Unique Pieces
‘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...
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‘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...
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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...
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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...
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‘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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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Stratford’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ Turns Beckett’s Bleakness into Intriguing Theatre
In her programme note, director Molly Atkinson offers a succinct key to Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece: “There are two absolute certainties...
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A ‘Hobbit’ that dazzles the eye more readily than it stirs the heart
At its official Stratford Festival matinee opening, The Hobbit draws exactly the audience one might expect: families, children, and devoted...
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