Immigrants. Gentrification. Two subjects that are inescapable when living in New York City. Sometimes it’s easy for New Yorkers to think we have the monopoly on them (as we like to think we have a monopoly on everything). But the Torontonian theater company Soulpepper proves otherwise with Kim’s Convenience, which handles heavy issues with sharp humor […]

 

The 2017 Dora Awards were handed out on Monday night at the beautiful Elgin theatre on Yonge Street, complete with a VIP cocktail reception and sprawling after party that took over multiple floors of the historic building. The Toronto Alliance of the Performing Arts (also known as TAPA)’s annual event is the most glamorous night […]

 

The big joke of Ink is that a play about a dumb, sordid newspaper is itself dumb and sordid. The audience doesn’t realise that, Rupert Goold doesn’t, James Graham doesn’t. But it is. Dumb. Sordid. Describing a play as ‘sordid’ makes me sound puritan. But it’s not the content that’s sordid, although Ink is about […]

I know, I’m as surprised as you. But listen, I enjoyed Magic Mike XXL (the original Magic Mike too but it was less fun and wanted to be too many things) and every once in awhile I get a weird 4am burst of personality-abandoning “to hell with it” courage and decide to do something truly […]

 

This dance-opera conceived and designed by co-directors Michael Greyeyes and Yvette Nolan and librettist Spy Denommé-Welch investigates the emotional history and contemporary cultural significance of Canada’s residential school system. The production itself is multi-faceted, combining orchestral music, a choir, opera, and modern dance. The story divides into three movements: in the first, the dancers enter […]

 

Cavalia’s performance of Odysseo has returned and hardly needs an introduction. The show teases prospective audience members with the promise of galloping horses, flowing manes, impressive circus feats, and magic. And honestly, it does not disappoint.   The company, founded in Montreal by Normand Latourelle boasts the world’s largest touring company and tent, as well […]

Adorning Shakespeare’s Globe theatre’s ornate and columned stage loom two large blackened missiles directed toward the soggy groundlings who are fighting the rainy elements on the day of this performance. This is my first play experience in the classic Globe and what better play to to take in than Shakespeare’s iconic story of teenage star-crossed […]

Dear Eleanor, written and directed by Estelle Girard Parks, premiered for one night only at the Kraine Theater. It billed itself as a murder mystery halfway between an Agatha Christie novel and Neil Simon’s Murder by Death. Unfortunately, it lacked the cleverness and intrigue of a Christie novel and the wit of a Simon play. […]