tnk-sb

With the help of Tim Crouch and Hannah Moscovitch, this year’s Luminato Festival delves ‘beneath the city’s surface’

“As a newcomer to Toronto, I was immediately inspired by what makes the city tick,” says artistic director Olivia Ansell. “I really embrace this sense that the city has a pulse.”

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.”

REVIEW: Shaw Festival’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe needs a louder roar

Sometimes, theatre transports you to a fantastic new world. Other times, you get a wardrobe full of coats.

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.”

REVIEW: Tapestry Opera’s Sanctuary Song charts an elephant’s tumultuous journey from captivity to liberation

The Dora Award-winning, family-friendly opera has returned to mark the opening of Tapestry's new venue on Yonge Street.

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.

REVIEW: Takwahiminana explores what healing means when the past never quite lets go

While playwright Matthew MacKenzie’s lyrical storytelling is always a delight, there’s something astringent and detached about Takwahiminana that produces a distancing effect, preventing it from reaching the emotional highs of his other recent work.

REVIEW: VideoCabaret’s Pochsy IV is bizarre, vicious, and hilarious

I can confidently say that you don’t have to have a 30-year-plus background with Karen Hines’ clown character Pochsy to quickly understand her mix of oddball conviction, sly wordplay, and bland narcissism.

REVIEW: A Public Display of Affection simultaneously holds your hand and breaks your heart

Like a disco ball shimmering to a Donna Summer hit, playwright-performer Jonathan Wilson illuminates and refracts detailed memories about absent friends whose names, struggles, and lives have otherwise vanished, while walking through modern streets where a little gay hand-holding in Starbucks goes completely unnoticed.

REVIEW: How Shakespeare BASH’d transformed The Merchant of Venice into a tense, layered tragedy

Julia Nish-Lapidus’ recently closed production sensitively explored the issues raised in Mark Leiren-Young’s Playing Shylock without purporting to offer any answers.

REVIEW: Wights sizzles with ambition at Crow’s Theatre

While the play’s genre-straddling form feels slightly too ambitious for its concept, this sheer ambition is exciting, challenging audiences to think, while warning us that we can only go so far with words.

REVIEW: Canadian Stage revives the Ross Petty panto with pop songs, puns, and a pinch of Ozdust

Making a case for the panto’s return, The Wizard of Oz is full of local references and charm, and perhaps even some surprise guests to fill audiences with hometown pride.