I Am An Island At Here For Now Theatre I Am An Island by Julia Lederer, now receiving its world premiere at Here For Now Theatre, is described as a “surrealistic drama (with some very funny bits).” Okay, fair enough. I guess that absolves me of any obligation to try
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Stratford Festival I absolutely loved Chris Abraham’s gender-bending take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Stratford Festival’s Festival Theatre in 2014. Graham Abbey’s sumptuous staging of the play in the Tom Patterson Theatre is utterly different and every bit as good, if not
Finding Neverland At Drayton Entertainment Finding Neverland, the undistinguished musical tale of the creation of J. M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” has followed a long and winding road which has brought it to the Hamilton Family Theatre in Cambridge, Ontario. When, after several iterations, it arrived on Broadway, Neverland was pooh-poohed
The Surrogate At Here For Now Theatre The Surrogate by Mohsin Zaidi provides a smashing opening for Here For Now’s 2026 season. Under the shrewd, kinetic direction of Christopher Manousos the play grabs the audience by the gut immediately and doesn’t let go. Zaidi has crammed a lot (arguably too
Ruby And The Reindeer At Here For Now Theatre Ruby and the Reindeer by Mark Crawford, Here For Now Theatre’s holiday gift to Stratford, is flat out terrific. Heartfelt, warm, effortlessly charming, and with a sweetly powerful feminist message, it is destined to become a Christmas classic. Ruby and the
Rogers v Rogers At Crow’s Theatre After seeing Michael Healey’s brilliant (and brilliantly funny) The Master Plan at Crow’s Theatre not even the dreaded Canadian winter could keep me from coming to Toronto to see his Rogers v Rogers. The fact that Tom Rooney was playing all fifteen characters was
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
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
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
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
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
Vodka With Stalin [Full Disclosure: I am a long-time friend of the playwright.] Francis Beckett is a prominent English historian of twentieth century left-wing British politics who writes the occasional play. In Vodka With Stalin, now enjoying a brief run at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, in Highgate, London, he has
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
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
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
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
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
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
