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iPhoto caption: Steven Gallagher for Intermission. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
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.
iPhoto caption: Miriam Fernandes as the Storyteller, with Anaka Maharaj-Sandhu as Arjuna and Neil D'Souza as Krishna in Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata (Shaw Festival, 2023). Photo by David Cooper. Set design by Lorenzo Savoini, costume design by Gillian Gallow, lighting design by Kevin Lamotte, projection design by Hana S. Kim.
For the creators of Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata, nothing is more contemporary than an ancient epic
“I’ve been [telling] the company to embrace time as a collaborator,” says director Ravi Jain ahead of the show’s April run at Canadian Stage.
iPhoto caption: Steven Gallagher for Intermission. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
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.
iPhoto caption: Miriam Fernandes as the Storyteller, with Anaka Maharaj-Sandhu as Arjuna and Neil D'Souza as Krishna in Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata (Shaw Festival, 2023). Photo by David Cooper. Set design by Lorenzo Savoini, costume design by Gillian Gallow, lighting design by Kevin Lamotte, projection design by Hana S. Kim.
For the creators of Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata, nothing is more contemporary than an ancient epic
“I’ve been [telling] the company to embrace time as a collaborator,” says director Ravi Jain ahead of the show’s April run at Canadian Stage.
iPhoto caption: Kayla Sakura Charchuk, Jay Leonard Juatco, Kimberly-Ann Truong, Jun Kung, and Raugi Yu in Cambodian Rock Band. Set design by Jung-Hye Kim, costume design by Stephanie Kong, lighting design by Itai Erdal. Photo by Moonrider Productions.
REVIEW: Cambodian Rock Band makes scintillating Canadian premiere at Vancouver’s Arts Club
Jumping back and forth through time, it weaves the story of a father-daughter relationship together with high-energy musical performances and meditations on the traumatic effects of the Cambodian genocide.
iPhoto caption: L to R: Louise Duff (Ruth), Meg Farhall (Mrs. Bradman), Corrine Koslo (Madame Arcati), Tyrell Crews (Charles), and Christopher Hunt (Dr. Bradman) in Blithe Spirit at Theatre Calgary. Photo by Trudie Lee.
At Theatre Calgary, Corrine Koslo returns to the role of Madame Arcati after 20 years away
“I’m still flying around a bit but I’m not, you know, leaping six feet into the air and things like that,” says Koslo. “And I don’t need to. Then, I did. That was who I was and that’s who I brought to the table.”
Reviews
iPhoto caption: Kayla Sakura Charchuk, Jay Leonard Juatco, Kimberly-Ann Truong, Jun Kung, and Raugi Yu in Cambodian Rock Band. Set design by Jung-Hye Kim, costume design by Stephanie Kong, lighting design by Itai Erdal. Photo by Moonrider Productions.
REVIEW: Cambodian Rock Band makes scintillating Canadian premiere at Vancouver’s Arts Club
Jumping back and forth through time, it weaves the story of a father-daughter relationship together with high-energy musical performances and meditations on the traumatic effects of the Cambodian genocide.
iPhoto caption: Photo of Tara Sky by Jeremy Mimnagh. Set design by Shannon Lea Doyle, costume design by Asa Benally, lighting design by Hailey Verbonac.
REVIEW: The Born-Again Crow is an ardent ode to unproductivity
Director Jessica Carmichael’s Toronto premiere production trucks along with the passionate force of an early-2000s emo rock hit, imbuing this systemic critique with rousing, playful life.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Kendra Epik.
REVIEW: House + Body’s Measure for Measure weds the beautiful with the troubling
House + Body provides few answers about how to resist (or further, dismantle) a corrupt government. But layered portrayals of the play’s central characters convey the emotional stakes of a system that allows for egregious abuses of power.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Red Snow Collective’s Carried by the River is still finding its flow
Playing in the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace, Carried by the River delivers visually striking images and impressive choreography but struggles to find emotional depth and cohesion.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Outside the March’s Performance Review is claustrophobic for all the right reasons
It’s up close and personal, with lots of eye contact and sometimes only inches of distance between playwright-performer Rosamund Small and the audience.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Against a bloody backdrop, Trident Moon pays homage to the power of resilience
Playing at Crow’s Theatre and set during the 1947 partition of India, the intense fictionalized drama offers a graceful depiction of several women’s high-stakes struggle to resist.
Spotlight
iPhoto caption: Steven Gallagher for Intermission. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
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.
iPhoto caption: Aurora Browne for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
“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.”
iPhoto caption: Norm Foster in an undated headshot.
“I'm really proud that people want to see my work and want to see my new stuff,” says Foster, whose new play "Lakefront" plays at Lighthouse Festival Theatre through the end of the summer. “That makes me want to keep writing. Whenever I think, ‘Oh, maybe I’ve written my last play,’ I go, ‘No, I think I've got a few more in me. Let's keep going.’”
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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.
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.
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.
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.