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as you like it

As You Like It At The Stratford Festival – A Review

As You Like It At The Stratford Festival William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, now being presented at the Stratford Festival’s Festival Theatre under the direction of Chris Abraham, is a pastoral comedy. Well, it’s supposed to be. The play contrasts the regime of the usurper Duke Frederick of France

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macbeth

Macbeth At The Stratford Festival – A Review

Macbeth At The Stratford Festival I saw Robert Lepage’s production of Macbeth at Stratford’s Avon Theatre and I came out humming the scenery. If you saw his Coriolanus at Stratford or Kà, still playing in Las Vegas, you know that Lepage is a visual artist of considerable genius and one

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tons of money

Tons Of Money At The Shaw Festival – A Review

Tons of Money At The Shaw Festival The Shaw Festival’s laudable tradition of reviving forgotten comic gems from the so-called “mandate period” (Shaw’s long lifetime) continues with the 1922 farce Tons of Money by Will Evans and Valentine (the pseudonym of Archibald Thomas Peachey). Alas, Tons of Money is not

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anything-goes

Anything Goes At The Shaw Festival – A Review

Anything Goes At The Shaw Festival Anything Goes, directed and choreographed by Kimberley Rampersad is yet another musical comedy triumph for the Shaw Festival. Rampersad and the Festival are most definitely on a roll. Rampersad seems to have made a decision to foster a troupe that can tap dance like

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stick around

Stick Around At Here For Now Theatre – A Review

Stick Around At Here For Now Theatre – A Review Here For Now Theatre describes its season opener, the world premiere of Stick Around by Rebecca Northan, as a comedy. “Comedy” is apparently Canadian patois for “it’ll rip your heart out.” While it has a few laughs, Stick Around is

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Elsewhere
summer stock

Summer Stock At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

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

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gypsy at goodspeed

Gypsy At Goodspeed Musicals – A Review

Gypsy at Goodspeed Musicals Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Connecticut, known to us old-timers as the Goodspeed Opera House, is mounting a workmanlike production of the Arthur Laurents/Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim classic, Gypsy, directed by Jenn Thompson. The production tries mightily to do justice to what many critics and historians of

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the ripple the wave

The Ripple The Wave At Yale Rep – A Review

The Ripple, The Wave At Yale Rep Playwright Christina Anderson’s earnest The Ripple, The Wave That Carried Me Home makes great use of water as metaphor. The 90-minute play, performed without intermission at the Yale Rep, strives for poetry as it tells the tale of segregated swimming pools in the

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ain't misbehavin'

Ain’t Misbehavin’ At Westport Country Playhouse – A Review

Ain’t Misbehavin’ at Westport Country Playhouse The Westport Country Playhouse is presenting a middling revival of Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show. Conceived by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz, it wowed Broadway (and me) back in 1978. For this outing, a co-production with Barrington Stage and Geva Theatre

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mojada

Mojada At Yale Rep – A Review

Mojada At Yale Rep The play’s title is Mojada, which literally means “wet” in Spanish, the feminine form of the Mexican slur for “wetback.” The play’s subtitle is A Medea in Los Angeles, so you know things aren’t going to end well. And I’m not talking about the traffic on

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sound of the underground

Sound Of The Underground At The Royal Court — A Review

Sound Of The Underground at The Royal Court Those coming to Travis Alabanza’s Sound of the Underground at London’s Royal Court Theatre expecting the sort of cheerful, glamorous drag show popularized by La Cage Aux Folles and Ru Paul’s Drag Race will likely be disappointed. Those who can handle some

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Blog

Wisconsin Theatre. Yes, Wisconsin

Wisconsin Theatre As an American, I pride myself on having pierced the Poutine Curtain to bring news of Canada’s theatrical riches to my benighted fellow countrymen. Now I discover that Ilana Lucas, an intrepid reporter for Intermission, a Canadian online magazine devoted to theatre, has made the reverse journey and

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The 2023 OntarioStage Awards

The 2023 OntarioStage Awards What they lack in prestige, they more than make up for in pointlessness.™ Once more unto the breach with 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

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gil garratt

The 2024 Season – Part Two

The 2024 Season – Part Two To the extent that Americans are aware of the theatrical riches of Ontario’s summer “festival” season at all, they are probably familiar with The Stratford Festival and The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I discussed the 2024 season at these august institutions, along with my

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shaw and shakespeare

The 2024 Season, Part One

The 2024 Season – Part One As Christmas approaches what better way to escape the crass commercialism of the holiday season than to toss another log on the fire, settle back with your single malt, and savor the crass commercialism of the 2024 theatrical season in southwestern Ontario! By now

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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

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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

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