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iPhoto caption: 'The Hound of the Baskervilles 'rehearsal photo courtesy of Lighthouse Festival.

Three actors juggle 17 roles in Lighthouse Festival’s The Hound of the Baskervilles

“[I’ll] be taking off a full tweed suit and putting on a Victorian dress,” says actor Andrew Scanlon. “There will be a lot of coordination that needs to go on.”

By Nathaniel Hanula-James / Jun 11, 2025
Queen of the Night promo photo. iPhoto caption: 'Queen of the Night' promo photo courtesy of Luminato Festival.

REVIEW: Two site-specific Luminato concerts explore the significance of daily ritual

Grounded in a heightened sense of time and place, both Dawn Chorus and Queen of the Night Communion express curiosity about how art can disrupt patterns of living.

By Ferron Delcy / Jun 11, 2025
iPhoto caption: 'The Hound of the Baskervilles 'rehearsal photo courtesy of Lighthouse Festival.

Three actors juggle 17 roles in Lighthouse Festival’s The Hound of the Baskervilles

“[I’ll] be taking off a full tweed suit and putting on a Victorian dress,” says actor Andrew Scanlon. “There will be a lot of coordination that needs to go on.”

By Nathaniel Hanula-James / Jun 11, 2025
Queen of the Night promo photo. iPhoto caption: 'Queen of the Night' promo photo courtesy of Luminato Festival.

REVIEW: Two site-specific Luminato concerts explore the significance of daily ritual

Grounded in a heightened sense of time and place, both Dawn Chorus and Queen of the Night Communion express curiosity about how art can disrupt patterns of living.

By Ferron Delcy / Jun 11, 2025
Justin Collette in Beetlejuice. iPhoto caption: Justin Collette in 'Beetlejuice.' 2022 photo by Matthew Murphy.

REVIEW: For a show about death, Beetlejuice is impressively full of life

It's a thoroughly entertaining musical that even improves on the original film, adding a far more cohesive storyline, clearer character motivations, and an updated sense of humour.

By Ilana Lucas / Jun 9, 2025
Promotional photo for the Bentway's Sand Flight. iPhoto caption: Photo by Hans Ravn.

The Bentway’s Sand Flight asks how we might navigate a world remade by climate collapse

“We’re not only conveying dystopia,” says co-creator Jonas Corell Petersen. “Yes, we die. Yes, we dry out. But that makes way for something new, and the dancers carry hopefulness in their movement.”

By Lindsey King / Jun 9, 2025

Reviews

Queen of the Night promo photo. iPhoto caption: 'Queen of the Night' promo photo courtesy of Luminato Festival.

REVIEW: Two site-specific Luminato concerts explore the significance of daily ritual

Grounded in a heightened sense of time and place, both Dawn Chorus and Queen of the Night Communion express curiosity about how art can disrupt patterns of living.

By Ferron Delcy
Justin Collette in Beetlejuice. iPhoto caption: Justin Collette in 'Beetlejuice.' 2022 photo by Matthew Murphy.

REVIEW: For a show about death, Beetlejuice is impressively full of life

It's a thoroughly entertaining musical that even improves on the original film, adding a far more cohesive storyline, clearer character motivations, and an updated sense of humour.

By Ilana Lucas
Andrew Penner and Deborah Hay in 'After the Rain.' iPhoto caption: Andrew Penner and Deborah Hay in 'After the Rain.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.

REVIEW: After the Rain transforms the Tarragon Mainspace into a passionate folk-rock concert

The performers of this world premiere musical got a lot of laughs from the buzzing opening night audience, but make no mistake, they got quite a few audible tears out of us, too.

By Gus Lederman
Philip Myers as Mamillius (left) and Lucy Peacock as Time in The Winter's Tale. Photo by David Hou. iPhoto caption: Philip Myers as Mamillius (left) and Lucy Peacock as Time in 'The Winter's Tale.' Photo by David Hou.

Stratford Festival reviews: The Winter’s Tale and Anne of Green Gables

A winter story told by a melancholy child and a fanatical Lucy Maud Montgomery book club help frame the final two productions in the Stratford Festival’s 2025 opening week.

By Karen Fricker
Production photo of Globe Theatre's Bring it On. iPhoto caption: The company of 'Bring It On.' Photo by Chris Graham.

REVIEW: Bring It On sticks the landing at Regina’s Globe Theatre

As a whole, the Globe’s Bring It On does everything this musical was designed to do: it’s fast, funny, and fun for the whole family.

By S. Bear Bergman
Members of the company in the Stratford Festival's production of 'Annie.' iPhoto caption: Members of the company in 'Annie.' Photo by David Hou.

Stratford Festival reviews: Macbeth, As You Like It, Annie, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

While the four productions I reviewed spanned different genres and styles, the presence of household-name director-designer Robert Lepage led me to reflect more broadly on the craft of directing, and how the demands of specific shows shift what’s entailed in that intense, wide-reaching job.

By Liam Donovan

Spotlight

Alanis King. iPhoto caption: Photo by Blaire Russell.

Spotlight: Alanis King

The 40-year career of Alanis King began much the same way that so many careers in theatre do: in front of very small audiences. “The show must go on if you have the same amount of audience members as in the cast,” was King’s motto in the early days. But today, the multihyphenate Odawa artist has no difficulty finding people interested in her work.

Written by Frances Koncan, Photography by Blaire Russell
Steven Gallagher for Intermission. Photo by Dahlia Katz. iPhoto caption: Steven Gallagher for Intermission. Photo by Dahlia Katz.

Spotlight: Steven Gallagher

A love of theatre runs so deeply through Gallagher’s bones that you’d think it was a path he began to follow as soon as he could walk and talk. But for a boy who came of age on a rustic farm in Quebec and favoured sports venues over stages in high school, an eventual career in theatre was hardly a given.

Written by Michael Kras, Photography by Dahlia Katz
aurora browne iPhoto caption: Aurora Browne for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz.

Spotlight: Aurora Browne

“It’s a joy just to be in the room with a bunch of people,” says Browne, who returns to the stage this fall in The Bidding War at Crow’s Theatre. “I love working. I love theatre. I love the whole process. I love being at the read. I love the coffee and the rehearsal. I love the smell of the theatre. I love the feeling of opening night.”

Written by Anne T. Donahue, Photography by Dahlia Katz
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Artist Perspectives

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.

By Alisa Palmer

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.

By Aisling Murphy
national ballet of canada 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.

By Martin Austin
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.

By Shawn DeSouza-Coelho

Why I’m tired of cripface in Toronto theatre

Cripface is when an able-bodied, or able-passing, person performs a disabled experience that isn’t their own. Local theatre companies large and small, indie and established, have engaged in this practice. 

By Sivert Das
sophie rivers iPhoto caption: Writer and theatre artist Sophie Rivers in Yellowknife, N.W.T.

What can Toronto theatre learn from Yellowknife?

Growing up in Toronto, the Northwest Territories were always a distant idea, a place I knew only from colouring in elementary school maps. But over the summer, I came to see Yellowknife in a different light.

By Sophie Rivers