Murder-On-The-Lake At The Shaw Festival Murder-on-the-Lake, the improvised mystery now gracing the stage at Shaw’s Royal George Theatre, presents a conundrum. How do you “review” a show that, by design, varies radically from performance to performance? The answer, I think, is that you don’t. Instead, I will attempt to describe
Mechanically Inclined At The Foster Festival Mechanically Inclined by Stratford Festival star Steve Ross (Chicago, La Cage Aux Folles) is part of the Foster Festival’s recent effort to foster (get it?) new Canadian plays. In a programme note director Jamie Williams, second in command at the Foster Festival, describes Mechanically
Pinkerton Comes To Prospect At Lighthouse Theatre Pinkerton Comes To Prospect by Jamie Williams belongs to a genre (or perhaps sub-genre) of farce that plays fast and loose with the presumed conventions of the melodramas that flourished at the turn of the last century. These shows tend to feature frontier
Powers and Gloria At The Blyth Festival Powers and Gloria by Keith Roulston, which premiered at the Blyth Festival in 2005, is receiving a powerful revival under the deft direction of Peter Hinton-Davis. The Powers of the title is Edward Powers (Randy Hughson), the 73-year-old head of a thriving furniture
Screwball Comedy At The Foster Festival Norm Foster built his reputation as a comic playwright by being a keen observer of the foibles and follies of Canada’s suburban middle class. In his 2017 Screwball Comedy, currently at the Foster Festival in St Catherines, he ventures into a world where he
Hidden Treasures at the Lighthouse Festival, Port Dover Hidden Treasures is the umbrella title for two extremely funny one-act plays by Norm Foster being presented by the Lighthouse Festival in Port Dover, Ontario. The plays in question are My Narrator and The Death of Me and they are well worth
Safe House At The Abbey Theatre I haven’t had much luck with the Irish avant garde. I have vague memories of a wordless Grotowsi-esque rendition of the Great Hunger that came to New York some decades ago. Now there’s Safe House, the new 90-minute whatchamacallit by Enda Walsh and Anna
Stereophonic on Broadway Stereophonic, the cleverly crafted play by David Adjmi, directed with surgical precision by Daniel Aukin, that plays like a Frederick Wiseman fly-on-the-wall documentary, snagged a Tony for Best Play. It’s easy to see why. Set in a Sausalito recording studio circa 1976 and clocking in at just
The Hills of California On Broadway “The hills of California will give ya a start. I guess I better warn ya cuz you’ll lose your heart,” says the Johnny Mercer song from 1948. The Hills of California, the new play from Jez Butterworth now at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre, may not
Falcon Girls at The Yale Rep Falcon Girls by Hilary Bettis, now receiving its world premiere at the Yale Rep, is a grab bag of characters, themes, issues, and notions that comes across more as notes for episodes in a multi-season TV mini series than a fully formed play. That’s
Escaped Alone At Yale Rep Caryl Churchill’s 2016 play, Escaped Alone, is a puzzlement, which despite its 55 intermissionless minutes seems to go on forever. The four women in Yale’s production of Escaped Alone, middle-aged to elderly (although Churchill apparently specified that they are all “at least 70”), sit in
A View From The Bridge at Long Wharf Theatre The now homeless and itinerant Long Wharf Theatre is making ingenious use of an ad hoc space on the second floor of the sleek Canal Dock Boathouse on the shore of New Haven harbor to mount a smashing revival of Arthur
Here For Now Announces 2025 Season Stratford’s Here For Now Theatre has announced a 2025 season of five one-act plays, all premieres of one sort or another, running from May 28 to August 31. This will be the company’s first season in its new indoor space in Stratford’s former Registry
Vale Atque Ave or Wither Stratford? The Latin scholars among you may recognize that headline as an inversion of the more traditional “Ave Atque Vale” (Hail and Farewell). I refer, of course, to the upcoming changing of the guard at the Stratford Festival, where Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino will be
What Was I Thinking? As I was meandering through Europe, contemplating exile, I found myself in Siracusa, Italy, taking it slow and relaxing in a nice hotel as I recuperated from back and leg pain (long story). Once I was feeling better I ventured out to explore Ortigia, Siracusa’s “old
Rampersad Helms ‘The Red Shoes’ At RSC Following in Tim Carroll’s footsteps, Kimberley Rampersad, the Associate Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival is directing and choreographing The Red Shoes at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. This Red Shoes is a new version of Hans Christian Andersen’s “dark fairy tale”
The 2024 OntarioStage Awards What they lack in prestige, they more than make up for in pointlessness.™ It’s the third time around for the annual awards compilation voted “Easiest to Ignore” by the Canadian theatre establishment. The usual caveats apply: As an American, my time in Canada is limited thanks
Lighthouse Theatre Announces Its 2025 Season The Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover, Ontario, was new to me this season, but based on my visit to see Norm Foster’s Lakefront, I’ll be returning to their comfy 350-seat house next year. Lighthouse has announced its 2025 season and it looks more than
