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What I discovered at rehearsals for TIFT’s world premiere musical All the Cows Are Dead

I’m sure most new musicals have interesting rehearsal processes — but it helped my excitement level that All the Cows Are Dead is a site-specific, existential two-hander from one of Ontario’s most risk-taking companies. There'll also be countless balloons.

Twelve indelible moments of performance from 2025

With the lights fading on another year of fleeting thrills in dark rooms, we asked 12 Ontario performing arts writers to reflect on a moment that stayed with them. The results mainly stem from Toronto theatre productions, but there are a few surprises weaved in.

REVIEW: Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular is a peppermint-coated acid trip

Rock Bottom Movement’s surrealist mandate is on full display in this 15-dancer fantasia, which begins with an invitation to let go: “The only thing you need to know is not to know anything at all,” pronounces the Mayor of Sex Dalmatian, the evening’s narrator and the mayor of the titular canine’s mind.

REVIEW: Tom Rooney dazzles in world premiere of Michael Healey’s Rogers v. Rogers

Rooney and Healey skewer the Rogers family with a disarmingly relaxed virtuosity that the surrounding Crow's Theatre production sometimes supports, and sometimes lets down.

REVIEW: Lester Trips’ stylish Public Consumption captures the internet’s profound emptiness

Rather than directly representing online life, Public Consumption speculates — with virtuosity — about how the digital world affects our bodies. And the show's findings are by no means comfortable.

REVIEW: Icarus Theatre’s DNA paints a disturbing mural of teenage rebellion

While director Erik Richards’ tendency toward snappy, thriller-esque pacing doesn’t suit all of DNA’s more intimate moments, it adds electricity to the drama’s group scenes, bringing playwright Dennis Kelly’s reflections on groupthink and collective grief into clear view.