Toronto’s mayor is a Mr. Dursley-esque grump face with a popularity rate so low in the heart of the city that I’ve literally never met one of his supporters. They like him in the suburbs I guess, or so the electoral map suggested, but down where we use the TTC and go to the theatre […]
The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is gearing up for their 60th Anniversary, recently posting the promotional photos for the 14 productions in their 2012 season. Head to www.stratfordfestival.ca for details on the upcoming shows. 42nd Street A Word or Two The Best Brothers Cymbeline Elektra Henry V Hirsch MacHomer The Matchmaker Much Ado About Nothing The […]
In my University writing classes I always wanted to write inside baseball stories about how Shakespeare people talk about Shakespeare. Every professor I ever had (playwriting, screenwriting, tv writing- all of them) told me I wasn’t allowed. They said the audience would tune the characters out because they didn’t understand, that everything had to be […]
Ross Petty’s annual Christmas Pantomime has been a beloved event in Toronto for 16 years. I can remember going as a kid and getting to see Canadian legends like Mr. Dressup (Ernie Coombs), Fred Penner, Kurt Browning, Rex Harrington and Karen Kain onstage as absurd twisted fairy tale creatures. It was the thrill of the […]
Shakespeare in Action’s second tragedy isn’t as strong as its repertory companion Romeo and Juliet. While the casually modern staging works wonderfully in R and J, in a modern Mackers a low budget can make things look haphazard because of the precision necessary to pull off a military look. The company would have been better […]
In the weeks before Anonymous hit movie theatres I was asked no fewer than 20 times how I felt about the film. “Could it be true?” people wondered of the absurd tagline: ‘Was Shakespeare A Fraud?’; “are you outraged?” demanded others, inquiring whether my bardolatry had me on the defense; “why is Xenophilius Lovegood in […]
I’m loving the fact that Atomic Vaudeville/Acting Up Stage’s Ride the Cyclone has all the buzz in the world heading into the last 2 weeks of their sold-out run at Theatre Passe Muraille, not because I adored the show (it’s good, but nothing to write home about), because it’s weird. Really weird. And when it […]
I am extraordinarily picky when it comes to Romeo and Juliet. I adore the play and have what my friend Maddi calls “thoughts and feelings” about it, meaning I’m overly attached to a very strict interpretation that exists in my head of the pedestalled piece. I know it like the back of my hand, to […]