Mike Payette

REVIEW: Tarragon’s Queen Maeve packs one hell of an emotional wallop

The astonishing Clare Coulter manages to appear one moment as if she’d blow away in a faint breeze, another as though she’d easily cleave you in twain with a broadsword.

REVIEW: In Tarragon and Native Earth’s Mischief, the jokes aren’t the point

Mischief may not fully cohere into a singular statement, but it leaves behind something quieter and more human: the feeling of having spent time inside a community, listening to its jokes, its arguments, and its silences. It is a play full of questions — some answered, many not — and it trusts the audience enough to live with that uncertainty.

At Soulpepper, Bad Hats’ Narnia completes a trilogy of musicals championing a child’s-eye view of life

"What emerged for us was this idea of life cycles,” reflects Narnia adaptor-director Fiona Sauder. “‘What happens when you get stuck in one season [of life], and what happens when that season comes to an end? [What things] have to die and fall away in order for new things to grow?’”