Bedtime Stories At The Firehall Theatre – A Review
Bedtime Stories At The Firehall Theatre Bedtime Stories, a 2006 comedy by Norm Foster, which just opened at the Firehall Theatre in Niagara Falls, Ontario, is unusual for a Foster comedy. It also marks an unusual collaboration between the Foster Festival and the community theatres of the Niagara Region. As Emily Oriold, Artistic Director […]
Annie At The Stratford Festival – A Review
Annie At The Stratford Festival Let’s put aside the many ironies of Canada’s premier theatrical company staging a musical that features a New York City billionaire who not only claims to be the world’s most successful businessman but who has the ear of the president. Instead let’s talk about Annie, the musical destined to become […]
Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf At Canadian Stage – A Review
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf At Canadian Stage I’m not a big fan of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the new production at Canadian Stage’s Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto did nothing to change my mind. Perhaps when it debuted in 1962 this three hour plus exercise in concentrated bitchiness seemed envelope-pushing. […]
Wights At Crow’s Theatre – A Review
Wights at Crow’s Theatre Wights, a noble failure of a play by Liz Appel, is getting the high-tech, razzle-dazzle treatment from director Chris Abraham that’s fast becoming his signature style at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto. Despite its drawbacks, I found it well worth the schlep into T-Town. In a house in New Haven, Connecticut, a […]
Heist At The Grand Theatre – A Review
Heist At The Grand Theatre Playwright Arun Lakra, whose Heist is enjoying an exuberant production at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, is a self-confessed fan of heist movies. His favourite and the apparent inspiration for Heist is Ocean’s Eleven, the star studded caper flick of 2001. Heist, the stage play, follows the Hollywood formula: […]
Dinner With The Duchess At Here For Now Theatre – A Review
Dinner With The Duchess At Here For Now Theatre Playwright Nick Green made quite a splash last season at the Stratford Festival with his powerful and touching Casey and Diana. He has returned to Stratford, not to the Festival stages but to the intimate confines of Here For Now Theatre’s sylvan tent on the western […]
Hedda Gabler At The Stratford Festival – A Review
Hedda Gabler At The Stratford Festival Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler from 1891 is one of the masterpieces of early modern theatre. It was quite shocking back then. In the production now playing at the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre it is more puzzling than anything else. The title role is sought after by most serious […]
The Diviners At The Stratford Festival – A Review
The Diviners At The Stratford Festival The Diviners, a classic of Canadian literature by Margaret Laurence, is being brought to grand and glorious life in a sinuous adaptation by Vern Thiessen and Yvette Nolan on the stage of the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre. The Diviners is a sprawling work that tells the story of […]
Salesman In China At The Stratford Festival – A Review
Salesman In China At The Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival has a major hit on its hands with the transcendent, Broadway-worthy world premiere of Salesman in China, by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy, directed by Sy. Now playing to full houses at the Avon Theatre, it is an imagined recreation of the events surrounding the […]
London Assurance At The Stratford Festival – A Review
London Assurance At The Stratford Festival Antoni Cimolino is perhaps the most gifted interpreter of William Shakespeare in North America. So when I saw that he was directing none of the Bard’s works this season at the Stratford Festival, I consoled myself with the knowledge that at least he would be directing London Assurance, the […]