The Long Weekend At The Foster Festival When the first line of a play is “This weekend is going to make a colonoscopy seem like a lighthearted treasure hunt,” you sense that it’s going to be a bumpy ride. So it is with the revival of Norm Foster’s 1994 hit,
Sleuth At The Shaw Festival I believe I am on record as not liking plays such as Sleuth, the brain-twisting murder mystery by Anthony Shaffer, now enthralling audiences at the Shaw Festival’s resuscitated Court House Theatre. Like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Sleuth challenges you to figure out
The Importance of Being Earnest At The Stratford Festival Krista Jackson’s vastly entertaining production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, currently playing to packed houses at the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre, may not be absolute perfection, but it will more than do until something better comes along. Wilde’s
Love Us Most At Here For Now Theatre First, a public service announcement: Please don’t read the programme for Love Us Most, Sara Farb’s world premiere play at Here for Now, before you see the show. I did and expected a very different play from the one I saw. Love
Dry Streak At The Blyth Festival The Blyth Festival has mounted any number of terrifc comedies over the years – Liars At A Funeral and Cakewalk come to mind – but I can’t remember when I last laughed as hard as I did at the astonishing comic payoff of Leeann
Othello At The Stratford Festival Othello by William Shakespeare, at Stratford’s Tom Patterson Theatre, is the third Shakespeare I’ve seen this season and the third one I have liked. I admired it every bit as much as I did the RSC production in 2024. In my book that makes this
Eden At Yale Rep The Yale Rep kicks off the new year with a welcome revival of Steve Carter’s 1976 play, Eden. The first of Carter’s so-called Caribbean Trilogy, Eden won awards both in New York and Los Angeles, but as far as I can tell has been revived only
Orgasmos at Teatro Arlequin in Madrid Based on the title, one might expect that Orgasmos (Orgasms), which enjoyed a recent one-night stand – how appropriate! – at Madrid’s Teatro Arlequin Gran Via, was devised to lure in sad old men in greasy raincoats and Japanese tourists, rather like O Calcutta
Lucia Di Lammermoor At The Bayerische Staatsoper Before I get to Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor, and in the interest of full disclosure, let me begin by confessing my profound ignorance of classical music and all things operatic. Not only is it an art form for which I have no instinctive
Othello At The Royal Shakespeare Company Tim Carroll is taking a bit of a sabbatical from his duties as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival in Canada’s Niagara-on-the-Lake to direct William Shakespeare’s Othello at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England’s Stratford-upon-Avon. I’ve seen four Shakespeares directed by Carroll, at The
The Lehman Trilogy In The West End “Give ‘em the old razzle-dazzle,” from Chicago, kept going through my mind as I watched Sam Mendes’ astonishing production of The Lehman Trilogy, now being revived on London’s West End at the spacious yet intimate Gillian Lynne Theatre. Adapted by Ben Power from
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
Complete List Of Plays By Norm Foster I have become a huge fan of the plays of Norm Foster as regular readers of OntarioStage may have noticed. I am always eager to add to the number of Norm Foster plays that I have seen. Norm Foster is often described as
“On Canada’s Top Stage, Macbeth and Annie Are Talking to Americans” Jesse Green, lead critic for the New York Times, has written what amounts to a love letter to the Stratford Festival’s 2025 season. His gloss on the themes of the season thus far is spot on and well worth
Stratford Extends Its 2025 Season The Stratford Festival has announced that several shows will be extended well into the Fall. They are: Anne of Green Gables – now playing through November 16, 2025 Macbeth – now playing through November 22, 2025 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – now playing through November 23,
Abraham Out As Cimolino Successor It appears that Chris Abraham, once considered one of the top candidates to replace Antoni Cimolino as artistic director of the Stratford Festival is out of the running. From the Toronto Star: “The Stratford Festival’s search for a new artistic director, the most powerful and
Liars At A Funeral Is Back I saw Liars At A Funeral in 2023 at the Blyth Festival and raved about it. This season it is being revived by Drayton Entertainment at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse. As is so often the case with plays and productions I love I
Last season, Drayton Entertainment revived Norm Foster’s Halfway There at their namesake venue in Drayton and I absolutely adored it. So when I learned they were bringing it back this season, this time at their very stylish Cambridge location, I was quick to book tickets and bring friends along. The
