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iPhoto caption: Members of the company in 'The Tao of the World.' Stratford Festival 2026. Photo by David Hou.
Set in an opulent world of Singaporean elites, writer-director Jovanni Sy 施崇梵’s world premiere work at the Tom Patterson Theatre is a bubbly, Crazy Rich Asians-style romcom that sweetens the palate before releasing a poignant pop of acidic social commentary, arguing that the concept of restoration is laughable to those who suffered most in the interim and returned to a status quo little better than the disruption.
REVIEW: Shakespeare in the Ruff’s Pastoral brings As You Like It into our unstable present
Through a reworked version of the famous “all the world’s a stage” monologue, it reminds audiences of humanity’s relative unimportance.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company in 'The Tao of the World.' Stratford Festival 2026. Photo by David Hou.
Set in an opulent world of Singaporean elites, writer-director Jovanni Sy 施崇梵’s world premiere work at the Tom Patterson Theatre is a bubbly, Crazy Rich Asians-style romcom that sweetens the palate before releasing a poignant pop of acidic social commentary, arguing that the concept of restoration is laughable to those who suffered most in the interim and returned to a status quo little better than the disruption.
REVIEW: Shakespeare in the Ruff’s Pastoral brings As You Like It into our unstable present
Through a reworked version of the famous “all the world’s a stage” monologue, it reminds audiences of humanity’s relative unimportance.
REVIEW: Blood Brothers unmasks the reality of frat-house violence
It’s an immersive take on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar set in a contemporary Canadian frat house. Over 80 minutes, the audience is free to wander the two-storey building, witnessing pieces of the drama in whatever manner they choose.
iPhoto caption: A production photo from a past edition of the Mississauga Multilingual Fringe Festival.
The Mississauga Multilingual Fringe Festival is run by SAWITRI Theatre Group, who for over two decades have platformed performing artists from the South Asian community.
REVIEW: At this year’s SummerWorks Performance Festival, physical storytelling is central
Alliance Française Toronto unveils 2026-27 season at Spadina Theatre
REVIEW: GFT’s Northanger Abbey embodies the delights and absurdities of Gothic fiction
REVIEW: Immersive Macbeth at the Tower brings Shakespeare to the banks of the St. Lawrence River
David Suzuki and Lester Trips to headline Factory Theatre’s fall season
Reviews
iPhoto caption: Members of the company in 'The Tao of the World.' Stratford Festival 2026. Photo by David Hou.
Set in an opulent world of Singaporean elites, writer-director Jovanni Sy 施崇梵’s world premiere work at the Tom Patterson Theatre is a bubbly, Crazy Rich Asians-style romcom that sweetens the palate before releasing a poignant pop of acidic social commentary, arguing that the concept of restoration is laughable to those who suffered most in the interim and returned to a status quo little better than the disruption.
REVIEW: Shakespeare in the Ruff’s Pastoral brings As You Like It into our unstable present
Through a reworked version of the famous “all the world’s a stage” monologue, it reminds audiences of humanity’s relative unimportance.
REVIEW: Blood Brothers unmasks the reality of frat-house violence
It’s an immersive take on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar set in a contemporary Canadian frat house. Over 80 minutes, the audience is free to wander the two-storey building, witnessing pieces of the drama in whatever manner they choose.
iPhoto caption: A production photo from a past edition of the Mississauga Multilingual Fringe Festival.
The Mississauga Multilingual Fringe Festival is run by SAWITRI Theatre Group, who for over two decades have platformed performing artists from the South Asian community.
REVIEW: At this year’s SummerWorks Performance Festival, physical storytelling is central
From a dancer becoming a canine to a shy theatre director practicing his swordsmanship, the shows I’ve seen so far use performers’ bodies to dramatize defiance.
REVIEW: GFT’s Northanger Abbey embodies the delights and absurdities of Gothic fiction
Handwringing over popular fiction is hardly a thing of the past, as present panic about Romantasy attests. Unsurprisingly, both genres have a reputation for attracting women readers. Tyler J. Seguin’s Northanger Abbey displays how legitimate literary criticism can devolve into worrying that women are having too much fun.
Spotlight
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.”
“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
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?
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.
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.
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.