Grand Ghosts at The Grand Theatre Grand Ghosts, now premiering at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, was a grand notion. Too bad it didn’t work out. The idea behind Grand Ghosts, as I understand it, was to celebrate the reopening of the renovated theatre with a fun frolic of
Driving Miss Daisy at St Jacobs Country Playhouse I wonder if Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy, a minor classic of late twentieth century American theatre, is weathering the test of time, or like its title character becoming progressively weaker. The play is receiving a respectful, low key revival at Drayton
The Shark Is Broken At The Royal Alexandra The Shark Is Broken, Ian Shaw’s heartfelt homage to the memory of a father he hardly knew, is receiving a sterling production at Mirvish’s Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. Shaw and co-writer Joseph Nixon imagine the frictions and frustrations experienced by actors
Singin’ In The Rain at The Princess of Wales No, the Mirvish production of Singin’ in the Rain, currently packing them in at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre does not come close to matching the razzle dazzle of the 1952 MGM screen classic starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie
Hamlet-911 at The Stratford Festival If you’re not feeling sufficiently woke, hie thee to Hamlet-911, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s cheerfully anarchic mishmash of a play now receiving it’s much-delayed world premiere at the Stratford Festival’s Studio Theatre. Hamlet-911 is a satiric comedy about white male privilege in the theatre, specifically the Stratford
Uncle Vanya At Crow’s Theatre The astonishment of Artistic Director Chris Abraham’s electrifying production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre begins with the set and lighting. Co-designers of set and props Julie Fox and Josh Quinlan have transformed the Crow’s capacious Guloien Theatre into one of the
Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway Kimberly Akimbo may be the weirdest show to ever worm its way into the hearts of a Broadway audience. But that is precisely what this musical by David Lindsay-Abaire (book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (music) is doing at New York’s Booth Theatre. Kimberly is a
March 31 – April 23, 2022 Yale University has a long and distinguished vocal tradition. There are the undergraduate Whiffenpoofs, of course, and the School of Music confers advanced degrees in choral conducting. So it’s perhaps not too surprising to find that Choir Boy features one of the greatest small
Dream Hou$e at Long Wharf Theatre Playwright Eliana Pipes has furnished her new play Dream Hou$e (as it is styled in the program) with an abundance of themes in a variety of styles. The overall effect is striking but cluttered. The Castillo sisters are trying to sell their recently deceased
I Am My Own Wife at Long Wharf Theatre The Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, is giving Doug Wright’s Pulitzer prize-winning one-person play, I Am My Own Wife, a respectful if ultimately disappointing revival starring a very talented young actor, Mason Alexander Park. The play revolves around
London Assurance at The Irish Rep – A Review After the deaths of Richard Sheridan (School for Scandal) and Oliver Goldsmith (She Stoops To Conquer), the English-speaking stage seems to have lain fallow until the emergence in the late nineteenth century of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, at least
My Name Is Lucy Barton on Broadway “LAURA LINNEY IS LUMINOUS” a sign outside Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater announces. If only the same could be said of My Name Is Lucy Barton. This one-woman show, which I am compelled to report, received rapturous reviews from the New York critics,
List of Sites that Review Theatre in Ontario Canada You don’t have to take my word for it. I often find myself in a minority when it comes to opinions on plays and films, for reasons that are more fully explained on the About This Site page. It’s a phenomenon
The 2023 Guide to Stratford and the Stratford Festival After a Covid-induced hiatus, I have resurrected my annual Guide to Stratford Ontario and the Stratford Festival, completely updated for 2023. It is now available in e-book format on Amazon’s Kindle Store. The guide began as a labour of love, created
The Shaw Festival Is Canada’s Great Theatre Bargain After sharpening my pencil and doing some calculations, I have decided that the Shaw Festival, in drop-dead-gorgeous Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, is the greatest theatre bargain in Canada. I have booked tickets for the missus and myself for the entire 2023 season at the
(Image: New YorkTimes) Gimme A Break! This review in the New York Times made me want to open a vein and slide into a warm tub. Why on earth do people like director Thomas Ostermeier insist on grafting their gawdawful “visions” onto Shakespeare, instead of creating their own works that
Serving Elizabeth Streaming on [email protected] Serving Elizabeth, a wonderful new play by Marcia Johnson, travels in time from Kenya in 1972 to London in 2015 with five terrific actors playing all the roles. The conceit of Serving Elizabeth – and this is all entirely fictional – is that Mercy, an
Midsummer Night’s Dream Streaming on [email protected] Before he tackled the job of desecrating Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 2022, director Peter Pasyk warmed up with the Bard’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2021. The script has been ruthlessly cut to accommodate a cast of just eight and an intermission-less running time of about
Billy Bishop On Demand If you missed Drayton Entertainment’s excellent production of Billy Bishop Goes to War earlier this year, you’ve been granted a second chance. In honour of Remembrance Day, November 11th, Drayton is presenting “Billy Bishop On Demand” for a limited time, from November 7 to 11. And
