Unique Pieces
PUNCH: the viral baby macaque stars in a sugary musical
Some may remember Conrad, the raccoon whose death in the Yorkville neighbourhood in 2015 prompted Torontonians to organize a public...
Read more
A bold, intellectually charged piece of theatre. ‘The Caged Bird Sings’ arrives raw in feeling, rigorous in thought, and unafraid to leave its audience wrestling with difficult ideas.
The Caged Bird Sings reimagines Rumi’s ‘Masavani’ in a prison cell in which confinement is both literal and spiritual. Rumi...
Read more
‘American Devotion’ offers a periodically compelling fictional exploration of celebrity, media scrutiny, and private power dynamics. A tighter script would sharpen its dramatic momentum.
In this world premiere, playwright Franca Miraglia draws on an enduring fascination with Hollywood’s Golden Age, using it as a...
Read more
‘Paranormal Activity’ arrives in Toronto as a sleek, unnervingly engaging stage thriller.
At this opening-night Toronto engagement, the production demonstrates how effectively horror can function onstage when handled with technical precision and...
Read more
Stratford’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ presents challenges in its overlapping subplots and extended running time. This production addresses them through sleek contemporary staging and visually sophisticated theatrical design.
The production relies on the audience’s willingness to accept the play’s supernatural framework and enter its world of fairies, sprites...
Read more
A visually arresting staging of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ sends Stratford Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino out on a high note.
As he nears the end of his tenure as artistic director of the Stratford Festival, Antoni Cimolino leaves on a...
Read more
‘Tiger Bride’ trusts the evocative power of music and the undeniable talent of its creators.
Before anything else, dear reader, start with the image. Pause over the proshot I’ve selected for this review. Notice the...
Read more
The Happiness Mandate in Bowtie Productions’ “Next to Normal”
Why shouldn’t we want to be happy? Why shouldn’t we do everything possible to feel that way? There go hundreds...
Read more
VOICE CHOICE: Six characters in search of answers. A powerful and expertly crafted production lays bare in one hour the life-altering effects of mental health challenges on working-class and marginalized people, and the difficult realities faced by those who try to help them.
Mental health is everywhere these days, and we need to talk more about it. Maybe you know someone who suffers...
Read more
Here for Now World Premiere is haunting, yet elusive.
If the end of the world is coming, Julia Lederer’s I Am An Island imagines it arriving not with panic,...
Read more
