OntarioStage.com

Chronicling a Love Affair with Canadian Theatre
Ontario
the master plan

The Master Plan At Crow’s Theatre – A Review

The Master Plan At Crow’s Theatre I was familiar with the work of director Chris Abraham mostly through classics like Much Ado About Nothing and Uncle Vanya, so I was eager to see what he would do with The Master Plan, Michael Healey’s new “ripped-from-the-headlines” play at Crow’s Theatre. I

Read More »
the amen corner

The Amen Corner At The Shaw Festival – A Review

The Amen Corner At The Shaw Festival The Shaw Festival’s production of The Amen Corner, James Baldwin’s searing tragedy set in a Pentecostal church in 1950s Harlem, marks the first time a play by a Black author has graced the mainstage of the Festival Theatre. Having seen Kimberley Rampersad’s blockbuster

Read More »
the shadow of a doubt

The Shadow Of A Doubt At The Shaw Festival – A Review

The Shadow Of A Doubt At The Shaw Festival The Shaw Festival has a history of rediscovering long-forgotten plays. With The Shadow Of A Doubt they’ve done themselves one better by producing the world premiere of a 1901 play by none other than Edith Wharton, the first woman to receive

Read More »
the clearing

The Clearing At The Shaw Festival – A Review

The Clearing At The Shaw Festival Shaw Festival artistic director Tim Carroll has a soft spot in his heart for the English Interregnum (1649-1660) and its aftermath. In 2019, he presented (and directed) Victory, a scabrous little play by Howard Barker. This season it’s the far superior The Clearing from

Read More »
love's labour's lost

Love’s Labour’s Lost At The Stratford Festival – A Review

Love’s Labour’s Lost At The Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost is giving some younger and newer members of the company a chance to brush up their Shakespeare. The presence of a number of seasoned pros in the cast is no doubt beneficial for

Read More »
queen maeve

Queen Maeve At Here For Now Theatre – A Review

Queen Maeve At Here For Now Theatre Judith Thompson’s Queen Maeve, now receiving its world premiere at Stratford’s Here For Now Theatre, is a bleak but powerful portrait of a demented nursing home resident, one Mrs. Nurmi. The staff calls her “your Majesty” because she is convinced that in addition

Read More »
Elsewhere
the salvagers

The Salvagers At Yale Rep – A Review

The Salvagers At Yale Rep The Salvagers by Harrison David Rivers, having its world premiere at Yale Rep, is the latest in a long line of semi-successful plays to indulge in kitchen sink realism. There is an angry young man at the center of the working class Salvage family –

Read More »
dreamgirls

Dreamgirls At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

Dreamgirls At Goodspeed Musicals In 1981, when Dreamgirls debuted at the Imperial Theatre, it electrified Broadway – and me – thanks to a star-making turn by Jennifer Holliday and an eye-popping production orchestrated by director Michael Bennett with the aid of theatre design legends like Robin Wagner (sets), Theoni Aldredge

Read More »
private jones

Private Jones At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

Private Jones At Goodspeed Musicals Private Jones, Marshall Pailet’s ambitious new musical at Goodspeed Musicals, aims high and hits a few targets but ultimately misses the mark. Based on a supposedly true story, Private Jones tells the story of a deaf kid from Breconshire, Wales, who lies about his age

Read More »
the 12

The 12 At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

The 12 At Goodspeed Musicals The 12, the new musical at Goodspeed Musicals by Robert Schenkkan and Neil Berg, about the twelve apostles minus Judas (yes, those guys) looks terrific. The set designer John Doyle, who also directs, has created a surprisingly attractive dump of an abandoned industrial site. It’s

Read More »
wish you were here

Wish You Were Here At The Yale Rep – A Review

Wish You Were Here At Yale Rep Sanaz Toossi’s Wish You Were Here, now playing at New Haven’s Yale Rep, is a well-intentioned disappointment. Wish You Were Here charts the gradually unravelling relationships among a tight-knit group of five female friends in Karaj, Iran, during a tumultuous period. The decade

Read More »
Blog

The Best Seats At The Shaw Festival

Shaw’s best seats Back in the days when I was writing guidebooks to Orlando’s many theme parks, I would include a section in my descriptions of various attractions called “the best seats in the house,” wherein I would attempt to guide readers to the best locations from which to maximize

Read More »

2023 Season – A Look back

Reflections on the 2023 Season It’s not a horserace, it’s not a competition, and there are a lot of apples vs. oranges considerations when it comes to discussing the very different theatre companies that call southwestern Ontario home. And yet . . . Now that the 2023 season is more

Read More »
tom patterson cafe

Is This The Stratford Festival’s Best Kept Secret?

Is This The Stratford Festival’s Best Kept Secret? Looking for a nice quiet light lunch or dinner before the show? Or maybe you’d just like to have lunch in a quiet environment in which you can actually hear your companion. Let me introduce you to the Tom Pat cafe, located

Read More »
outrageous fortune podcast

A New Slings and Arrows Podcast Debuts

A New Slings and Arrows Podcast Debuts Slings and Arrows fans rejoice. A “kind of official” podcast devoted to the cult favorite is now available and it’s a great way to mark the show’s twentieth anniversary year. Outrageous Fortune, as the podcast is dubbed, promises to be a gold mine

Read More »
robert mcqueen

The Real Poems Returns

The Real Poems Returns To Stratford One of the highlights of last season was Here For Now Theatre‘s production of The Real Poems, a superb one-man show written and performed by Robert McQueen. Here is the opening paragraph of my review: With its closing production of Robert McQueen’s beautifully written,

Read More »
here for now theatre

Here For Now Theatre Announces 2023 Season

Here For Now Theatre Announces 2023 Season [From their press release.] On Monday, March 1st, HERE FOR NOW THEATRE announced their exciting 2023 SEASON of SIX CANADIAN ONE ACTS to be presented June 28th– September 23rd, in Stratford Ontario at a BRAND NEW beautiful outdoor venue behind the STRATFORD PERTHMUSEUM.

Read More »