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iPhoto caption: 'Dance Me,' choreographed by Andonis Foniadakis, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Ihsan Rustem. Photo by Marc Montplaisir.
“It’s very ambitious,” says artistic and executive director Alexandra Damiani. “Each choreographer has a clear vision and language. Leonard Cohen wrote, ‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’ When I see Foniadakis work with Cohen’s music, he finds the cracks between the notes, beats, and words.”
iPhoto caption: Members of the cast of 'Appropriate.' Photo by Colin Munch.
Q&A: How a new Calgary performance venue aims to energize the city’s indie theatre scene
"Smaller venues that create independent theatre rather than the institutional spaces — I think that’s something that really enriches the city," says co-artistic director Jakob Schäefer.
iPhoto caption: 'Dance Me,' choreographed by Andonis Foniadakis, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Ihsan Rustem. Photo by Marc Montplaisir.
“It’s very ambitious,” says artistic and executive director Alexandra Damiani. “Each choreographer has a clear vision and language. Leonard Cohen wrote, ‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’ When I see Foniadakis work with Cohen’s music, he finds the cracks between the notes, beats, and words.”
iPhoto caption: Members of the cast of 'Appropriate.' Photo by Colin Munch.
Q&A: How a new Calgary performance venue aims to energize the city’s indie theatre scene
"Smaller venues that create independent theatre rather than the institutional spaces — I think that’s something that really enriches the city," says co-artistic director Jakob Schäefer.
iPhoto caption: Griffin Hewitt in 'Cyclops.' Photo by Matthew Reid.
REVIEW: Kill Your Father and Cyclops: A Satyr Play ask audiences to revise Euripides
Rather than directly adapt their source texts or merely place them in a contemporary context, both plays sought to turn myths on their head by implicating the audience.
iPhoto caption: (Front) Brefny Caribou, Trevor Duplessis, and (back) Cheri Maracle in 'Rose.' Photo by Curtis Perry.
REVIEW: Tomson Highway’s three-act musical Rose makes long-awaited world premiere at Ottawa’s NAC
Rose is, in many ways, a story oriented around grief — particularly queer and lesbian grief for Indigenous women. But it also centres humour and kinship.
Reviews
iPhoto caption: Griffin Hewitt in 'Cyclops.' Photo by Matthew Reid.
REVIEW: Kill Your Father and Cyclops: A Satyr Play ask audiences to revise Euripides
Rather than directly adapt their source texts or merely place them in a contemporary context, both plays sought to turn myths on their head by implicating the audience.
iPhoto caption: (Front) Brefny Caribou, Trevor Duplessis, and (back) Cheri Maracle in 'Rose.' Photo by Curtis Perry.
REVIEW: Tomson Highway’s three-act musical Rose makes long-awaited world premiere at Ottawa’s NAC
Rose is, in many ways, a story oriented around grief — particularly queer and lesbian grief for Indigenous women. But it also centres humour and kinship.
iPhoto caption: Poster courtesy of Dynamite Lunchbox.
REVIEW: Dynamite Lunchbox’s A Cabaret of Legends is a romantic, revisionist tribute show
A Cabaret of Legends, which recently toured to the Fredericton Playhouse, is an evening of music and history featuring Tymisha Harris’ renditions of Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Patti LaBelle to name a few.
iPhoto caption: Anne van Leeuwen and Kaitlin Race in 'Anywhere.' Photo by Mark Kreder.
REVIEW: Anywhere simmers with tension at the Assembly Theatre
The back and forth between actors Kaitlin Race and Anne van Leeuwen, who swap roles nightly, is exhilarating to watch.
iPhoto caption: Tara Sky and Emily Anne Corcoran in 'Julie.' Photo by Sandro Pehar.
REVIEW: Eros overpowers logos in Icarus Theatre’s Julie
Director Jordan Laffrenier focuses on atmosphere, delivering a heightened production that takes more from 1990s erotic thrillers than it does from naturalistic tragedy.
iPhoto caption: The sketch troupe Potato Potato. Photo by Elana Emer.
REVIEW: This year’s TOsketchfest paid tribute to the endless possibilities of sketch comedy
Sketch is a genre that defies genre. And luckily, in Toronto, there are so many talented people working in the form that constantly redefine it, keep it alive, and keep it relevant.
Spotlight
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.”
iPhoto caption: Photo by V. Tony Hauser.
“If theatre’s done well, it’s an event. And for the audience it’s very mobilizing,” says Lepage. “Whatever the subject matter is, the people go and they’re stimulated, interested, and they feel intelligent... The most beautiful spectacle is always the spectacle of intelligence.”
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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.