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
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
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
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,
Blithe Spirit At The Shaw Festival Noël Coward occupies a small but beloved niche in twentieth century theatre and his Blithe Spirit from 1941 is perhaps the most popular of his comedies. Director Mike Payette is giving it an enjoyable, if occasionally puzzling, revival at the Shaw Festival’s Festival Theatre.
Playboy Of The Western World At The Shaw Festival Tá bearna mhór idir scéal gallda agus gníomhas salach. J. M. Synge The Shaw Festival is giving J. M. Synge’s groundbreaking 1907 play, Playboy of the Western World, a sturdy production under the direction of Jackie Maxwell in the Studio Theatre
Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway Kimberly Akimbo may be the weirdest show to ever worm its way into the hearts of a Broadway audience. But that is precisely what this musical by David Lindsay-Abaire (book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (music) is doing at New York’s Booth Theatre. Kimberly is a
March 31 – April 23, 2022 Yale University has a long and distinguished vocal tradition. There are the undergraduate Whiffenpoofs, of course, and the School of Music confers advanced degrees in choral conducting. So it’s perhaps not too surprising to find that Choir Boy features one of the greatest small
Dream Hou$e at Long Wharf Theatre Playwright Eliana Pipes has furnished her new play Dream Hou$e (as it is styled in the program) with an abundance of themes in a variety of styles. The overall effect is striking but cluttered. The Castillo sisters are trying to sell their recently deceased
I Am My Own Wife at Long Wharf Theatre The Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, is giving Doug Wright’s Pulitzer prize-winning one-person play, I Am My Own Wife, a respectful if ultimately disappointing revival starring a very talented young actor, Mason Alexander Park. The play revolves around
London Assurance at The Irish Rep – A Review After the deaths of Richard Sheridan (School for Scandal) and Oliver Goldsmith (She Stoops To Conquer), the English-speaking stage seems to have lain fallow until the emergence in the late nineteenth century of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, at least
My Name Is Lucy Barton on Broadway “LAURA LINNEY IS LUMINOUS” a sign outside Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater announces. If only the same could be said of My Name Is Lucy Barton. This one-woman show, which I am compelled to report, received rapturous reviews from the New York critics,
Drayton Entertainment Announces 2023 Season Drayton Entertainment has announced their line up for 19 shows, playing across their 7 locations for the 2023 season. At this point there is no information about cast or directors. But just the bare bones list of titles reinforces my opinions about why Drayton is
The 2023 Guide to Stratford and the Stratford Festival After a Covid-induced hiatus, I have resurrected my annual Guide to Stratford Ontario and the Stratford Festival, completely updated for 2023. It is now available in e-book format on Amazon’s Kindle Store. The guide began as a labour of love, created
The Shaw Festival Is Canada’s Great Theatre Bargain After sharpening my pencil and doing some calculations, I have decided that the Shaw Festival, in drop-dead-gorgeous Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, is the greatest theatre bargain in Canada. I have booked tickets for the missus and myself for the entire 2023 season at the
(Image: New YorkTimes) Gimme A Break! This review in the New York Times made me want to open a vein and slide into a warm tub. Why on earth do people like director Thomas Ostermeier insist on grafting their gawdawful “visions” onto Shakespeare, instead of creating their own works that
Serving Elizabeth Streaming on Stratfest@Home Serving Elizabeth, a wonderful new play by Marcia Johnson, travels in time from Kenya in 1972 to London in 2015 with five terrific actors playing all the roles. The conceit of Serving Elizabeth – and this is all entirely fictional – is that Mercy, an
Midsummer Night’s Dream Streaming on Stratfest@Home Before he tackled the job of desecrating Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 2022, director Peter Pasyk warmed up with the Bard’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2021. The script has been ruthlessly cut to accommodate a cast of just eight and an intermission-less running time of about
