The Brightest Thing In The World At Yale Rep
The Brightest Thing In The World At Yale Rep As Leah Nanako Winkler’s The Brightest Thing in the World opens, two attractive young women, Steph (Michele Selene Ang) and Lane (Katherine Romans), meet cute in a Lexington, Kentucky, coffee shop. And meet. And meet. And meet. Over the course of Steph’s repeated visits (cleverly staged […]
Drayton Announces 2023 Season
Drayton Entertainment Announces 2023 Season Drayton Entertainment has announced their line up for 19 shows, playing across their 7 locations for the 2023 season. At this point there is no information about cast or directors. But just the bare bones list of titles reinforces my opinions about why Drayton is important in the theatrical ecosystem […]
Stratford and the Stratford Festival 2023
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 in the hope that I […]
Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway – A Review
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 high school student of fifteen, […]
The Shaw Festival Is Canada’s Great Theatre Bargain
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 Shaw Festival – a mere […]
Aaargh!
(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 would illuminate their brilliant insights […]
The Season I Missed (4) – Serving Elizabeth
Serving Elizabeth Streaming on Stratfest@Home 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 outspokenly anti-British Kenyan cook and […]
Grand Ghosts at The Grand Theatre – A Review
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 a show about the ghosts […]
The Season I Missed (3) – Midsummer Night’s Dream
Midsummer Night’s Dream Streaming on Stratfest@Home 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 90 minutes. Fair enough. Stranger […]
Billy Bishop On Demand
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 at a bargain price, too, […]