We live in a time of burgeoning awareness of the importance of diversity in our cultural storytelling. Productions like Hamilton, movies like Black Panther, and Oscar speeches championing ‘inclusion riders’ all serve as bellwethers for proof of the commercial success and cultural value of racial and sexual diversity. And yet, as much attention is rightfully being […]
Last Thursday I had the privilege of attending Finding Wolastoq Voice, a collaboration between playwright and composer Natalie Sappier -Samaqani Cocahq of Tobique First Nation and dancer/choreographer Aria Evans (Mi’kmaq/Black/British). Finding Wolastoq Voice is a Theatre New Brunswick Production presented by Native Earth Performing Arts as part of the Niimi’iwe: Indigenous Dance Showcase. The […]
The Overcoat: a musical tailoring (Canadian Stage with Tapestry Opera & Vancouver Opera) This new opera is a strong achievement for Tapestry- a smallish contemporary opera company that suffers for exposure while staying admirably dedicated to their fresh-feeling operatic ideals (James Rolfe’s score is pretty and the opera is light, modern and distinct in a […]
How far will you go to be famous? This is the key theme that is explored in Ruthless!, a musical that does not hold back in poking fun of the brutality involved in succeeding in show business and all the stereotypes that come with musical theatre. The show achieves its aims somewhat, satirizing the very […]
Set in a dystopic future post-war landscape and based on T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland, Bloom is a story of an old war veteran, Gerontion (Peter Farbridge), a young boy who lives with him (Liz Peterson), and Maria (Kim Nelson), a woman who haunts his memories. The story centers around Gerontion in old age, dealing with […]
I realize that The Lion King musical is a terribly high creative bar to reach twice, but Disney fails again and again to reinterpret its cartoon source material into worthwhile theatrical productions. Perhaps it is the allure of guaranteed ticket sales from a fiercely loyal fan base. Perhaps it is the incorrect assumption that a beloved animated […]
Four-person plays with two couples typically include a few familiar elements: Jealousy. An affair. Unspoken conflict. A past relationship between characters no longer romantically involved. And of course, there’s usually a catalyst that brings all the issues to the surface. But what makes Donald Margulies’s masterful Time Stands Still so unique is that, while it incorporates all the […]
Victor Hugo’s nineteenth century classic about Jean Valjean, a man who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family, spends nineteen years in prison, and begins a new life under an assumed identity where he seeks to do good, has been adapted into multiple feature films, a Japanese animated series, and most notably, […]