Dinner With The Duchess At Here For Now Theatre Playwright Nick Green made quite a splash last season at the Stratford Festival with his powerful and touching Casey and Diana. He has returned to Stratford, not to the Festival stages but to the intimate confines of Here For Now Theatre’s
Hedda Gabler At The Stratford Festival Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler from 1891 is one of the masterpieces of early modern theatre. It was quite shocking back then. In the production now playing at the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre it is more puzzling than anything else. The title role is
The Diviners At The Stratford Festival The Diviners, a classic of Canadian literature by Margaret Laurence, is being brought to grand and glorious life in a sinuous adaptation by Vern Thiessen and Yvette Nolan on the stage of the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre. The Diviners is a sprawling work
Salesman In China At The Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival has a major hit on its hands with the transcendent, Broadway-worthy world premiere of Salesman in China, by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy, directed by Sy. Now playing to full houses at the Avon Theatre, it is an imagined recreation
London Assurance At The Stratford Festival Antoni Cimolino is perhaps the most gifted interpreter of William Shakespeare in North America. So when I saw that he was directing none of the Bard’s works this season at the Stratford Festival, I consoled myself with the knowledge that at least he would
Lakefront At The Lighthouse Theatre With Lakefront, now enjoying it’s world premiere at Port Dover’s Lighthouse Festival Theatre, the prolific Norm Foster is proving that oldsters can be just as romantic – and funny – as the younger couples he has been writing about for decades. “Write what you know”
The Lehman Trilogy In The West End “Give ‘em the old razzle-dazzle,” from Chicago, kept going through my mind as I watched Sam Mendes’ astonishing production of The Lehman Trilogy, now being revived on London’s West End at the spacious yet intimate Gillian Lynne Theatre. Adapted by Ben Power from
Safe House At The Abbey Theatre I haven’t had much luck with the Irish avant garde. I have vague memories of a wordless Grotowsi-esque rendition of the Great Hunger that came to New York some decades ago. Now there’s Safe House, the new 90-minute whatchamacallit by Enda Walsh and Anna
Stereophonic on Broadway Stereophonic, the cleverly crafted play by David Adjmi, directed with surgical precision by Daniel Aukin, that plays like a Frederick Wiseman fly-on-the-wall documentary, snagged a Tony for Best Play. It’s easy to see why. Set in a Sausalito recording studio circa 1976 and clocking in at just
The Hills of California On Broadway “The hills of California will give ya a start. I guess I better warn ya cuz you’ll lose your heart,” says the Johnny Mercer song from 1948. The Hills of California, the new play from Jez Butterworth now at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre, may not
Falcon Girls at The Yale Rep Falcon Girls by Hilary Bettis, now receiving its world premiere at the Yale Rep, is a grab bag of characters, themes, issues, and notions that comes across more as notes for episodes in a multi-season TV mini series than a fully formed play. That’s
Escaped Alone At Yale Rep Caryl Churchill’s 2016 play, Escaped Alone, is a puzzlement, which despite its 55 intermissionless minutes seems to go on forever. The four women in Yale’s production of Escaped Alone, middle-aged to elderly (although Churchill apparently specified that they are all “at least 70”), sit in
The 2024 OntarioStage Awards What they lack in prestige, they more than make up for in pointlessness.™ It’s the third time around for the annual awards compilation voted “Easiest to Ignore” by the Canadian theatre establishment. The usual caveats apply: As an American, my time in Canada is limited thanks
Lighthouse Theatre Announces Its 2025 Season The Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover, Ontario, was new to me this season, but based on my visit to see Norm Foster’s Lakefront, I’ll be returning to their comfy 350-seat house next year. Lighthouse has announced its 2025 season and it looks more than
Shaw Announces Its 2025 Season In size and scope the Saw Festival’s 2025 season will look a lot like the current one, with some intriguing differences. The morning one-act in the Royal George seems to have been axed. But the other shows slated for that venue seemed ideally suited to
Stratford Announces 2025 Season The Stratford Festival has announced a somewhat slimmed down season for 2025 that reflects ongoing financial struggles as the post-pandemic “recovery” proves more sluggish than hoped (or anticipated). For starters, there will be eleven productions next year as opposed to the more usual twelve. Only one
Shameless! I have now seen Something Rotten three times and can reliably report that the show has done nothing but get better, tighter, and more self-assured. I have also now had the opportunity (twice) to see Steve Ross as Shylock. No offense to his understudy, who filled in admirably the
Here For Now Is Here To Stay [Press Release] On Monday, June 10th, 2024, HERE FOR NOW THEATRE announced that the company has found a permanent home for the next 15 Seasons. Here For Now Theatre, an award-winning independent professional theatre company in
