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Chronicling a Love Affair with Canadian Theatre

Life Without At Here For Now Theatre – A Review

here for now theatre

Life Without At Here For Now Theatre Here For Now Theatre’s Life Without by Steve Ross, the popular, indeed beloved Stratford Festival actor is the work of a promising and powerful playwright. (Closed borders during the pandemic prevented me from seeing his first outing with Here For Now, the well received goldfish.) Life Without unfolds […]

Handcuffs At The Blyth Festival – A Review

the donnelly trilogy

Handcuffs At The Blyth Festival The Blyth Festival’s epic presentation of James Reaney’s so-called Donnelly Trilogy, concludes with Part 3: Handcuffs. As abridged, adapted, and directed by Gil Garratt, it goes out in something of a blaze of glory. (To avoid needless repetition, I refer readers to my reviews of Part 1: Sticks and Stones […]

Chronicles Of Sarnia At The Blyth Festival – A Review

chronicles of sarnia

Chronicles Of Sarnia At The Blyth Festival The Blyth Festival has another comedy hit on its hands with the world premiere of Chronicles of Sarnia by Sarnia native Matt Murray. Murray also wrote Myth of the Ostrich, which Here For Now Theatre produced earlier this season. He clearly has a gift for intricately plotted, character […]

Is This The Stratford Festival’s Best Kept Secret?

tom patterson cafe

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 in the spectacular new Tom […]

Frog Song At Here For Now Theatre – A Review

frog song

Frog Song At Here For Now Theatre In a delightful change of pace, Stratford’s Here For Now Theatre is presenting Frog Song, an opera – yes, an opera! – for children and never has its tent theatre and its bucolic setting seemed more magical. With a book by Taylor Marie Graham and music by William […]

Summer Stock At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

summer stock

Summer Stock At Goodspeed Musicals Summer Stock, the horribly dated 1950 film starring Gene Kelly and a fading Judy Garland, has been transformed into a “new musical comedy” at Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, CT. The big question for anyone who remembers the film is “Why bother?” There are two answers to that question: Cheri […]

The St. Nicholas Hotel At The Blyth Festival – A Review

the donnelly trilogy

The St. Nicholas Hotel At The Blyth Festival The saga of southwest Ontario’s ill-fated Donnelly clan continues in The St. Nicholas Hotel, the second installment of The Donnelly’s: A Trilogy at the Blyth Festival. The others in the series are Sticks and Stones and Handcuffs. After the broad overview of the legend of the Donnellys […]

Wedding Band At The Stratford Festival – A Review

wedding band

Wedding Band At The Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival has another triumph on its hands in the form of Sam White’s searing production of the 1962 Alice Childress masterpiece, Wedding Band. Except for a mention in the author bio, the programme omits the play’s telling subtitle, A Love/Hate Story in Black and White, but it […]

Margaret Reid At Here For Now Theatre – A Review

margaret reid

Margaret Reid At Here For Now Theatre What’s real? Who can you trust? Do we create our own truth or are we at the mercy of the truth of others? Margaret Reid, Madeleine Brown’s anarchic, surrealistic, and meta-theatrical examination of these existential questions may not answer them, but she sure gives us a lot to […]

The Apple Cart At The Shaw Festival – A Review

the apple cart

The Apple Cart At The Shaw Festival I can only assume that the reason that George Bernard Shaw’s The Apple Cart is not as well known and as frequently revived as some of his other works is because it deals with politics with a capital P. I dare say that, being one of those dreaded […]