A large paper scroll leads us up the stairs to the Berkeley Theatre. On the landing Mamela Nyamza is crouched on the floor, scrawling over and over “I must not have a big bum,” “I must not have a big bum”. As we continue up the stairs we can see how line-by-line the written form […]
The Queen will see you now. Another West End transplant has made its way to the U.S. in the form of playwright Peter Morgan’s The Audience, and it has brought a much-celebrated leading lady, Helen Mirren, to Broadway. While Dame Mirren’s performance as the Queen is captivating and anyone with even a slight bit of […]
With the weather warming up and city-dwellers coming out of hibernation, the Toronto theatre community is providing plenty of places for them to go. You could head down Yonge Street to see Once (starring the always likeable Ian Lake) or to The Annex for The LOT’s Hairspray (with the amazing Matt McKay as Seaweed) then […]
way·ward (wāwərd) adjective difficult to control or predict because of unusual or perverse behavior. “I’m so glad you’ve taken an interest in our farm,” director Becky Johnson exclaims in character at the top of Cult Wayward, the all-female improv show at the Bag Dog Theatre. This new addition in the Wayward series did not […]
Improv is risky business for a theatre-goer. Sometimes the freshness, urgency and unfiltered, uninhibited whimsy that can be so thrilling results in not a lot more than broad havoc and jokes that could use a re-write. But when everything does come together just right, there’s nothing like it. In Toronto, the closest thing to a […]
Last year, I gave a rave review to an off-Broadway play called Hand to God starring a (possibly) satanic puppet named Tyrone McHansley and Jason, the timid, church-going boy who brings Tyrone to life. Well, this shocking and outrageously funny play capitalized on its stellar reviews and is now one of the best shows on […]
Max Baker’s new play Live From the Surface of the Moon at The Wild Project is a frustrating and uncomfortable glimpse at Midwestern suburbia in 1969, juxtaposing vast technological advancements with the backwards sexual and social norms of the time. While Baker’s premise is an intriguing one, his play suffers from a lack of focus […]
The latest productions from Coal Mine and Safeword share a common goal: to leave you shaken. They share some other things too (small casts, hip tones, interesting spaces) but it’s that shared goal that stands out. That’s not what all theatre artists are doing; most want to entertain you, to move you, maybe even inspire […]