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Chronicling a Love Affair with Canadian Theatre

Peter Pan The Panto At Drayton – A Review

peter pan the panto

Peter Pan: The Panto At Drayton Peter Pan: The Panto, at the comfortable St. Jacobs Country Playhouse in Waterloo is Drayton Entertainment’s second foray into “panto” for the 2023 season. If you are unfamiliar with the term, let me refer you to an explanation of the genre in my review of Peter’s Final Flight, based […]

The Christmas Tree At The Foster Festival – A Review

The Christmas Tree At The Foster Festival At barely 45 minutes, Norm Foster’s The Christmas Tree is something of a theatrical amuse-bouche. You know, those minuscule bits of deliciousness served by fancy restaurants before the meal proper gets under way? But rather than coming at the beginning of anything, The Christmas Tree marks the end […]

The Salvagers At Yale Rep – A Review

the salvagers

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 – a Black angry young man […]

Dreamgirls At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

dreamgirls

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 (costumes), and especially lighting designer […]

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding at Manhattan Theatre Club – A Review

jaja's african hair braiding

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding At Manhattan Theatre Club These days White people get lectured a fair amount about the dos and don’ts  of how they should approach Black women’s hair. Thanks to Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, Jocelyn Bioh’s hit comedy at Manhattan Theatre Company, curious White folk have an opportunity to indulge their curiosity at […]

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 their enjoyment of a roller […]

Private Jones At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

private jones

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 to do his bit in […]

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 or less over (Stratford has […]

The 12 At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

the 12

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 an empty box, all corrugated […]

Wish You Were Here At The Yale Rep – A Review

wish you were here

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 or so between 1978 and […]