The Tempest At The Stratford Festival Departing Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino’s particular brand of rough magic is on fulsome display in his imaginative production of The Tempest by William Shakespeare on the Stratford Festival’s main stage. I have long maintained that Cimolino is, arguably, the greatest interpreter of the Bard
And Then There Were None At Drayton Entertainment I didn’t add Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None at Drayton Entertainment’s St Jacobs Country Playhouse to my list of must-sees for a simple reason. I hate this kind of show. Why? you might ask. For the simple reason that, fiercely
Waiting For Godot At The Stratford Festival If you have seen Waiting For Godot by Samual Beckett as many times as I have, you approach each new one with trepidation. So it is with relief that I am able to report that director Molly Atkinson’s take on this classic at
Guys And Dolls At The Stratford Festival After nine years, Donna Feore’s sublime production of Guys and Dolls is back on the Festival Theatre stage to bathe those who saw the 2017 edition in glorious nostalgia and to enchant those encountering it for the first time. Based on the stories
The Hobbit At The Stratford Festival I saw The Hobbit at the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre with an audience of 800 students, some of them quite young. Their verdict is in. They loved it! They seemed to be rapt throughout the entire two and a half hours. They cheered some
The Beaver Club At Lighthouse Theatre I feel compelled to warn my readers that The Beaver Club by Barb Scheffler, now playing at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover, ON, contains humour that is raunchy, off-colour, smutty, and occasionally downright dirty. I loved every minute of it! Four women of
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
