Justin Miller’s beautiful drag clown Pearle Harbour lives simultaneously in the past and the future, a wise fool with a sharp wit and a big beautiful heart that’s too often broken. In Distant Early Warning, her new dystopian solo show at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, she’s alone and in love, totally helpless and […]
Pipeline is the perfect work to mark Soulpepper’s return to live theatre. Dominique Morisseau’s exploration of how American public schools set black boys up for failure at best and prison at worst was part of a 2020 program postponed by the pandemic. After two brutally long and tough years, director Weyni Mengesha and this cast […]
Annie Baker is good at making her stories the story. The Flick, a three-hour epic (or dirge, if you prefer) dazzled and bored audiences across North America before taking its talents to Toronto. After an off-Broadway debut in 2017, Antipodes now prompts audiences at the Coal Mine Theatre to examine the purpose of stories – […]
When you announce you have cancer, nobody quite knows what to say. Veteran Toronto director, writer, and performer Daniel Brooks has heard it all from would-be wellwishers whose missteps become his cautionary tales but the problem runs deeper. It’s Brooks’ problem more than anyone’s – he has a difficult story to tell and perhaps just […]
Kelly Bedard
After two years of cancellations, a series of tentative theatre-ish offerings, and more than a few false starts, Toronto’s theatre companies are coming back. The journey towards a normal theatrical experience has taken place a little bit then seemingly all at once as my once-bare calendar suddenly doesn’t have a night off for weeks. Of […]
Kelly Bedard
The awkward reality of the moment is that right now, mere weeks (sometimes days) after many of Toronto’s mainstay artistic institutions finally reopened their doors, ’tis somehow once again not the season to be promoting live in-person experiences. It’s Christmas, we’re all vaccinated (you are vaccinated right? RIGHT?!), and it’s been forever since we’ve been […]
Alexander Franks
(This review will contain reviews for the movie and choose your own adventure version) Christmas time in Toronto always has several staples, from the Christmas Market in the Distillery District to the utter chaos of Eaton Centre a week before Christmas. One of the long standing traditions has been the Ross Petty Pantomime Christmas […]
Kelly Bedard
The first thing that happens in the 50th Anniversary Tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, aside from those iconic guitar riffs and the exuberant cast storming down the theatre aisles, is Judas stealing the microphone as Jesus prepares to tell his own story. Over the course of a mere 90 minutes, the mic stand that will […]
Kelly Bedard
For all its traumas and sadnesses, the pandemic was, at the very least, an immensely clarifying experience. With our lives irreparably disrupted and access to so many things denied, it very quickly became obvious how I truly felt about the things in my life that had become routine. My character-defining love of television stood firm […]
Kelly Bedard
Workman Arts’ Rendezvous with Madness is one of the first festivals back on its feet since the Covid-19 lockdowns. After two years of fear and solitude, the mental health-focused event is an apropos re-beginning as many audience members slowly re-engage with the arts scene outside of their televisions. RWM this year is serving as […]
Kelly Bedard
Three Tall Women It’s difficult to separate Stratford’s fine production of this enjoyable and alienating Edward Albee play from the experience of seeing it. A holdover from the cancelled 2020 season, Three Tall Women was the lone indoor performance in the Stratford 2021 season. It was staged in the intimate studio theatre with very little […]
Kelly Bedard
I’m a firm believer that there is room for this kind of thing. I didn’t particularly like it, but I’ll defend its validity until I’m blue in the face because that’s how Shakespeare survives. For this co-production with Why Not Theatre, Stratford has cast 13-year-old Eponine Lee in the female title role. This raises […]
Kelly Bedard
Finally There’s Sun My very favourite thing at the Stratford Festival this year, Finally There’s Sun is the concert production that puts into words the subtext of every other show- after more than a year of darkness this, right here, this sitting together in a theatre, it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. […]
Kelly Bedard
Shakespeare’s As You Like It is my favourite play so, when the press invitation came through for the inaugural production of Crow’s Theatre’s in-person season, I was quick to RSVP. Sitting down at my first indoor Toronto venue since March 2020 to watch something billed as “a radical retelling” with a cast to be announced […]
Alexander Franks
So, full disclosure, when it comes to plays that are societal/global issue- focused, from a purely creative standpoint, I find to be hit or miss. It’s either that the artistic platform that they have is not being used enough so I don’t see the difference between the performance and someone speaking at a rally, or […]
Kelly Bedard
Why We Tell Our Story Cabaret Marcus Nance absolutely killed it with the curation of this stirring celebration of Black voices. An inspired structure uses the work of iconic Black poets Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou rather than original writing to link together some of the most glorious songs from the musical theatre canon from […]
Kelly Bedard
Toronto’s High Park is a theatre again. After only a few performances of socially isolated dance pieces last summer, Canadian Stage is back this season, not only filling their outdoor amphitheatre with its first real theatrical productions in two years but lending out the space to co-producers and collaborators for a season of programming that’s […]
Alexander Franks
It is good to be fringing again! I first want to take this opportunity before I dive into the reviews to express my gratitude, respect and thanks to everyone involved with the Toronto Fringe this year from the artists to admin to box office just everyone. It has been a long and hard road adjusting […]
Rachel Ganz
What Are You Supposed to Be? (All Day I Dream About…Theatre) What Are You Supposed to Be? is an experimental comedy currently running at the 2021 Toronto Digital Fringe Festival. As a collective creation, this piece explores a tense, mysterious conflict in a world of challenging characters. The story follows Leah, a novelty birthday party princess […]
Rachel Ganz
In Transit (Von Hunt Productions) In Transit is a contemporary dance film, presented as part of the 2021 Toronto Digital Fringe Festival. Creator, choreographer and performer Alayna Kellett has devoted years of research to this piece and it’s paid off in a robust work of graceful emotion. In Transit follows one woman’s imperfect path beyond […]
Alexander Franks
In the span of 3 hours, you get six calls. Six calls ranging about ten minutes. Some of these calls you may interact in and some you may just listen. This is your theatrical experience. Theatre delivered over the phone to you. Stories created for this time of shutdown and distancing delivered to your designated […]
Alisha Maclean
Ella Hickson’s OIL is a theatrical marvel that spans the lives of May (Bahareh Yaraghi) and Amy (Samantha Brown), a mother and daughter whose paths are steered by the equal parts wonderful and terrible force that is oil. Directed by ARC Artistic Producer Christopher Stanton, and Resident Artist Aviva Armour-Ostroff, this production is full of […]
Amy Strizic
Les Ballets Trockadero has returned once more to Toronto, and we couldn’t be more excited. The crowd was a varied wonder on March 8, ranging from eager children, to professional dancers, to drag artists, and everyone in between. I had been one of those children growing up- ever since I saw my first Ballet Trockadero […]
Dom Harvey
Every improv performer or fan has seen a troupe do the best they can with a weak or unpromising prompt. Moonstruck sidesteps that problem by drawing on the weird and wonderful world of dreams, quickly constructing a mini-universe and series of scenarios based on a wacky dream, nightmare, or something in between of an audience […]
Duncan Derry
He appears suddenly, striding purposefully towards the corner of the stage and warily watching as the choir of thirty or so rehearse a piece under the direction of Claire (Raven Dauda). His presence is immediately unnerving – we know he’s going to do something terrible, but when, or what, and how will it involve these […]
Alexander Franks
Now the fact I was wearing a heavy sweater probably added to this, but I exited out of The Runner (Human Cargo Productions, written by Christopher Morris) just absolutely sweating. I was exhausted by this play, but I would see it again and again. Directed by Daniel Brooks and the sole role of Jacob played by […]