Kelly Bedard

Woking Phoenix (Silk Bath Collective & Theatre Passe Muraille) Anchored by an incandescent performance from Phoebe Hu as a single mom trying to raise three kids while running a small town’s only Chinese restaurant, Woking Phoenix is a delicate and moving tribute to immigrant parents, created by Silk Bath Collective and currently onstage at Theatre […]

  Kelly Bedard

After Tuesday’s performance of Mad Madge at The Theatre Centre, producer (in associaton with VideoCabaret) Nightwood Theatre organized a panel of theatre-makers to discuss the trend of fictionalized history on stage (or, put another way, an examination of coincidental aesthetic consistency in the Rose Napoli extended universe). The texts up for discussion were Kat Sandler‘s […]

Now in its fifth year, Three Ships Collective/Soup Can Theatre’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol has become a tradition so wildly popular that it’s been sold out for weeks. It’s a slam dunk of an idea, an immersive Christmas Carol staged throughout a historic 1822 home, but the company never leans on the concept to […]

  Kelly Bedard

Coal Mine Theatre’s Chief Engineers Diana Bentley & Ted Dykstra stand out among Canadian theatre heads for the consistency of their taste level in both script selection and personnel. Not every production at Coal Mine will work for every audience member but every production is thoughtfully programmed, expertly produced, and brought to life by a […]

A disclaimer accompanies Michael Healey’s latest political drama The Master Plan: the following is a work of fiction. A work of fiction about events not very long ago (2017-2020) in a land not very far away (a 10 minute drive from Crow’s Theatre where the play has been extended until October 8). A work of […]

  Kelly Bedard

This week at Kew Gardens Park, Toronto Shakespeare fans said farewell to one of the city’s summer theatre institutions. Technically ending tonight with their tour’s final stop in Burlington, Driftwood Theatre’s “Final Bard’s Bus Tour” features not their usual adaptation of a Shakespeare text but an original 90-minute one-man-show wherein the company’s founder tells his […]

  Kelly Bedard

For many years, the SummerWorks Festival was one of the two pillars of Toronto summer theatre. In July, the Fringe offers up two weeks of scrappy indie shows, their blind lottery system resulting in a wild range of quality and style. Then, in August:  SummerWorks, a much more heavily curated festival that upped the polish […]

  Kelly Bedard

Click Here to read the rest of our reviews from Toronto Fringe 2023.    Our Little Secret: The 23&Me Musical (A) This solo musical tells the true story of Noam Tomaschoff’s discovery that his parents used a sperm donor and he has 35 secret siblings. It’s an amazing story almost too wild to believe but Tomaschoff’s […]