The Toronto Fringe Festival had 150 shows this year. We never had any hope of covering them all with our small but spirited staff of 4 but we were determined to come as close as we could. So, over the course of ten days, Kelly, Justis and Thea (with a 2-show assist from Marty and […]
Odyssey Opera is coming just in time. Three years ago, there were two regional-theater-sized opera companies in town, the Boston Lyric Opera (the “BLO”), which tends to stage standard classics of the opera repertoire; and Opera Boston, which specialized in infrequently-heard, along with new and experimental works. Opera Boston’s controversial and surprise closing in 2011 […]
Theatre 20 occupies a very specific and somewhat strange space in Toronto theatre. They produce work very rarely but, when they do, it’s event theatre- a big musical with a top-notch cast; something worth dressing up and hiring a babysitter for. Company is their biggest show yet. My favourite Sondheim piece, the contemporary musical’s complicated […]
You walk into the theatre. Plastic covers the walls on the stage. At first you don’t notice, but after a while you start see something projected there. A ribcage? “This isn’t your regular programing,” actor Cliff Cardinal tells us, as he walks on stage with a plastic bag duct taped over his head. “It takes […]
“What a strange thing it is, that whereas other gods have poems and hymns made in their honour, the great and glorious god, Love, has no such encomiast among all the poets who are so many… we who are assembled cannot do better than honour the god Love” These are the words of Phaedrus, in […]
Virtual Stage’s Broken Sex Doll, which opened this past Friday with Magnectic North in Halifax, was a little bit like a bad one-night stand: awkward, no heart, and way too long. Sure, the one-night stand sometimes looks good. They can sometimes even dance and sing real good. But when you get right down to the […]
Nothing epitomizes the “geek” culture like comic books. In recent years, Hollywood has revitalized the big screen comic book hero to capitalize on the rise of “geek chic” in America. Don’t believe me? During the last ten years, four of the highest grossing domestic movies have been based on comic books. I have a confession: […]
“What I love about dogs,” Denise Clarke mummers as she begins imitating a dog’s slow building tail-wag, “is that they can’t hide their emotions.” Despite the audience’s noticeable lack of tails, we all had trouble hiding our gleeful experience of wag, which opened this past Thursday as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in […]