SpeakEasy Stage Company’s newest production In the Heights dazzles as a proud piece of socioeconomic exploration. The musical took New York City by storm in 2008 as a Tony-winning Best Musical, and SpeakEasy stages its own production with the same passion. While the leads lack some of the star quality necessary to sell their stories, […]
Zeitgeist Stage Company offers a treat in its most recent production of Punk Rock, a rarely-performed British drama by Simon Stephens. Performed in the intimate Plaza Black Box and using an alley-way set design with simple chairs and tables, the focus of this production is on the actors and their characters. With few exits and […]
Acting Up Stage Company has, over the last few years, become one of the most powerful players in the Toronto musical theatre scene, despite only producing a handful of pieces a year. Their spring mainstage is a Dora magnet and this year’s opening brought an impressive crowd of movers and shakers to the great but […]
The Canadian Opera Company’s spring productions were all about the bloodied, bed-ready ingenues this season. Dialogues des Carmelites doesn’t actually use stage blood, nor are the white gowns the nuns wear as they ready for death technically nightgowns, I suppose, but the point stands. These are all wronged and/or wronging ladies with big, fierce “bring […]
The Lower Ossington Theatre’s current production of the beloved rock musical Rent will come to an end on June 2nd, the producers opting out of a second extension in favour of an early return for LOT mainstay Avenue Q. The decision must be a purely commercial one since there is almost no textual argument to […]
New Yorkers can say what they want (and frequently do), but Toronto is the best city on the planet. If you are tragic and don’t know this for yourself, then you should know because I tell you All The Time. To prove it yet again, I’ve been sampling the theatre scene for you this month- […]
Every once in a while, you find a show that moves you; the show inspires you to lead a more purposeful life. For me, I knew that Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead was the kind of show that begged to be seen. I directed the show in college and I will forever […]
This year, Monkeyman Productions’ annual 4-play showcase of new, geek-oriented works takes a darker tenor than years past. The shift doesn’t feel like a deliberate one so much as a coincidence of tone amongst the best of this year’s script submissions but it has two pronounced effects. The first is the sad elimination of geek-music […]