Octet at Crow’s Theatre Octet, the a capella musical by Dave Malloy, now at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto under Chris Abraham’s direction, has received ecstatic reviews from all the critics. So why do I find myself neither shaken nor stirred? Octet is set in your typical church basement (nicely evoked
Misery At St Jacobs Country Playhouse I once described the fare offered by Drayton Entertainment as a welcome palate cleanser to the hoity-toity fare served up by august institutions like the Shaw and Stratford Festivals. Misery by William Goldman, adapting Steven King’s novel and movie of the same name, is
Tell Tale Harbour At The Royal Alexandra I think it’s fair to say that many people in Canada hoped that Tell Tale Harbour, the new musical featuring songs by Alan Doyle, co-founder and lead singer of the Newfoundland folk-rock group Great Big Sea would prove to be the next Come
Here On The Flight Path At The Lighthouse Festival The Lighthouse Festival in Port Dover has another hit on its hands with the revival of Norm Foster’s 1997 comedy, Here on the Flight Path. John Cummings (Reid Janisse), a 40-something divorcé who writes a newspaper column called “Cummings and Goings,”
Ransacking Troy At The Stratford Festival In Ransacking Troy, a lengthy retelling of the tales told by Homer in The Iliad and The Odyssey, feminist playwright Erin Shields imagines the women of the ancient epic, frustrated by the ten-year war, taking matters into their own hands. Ransacking Troy begins with
Apples In Winter At Here For Now Theatre Apples in Winter, Jennifer Fawcett’s taut one-hour monologue now at Here For Now Theatre is not for the faint of heart. Miriam (Birgitte Solem) is making a pie for her son, Robert, which would seem to be a fairly jolly thing to
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
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
Is This The Stratford Festival’s Best Kept Secret? Looking for a nice quiet light lunch or dinner before the show? Or maybe you’d just like to have lunch in a quiet environment in which you can actually hear your companion. Let me introduce you to the Tom Pat cafe, located
A New Slings and Arrows Podcast Debuts Slings and Arrows fans rejoice. A “kind of official” podcast devoted to the cult favorite is now available and it’s a great way to mark the show’s twentieth anniversary year. Outrageous Fortune, as the podcast is dubbed, promises to be a gold mine
The Real Poems Returns To Stratford One of the highlights of last season was Here For Now Theatre‘s production of The Real Poems, a superb one-man show written and performed by Robert McQueen. Here is the opening paragraph of my review: With its closing production of Robert McQueen’s beautifully written,
