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iPhoto caption: A promo shot for the 2026 Toronto Fringe Festival. Photo by Robbie Harper.
Toronto Fringe reveals 2026 programming
Summer is on the horizon, and that means the Toronto Fringe Festival is too. The annual event’s 38th edition spans 13 days and features 123 shows in 27 venues across the city.
iPhoto caption: Paul Gross and Tom McCamus in 'Waiting for Godot.' Photo by David Hou.
REVIEW: Stratford Festival’s Waiting for Godot never feels fully its own
Tom McCamus' and Paul Gross' performances are clear and intentional. Nonetheless, I struggled to connect with this production.
iPhoto caption: A promo shot for the 2026 Toronto Fringe Festival. Photo by Robbie Harper.
Toronto Fringe reveals 2026 programming
Summer is on the horizon, and that means the Toronto Fringe Festival is too. The annual event’s 38th edition spans 13 days and features 123 shows in 27 venues across the city.
iPhoto caption: Paul Gross and Tom McCamus in 'Waiting for Godot.' Photo by David Hou.
REVIEW: Stratford Festival’s Waiting for Godot never feels fully its own
Tom McCamus' and Paul Gross' performances are clear and intentional. Nonetheless, I struggled to connect with this production.
iPhoto caption: 'Vampyr.' Photo by Nicolas Calderon.
REVIEWS: Festival TransAmériques 2026
The 20th edition of Montreal’s FTA does right by its name, featuring a curated lineup of 25 theatre and dance productions with roots mostly in the Americas. This year, Intermission presents its most comprehensive FTA coverage ever, with four critics publishing a total of 16 capsule reviews — responses that will appear below over the course of the two-week festival.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'Fiddler on the Roof.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Exquisite Yiddish Fiddler on the Roof bursts with both elation and pain
The word “Torah” in Hebrew dominates centre stage, constantly illuminated and glowing like an eternal flame. The backdrop’s sanctification, desecration, and resurrection signifies the resilience and endurance of the people before it.
Reviews
iPhoto caption: Paul Gross and Tom McCamus in 'Waiting for Godot.' Photo by David Hou.
REVIEW: Stratford Festival’s Waiting for Godot never feels fully its own
Tom McCamus' and Paul Gross' performances are clear and intentional. Nonetheless, I struggled to connect with this production.
iPhoto caption: 'Vampyr.' Photo by Nicolas Calderon.
REVIEWS: Festival TransAmériques 2026
The 20th edition of Montreal’s FTA does right by its name, featuring a curated lineup of 25 theatre and dance productions with roots mostly in the Americas. This year, Intermission presents its most comprehensive FTA coverage ever, with four critics publishing a total of 16 capsule reviews — responses that will appear below over the course of the two-week festival.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'Fiddler on the Roof.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Exquisite Yiddish Fiddler on the Roof bursts with both elation and pain
The word “Torah” in Hebrew dominates centre stage, constantly illuminated and glowing like an eternal flame. The backdrop’s sanctification, desecration, and resurrection signifies the resilience and endurance of the people before it.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' Photo by David Hou.
Developed in collaboration with Groundling Theatre, this A Midsummer Night’s Dream revels in the plights of its love-drugged protagonists through clever clowning, live music, and an animated landscape.
iPhoto caption: Monica Dottor and Ellora Patnaik in “cicadas.” Photo by Jae Yang.
REVIEW: cicadas is a jam-packed eco-thriller experiment with a dual personality
Hauntings (of people and land), climate anxiety, existential uncertainty, family history, and mathematics all collide, leaving the audience with a tremendous amount of story to digest.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'Macbeth.' Photo by Yves Renaud.
REVIEW: Ex Machina’s leather-clad Macbeth is slick, current, and unmistakably Quebecois
Given that this production premiered in English at the Stratford Festival last year, I was curious how Robert Lepage might adapt the work for a Francophone context. By layering narrative adaptation, rich linguistic translation, and visual elements of mass media, Lepage delivers a Macbeth that is current and compelling.
Spotlight
iPhoto caption: Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Spotlight: Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu
“I always question: ‘How am I going to do it?’ But the moment I get in the room with actors, it becomes clear," says Tindyebwa Otu. "We need to tell stories; we need to be in community. Every show I do, I feel like, ‘This could be the last one.’ I’ve felt like this since I became a mom. And yet, 10 years later, I’ve produced more artistic work than ever.”
iPhoto caption: Nora McLellan for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz. Styled by Sonia Lewis and Dahlia Katz. Hair by Anne May. Makeup by Katelyn O'Neil.
“It’s still always that same technicolour feeling for me," says McLellan. "That little girl and this much older person are pretty much the same. I really do all of my living on stage.”
iPhoto caption: Ma-Anne Dionisio for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Tim Nguyen.
“Art has a very significant healing aspect to it,” says Ma-Anne Dionisio. “The performance aspect, for me, always comes secondary.”
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Artist Perspectives
iPhoto caption: Photo of Jordan Laffrenier by Sandro Pehar.
Preparing to direct Slave Play: A travel guide to Richmond, Virginia
Since reading Slave Play, I’ve asked every romantic partner whether or not they experience a racial dynamic between us in the bedroom. No one has given the same answer. What is it that I am asking them to acknowledge in these scenarios? Who is it that I am asking them to hold? What does it mean to hold someone’s history?
iPhoto caption: 'Delirious Night' at the Festival d'Avignon. Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage.
At the 2025 Festival d’Avignon, politics were never far off
I’d performed and directed for festivals in Canada and elsewhere, but it wasn’t at all the same as being on the bum-in-seat side. There I was, in Avignon, rubbing shoulders with the umpteen visitors hungry for a good show. I came away feeling that here, theatre mattered. A lot. In the stony fields of Toronto, that can be easy to forget.
iPhoto caption: Set design by Camellia Koo,
Costume design by Judith Bowden,
Lighting design by Leigh Ann Vardy,
and photo by Dahlia Katz. Features Samantha Hill and Amaka Umeh.
A story with no expiry date: Adapting Fall On Your Knees
At this critical political juncture, as so many forces in the world try to mute and silence women, our Canadian stories merit our advocacy and fervent attention.
Armchairs, tattoos, and an online theatre magazine
When I started at Intermission, my world was limited to the confines of an armchair. Arts journalism was a high it felt dangerously fruitless to chase. The life stretched ahead of me was amorphous and frightening, a chasm filled with hand sanitizer and immigration concerns. It was worth crying over a spilled kombucha and scrubbing at the stain.
iPhoto caption: Production still from The Nutcracker courtesy of the National Ballet of Canada.
Why should you go to the ballet?
My childhood memories of learning to dance were front and centre for me when I attended opening night of The Nutcracker, performed by the National Ballet of Canada at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Grace Mysak.
Want to see a magic show about race? Wait, what?
You’d be forgiven for the double-take. It’s a fairly common reaction when I tell folks about my work as a magician.