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iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'On Native Land.' Photo by David Cooper.
REVIEW: In Vancouver, the new musical On Native Land shimmers with hope
Corey Payette’s On Native Land unfolds as something layered and multi-perspectival, moving between individual stories and a more panoramic awareness of larger forces at play.
iPhoto caption: Daniel Maslany and Karl Ang in 'The Division.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Andrew Kushnir’s The Division confronts the impossibility of fully knowing the past
Playing at Crow’s Theatre, The Division is a thorny, intimate work of theatre that examines inherited guilt, the relentlessness of eye-for-an-eye justice, and the seductive promise of being able to clearly define and banish evil forever, if only you could choose and label the correct side.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'On Native Land.' Photo by David Cooper.
REVIEW: In Vancouver, the new musical On Native Land shimmers with hope
Corey Payette’s On Native Land unfolds as something layered and multi-perspectival, moving between individual stories and a more panoramic awareness of larger forces at play.
iPhoto caption: Daniel Maslany and Karl Ang in 'The Division.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Andrew Kushnir’s The Division confronts the impossibility of fully knowing the past
Playing at Crow’s Theatre, The Division is a thorny, intimate work of theatre that examines inherited guilt, the relentlessness of eye-for-an-eye justice, and the seductive promise of being able to clearly define and banish evil forever, if only you could choose and label the correct side.
iPhoto caption: Grahpic designed by Shovemiya Packiyanathan, with photos by Michael Cooper and Emelia Hellman.
Pamela Mala Sinha passes the torch of Crash and looks toward a new era (part three)
“The play doesn’t need me,” says Pamela. “I knew it, as a playwright, but this just proves it. I felt validated in my belief that Crash has never been my play. It belongs to everyone or anyone who wants to step into The Girl."
iPhoto caption: Sophia Walker in 'Clyde's' at Canadian Stage.
REVIEW: At Canadian Stage, Clyde’s reflects on the value of negativity
Clyde’s is particularly interesting because of the risks Lynn Nottage takes with both its form and structure. With five characters on stage for 90 minutes, Nottage writes the play to be as compact and pressurized as possible.
Reviews
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'On Native Land.' Photo by David Cooper.
REVIEW: In Vancouver, the new musical On Native Land shimmers with hope
Corey Payette’s On Native Land unfolds as something layered and multi-perspectival, moving between individual stories and a more panoramic awareness of larger forces at play.
iPhoto caption: Daniel Maslany and Karl Ang in 'The Division.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Andrew Kushnir’s The Division confronts the impossibility of fully knowing the past
Playing at Crow’s Theatre, The Division is a thorny, intimate work of theatre that examines inherited guilt, the relentlessness of eye-for-an-eye justice, and the seductive promise of being able to clearly define and banish evil forever, if only you could choose and label the correct side.
iPhoto caption: Sophia Walker in 'Clyde's' at Canadian Stage.
REVIEW: At Canadian Stage, Clyde’s reflects on the value of negativity
Clyde’s is particularly interesting because of the risks Lynn Nottage takes with both its form and structure. With five characters on stage for 90 minutes, Nottage writes the play to be as compact and pressurized as possible.
iPhoto caption: Amy Keating, Zorana Sadiq, Katherine Cullen, and Jean Yoon in 'Dance Nation.' Photo by Elana Emer.
REVIEW: Coal Mine Theatre’s Dance Nation vaults into the feral, ecstatic mess of girlhood
Played by a cast whose ages range widely, the characters exist in two tenses at once: present-day adolescence and retrospective memory, living these tender years shadowed by the adults they’ll become.
iPhoto caption: Amaka Umeh, Nancy Palk, Michelle Monteith, Belinda Corpuz, and Sabryn Rock in 'Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Erin Shields’ Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary is brash, funny, and message-forward
At Crow’s Theatre, Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary is a sensory feast fit for any house of worship. But with so much material, and only 95 minutes, I’m left feeling that the Marys have more yet to say.
iPhoto caption: Tracey Nepinak and Teneil Whiskeyjack in 'Strife.' Photo by Jae Yang.
REVIEW: Punctuate! Theatre’s Strife opens up perspectives on grief, activism, and the oil industry
Playwright Matthew MacKenzie and director Yvette Nolan have crafted a drama in which every character is worth hearing. What follows is my attempt to listen — perspective by perspective.
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.