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REVIEW: Stratford Festival’s Forgiveness tells a deeply personal story on a sprawling scale

Presented in an increasingly tense political moment, Forgiveness resonates on a level that is part reflection, part warning.

Siranoush and Songs by a Wannabe arrive at Toronto Fringe Festival as part of reimagined Next Stage Series

“It feels lovely to be in this curated window of [the festival],” says Siranoush writer-performer Lara Arabian. "We are excited to have a conversation with the Fringe audience.”

REVIEW: Is Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree worth seeing twice at Luminato?

Crouch tests the limits of theatrical representation, improvisation, and authorship. While I’m usually a sucker for exactly those types of experiments, I ultimately found An Oak Tree a bit underwhelming.

REVIEW: Documenting seven Toronto indie shows, from Factory Theatre to the Tranzac Club and beyond

I’ve started writing brief reviews of Toronto productions Intermission isn’t otherwise covering, and stowing them away until I collect enough to publish in a batch. And now here I am, with seven.

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.”

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.

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.”

For director, actor, and educator Allen MacInnis, theatre is a precious opportunity for change

“You can’t perform if you’re self-conscious. It’s absolute death. And that extends to every other artist in the theatre: every designer, every director, every composer,” says the former artistic director of Young People’s Theatre. “If you’re concerned about how the audience will judge what you’ve done, something’s held back.”

Tarragon and Musical Stage Company debut After the Rain, a new musical about the riff-filled rise of a fictional Canadian band

“Hundreds of pages of text have been cut,” says composer Suzy Wilde. “Many songs have been put on the back burner. That's what writing a musical is: there's a ton of editing that has to be done.”

In Lighthouse Festival’s The New Canadian Curling Club, a classic Canadian sport helps newcomers break the ice 

“I had this idea to write a play about a group of relative strangers who come together with one common goal,” says playwright Mark Crawford. “I love that kind of narrative: people from disparate parts of a community who come together to form their own little community.”

How four GTA drama teachers are modelling the importance of connection, empathy, and collaboration

I suspect that most people who work in theatre professionally, and many who don’t, have a story about a high school drama teacher who changed their life. This edition of Speaking in Draft is a celebration of those figures.

Lighthouse Festival shines a light on Canadian comedies this summer

“When you laugh with a character, you connect with their story,” says artistic director Jane Spence. “You have more empathy and compassion for whatever their journey is. I believe that humour opens us up to each other’s life experiences. It’s what connects us.”