Paramount’s Rocketman is a bold, sentimental, messy, complex, obvious, colourful contradiction. If that sounds to you like a bad movie, you normally wouldn’t be wrong. But this is a movie about Elton John so bold, sentimental, messy, complex, obvious, colourful, and contradictory is just about right. The first place the film goes right is in […]
I came out of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical with a smile on my face. Seeing a musical is always a night full of fun and passion, and this show provides the audience with no less. There were flashing lights, impressive costume changes, and an evening of music we all know and love. However, despite […]
It’s very easy to understand how Jersey Boys has been such a big hit with audiences around the world. Combining the feel-good hits of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons with the lively story of how it all came together, the show really puts other jukebox musicals to shame. Now in its 13th touring season, […]
In the gloomy socio-political climate we live in, Come from Away offers beams of hope that even tragedy and despair can lead to long-lasting friendships and renewed faith. The show is delightfully foot-stomping from start to finish. Canadian duo Irene Sankoff and David Hein have created something equally original and insightful. Have your ever been […]
1979 is a political thriller – but not like that. The (rise and) fall of one of Canada’s most forgotten and forgettable leaders sounds more like a mischievous improv prompt or DVR description for a History show than a recipe for gripping theatre – but it works. It’s easy to see why the production went […]
Crude Blessings: The Amazing Life Story of Glenn Patterson, American Oilman is written by Patterson’s Roe. Glenn isn’t famous, though he was successful. He didn’t accomplish great feats of endurance, work towards world peace or discover a groundbreaking scientific phenomenon. What he did do was achieve success as a businessman in the oil sector, moving beyond a […]
Attention on the British royals escalated to mania for the second time this year when, following the birth of the third royal baby, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle tied the knot earlier this month to much fanfare. Yet, while the millennial British royals have seized the spotlight from their elders, the drama that enveloped the […]
Walk into the Young Centre and buy a ticket, it doesn’t matter to what. Soulpepper Theatre has three productions running right now and, for the first time in memory (and my memory stretches back much further than a few months), they’re operating at full power. The company has always sought balance in its repertory seasons- […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Sanjay Talwar returned to the Shaw Festival in 2017 to play Joe Clark in one of two premiere productions of Michael Healey’s delightful political one-act 1979. A principled, glamourless, centrist conservative whose administration lasted less than a […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. The charming and candid Marion Day gave a lively, versatile slew of performances in The Shaw Festival’s awesome production of Micheal Healey’s new political comedy 1979, a short, tense, hilarious fictionalization of one key night in Canadian […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. I used to say that Kelly Wong was one of my favourite musical theatre performers in Canada (I complained in almost every Shaw Festival musical review that he didn’t have a bigger role) but in 2017 […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Million Dollar Quartet is a show about musical legends. Based on the true story of one night in Memphis when Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash found themselves in an impromptu jam session, […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Outstanding Direction nominee Victoria Fuller is one of the most clear-eyed and self-assured artists in the city, heading Echo Productions with a strong set of goals and ideals that are reflected without fail in the company’s […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2017 MyEntWorld Critics’ Pick Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series…
The Diana Tapes is about the disclosure of Princess Diana’s recorded confessions of her personal experience as a member of the HRH to journalist Andrew Morton. Morton’s book, “Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words,” which came out in 1992 and caused a rift between Diana and the Royals, has just had its […]
Eric Peterson is back once again performing Billy Bishop – a Canadian war hero from the First World War. Forty years since its creation, this production celebrates not just Peterson and Maclachlan Gray’s creation, but brings Soulpepper through Canada’s own 150th birthday. The set stands out immediately as interesting and effective: around the stage set […]
Carole King is a worthy musical heroine, an artist of prodigious talent and notable personality, and book writer Douglas McGrath has crafted her life story into a dramatically compelling piece that is, if we’re being picky, really a play with lots of music more than a musical (with one tiny little exception, everyone is singing […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Irene Sankoff & David Hein were nominated for two Tony Awards yesterday. In fact, their MyTheatre Award-winning, Drama Desk/Drama League/Outer Critics Circle Award- nominated Broadway musical Come From Away was nominated for seven Tony Awards yesterday, including Best […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series. Nominated for Best Original Work in this year’s London My Theatre Awards, Neil McPherson is the writer behind It Is Easy To Be Dead, a play which follows the life of war poet, Charles Hamilton Sorley, during the […]
Before we announce the winners of the 2016 MyTheatre Awards, we’re proud to present our annual Nominee Interview Series…
It must be difficult basing a play around a group as well-known and held in such high esteem as the Marx Brothers while still retaining the sense of individual character that a standalone play offers. Such a concept can be an opportunity to investigate and explore the wider, metaphysical nature of its subject matter in […]
“The world we live in today needs a good story”. The packed house at the Toronto opening of Come From Away had been standing for awhile when Claude Elliott, former mayor of the tiny Newfoundland town of Gander, said those brutally true words. We’d been standing since the second the lights went to black at […]
This is a one (and a half) man show about the life and music of John Lennon. Part tribute, part investigation of a life, writer John Waters attempts to use Lennon’s music to investigate and highlight the emotional journey of one of the biggest musicians of the 20th century. The production features Daniel Taylor as […]
The Toronto International Film Festival movies are starting to make their way to major markets. Here’s a quick look at what we saw back in September that you should be looking out for. Mean Dreams This gritty Canadian indie is like the live-action version of famed Wes Anderson cartoon Moonrise Kingdom but scarier. Future superstar Josh […]
A mixture of ballet and theatre can be enjoyed at Lilian Baylis Studio until June 29th. Dancing with the Devil tells the story of the famous Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Diagnosed with AIDS, he spends the last years of his life hallucinating and dreaming of the past. The audience is able to follow his […]
Before starting my review I think it is important to mention that this is a musical I already know very well and indeed am incredibly fond of. While this means I was already entering the theatre with the confidence that I would at least appreciate Peter Stone and Maury Yeston’s book and music, it also […]