The best things at the Shaw Festival seem to, at least for me, always come as a surprise. So I’m shocked but not shocked to tell you that, in 2025, the Shaw show I can’t stop thinking about is Tons of Money. The farce. Of all things. I hate farce but I love Mike […]
Rebecca Northan & Bruce Horak’s company Spontaneous Theatre make some of the most dependably enjoyable theatre in Canada. Incredible technicians with creative minds for concept and format, their work is consistently sharp and unique. Their improv formats- notably Blind Date and the whodunnit structure in use here- have, built in, a bit of a risk […]
A fairly straightforward thriller adapted from the 1967 film of the same name by Frederick Knott, Jeffrey Hatcher’s Wait Until Dark is a competent and enjoyable if not altogether memorable piece to round out the season. A good genre companion to Murder on the Lake and contrast to the bright zaniness of Tons of […]
The performance I attended of The Shaw Festival’s Blues for an Alabama Sky was one of those nights at the theatre that makes theatre-going endlessly exciting but also somewhat hard to review. With presumably very little notice, understudy Kiera Sangster was in for the leading role of Angel Allen (usually played by the brilliant Virgilia […]
The backbone of the Shaw Festival is and has to be the work of George Bernard Shaw. As much as success with work closer to the edges of the mandate is a boon to the company that continues to push its long stagnant boundaries, at the end of the day what this company has that […]
This much-maligned production I think gets a bad rap that’s only partially deserved. There’s a lot that it gets right, it’s just that what it gets wrong it gets very wrong and those things are super distracting (and unhelpfully weighted towards the end, making them more memorable). I’ve long been a fan of the […]
I try to review the full Stratford season every year and, with very few exceptions, have done so with great consistency since 2010 (I missed the 2022 late openers and I think a Henry VIII at some point?). This year I’m supposed to be on maternity leave but the thought of missing out completely just […]
Having fallen in love with the human special effect that is a large ensemble tap number (or, perhaps rather more accurately, observed the audience’s love for them), Shaw Festival Artistic Director Tim Carroll has cornered himself into a very specific style and era of musical theatre programming. While there’s plenty to love about said style […]