronto theatre community gathered together at The Great Hall on Queen West to celebrate all the amazing work that made it to the stage in 2014. They got their picture taken by Nick Pigeau Photography in front of our branded media wall, ate cupcakes and sushi provided by The Cupcake […]
Kelly Bedard
Before we announce the winners of the 2014 My Theatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. The gorgeously versatile Maev Beaty is the one and only artist in this year’s My Theatre Awards nominated in two different individual performance categories. Whether she was completely redefining King Lear with her deeply human portrayal of […]
Kelly Bedard
The Casting In Acting Up Stage/Obsidian’s current production of Michael John LaChiusa & George C Wolfe’s gin-soaked narrative poem The Wild Party, two principal roles always or often played by white actors are being played by black actors. This one choice has dominated the majority of the conversation around the distant but moodily effective production. […]
Kelly Bedard
Theatre Passe Muraille’s latest 90-minute mainstage offering tells a long life story in the short moments that precede death. A reverential bio-play about a man of both god and science, playwright Adam Seybold’s The De Chardin Project tells a fascinating story but makes its subject far less fascinating than the world he observes and changes. […]
Melanie Hrymak
I am an actor. Since graduating from theatre school almost four years ago, I have also become (in order and to greater or lesser degrees) an acting coach, a director, a stage combat choreographer and teaching assistant, a producer, an adaptor, and finally, a writer. One of the joys of being a young Canadian actor […]
Kelly Bedard
Toronto is having a bit of a musical theatre moment right now. This town usually isn’t that flush with song and dance- one or two shows playing in the commercial theatres plus whatever the LOT’s doing and that’s it on any given day. But right now Mirvish is in the final weeks of their best […]