It’s another election year in the United States, and as someone with a great many loved ones living south of the border, I have never felt so helpless for them. Yet there is a glimmer of hope which I’m holding on to, and What the Constitution Means to Me shares that sense of hope. In…
“A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.” Diogenes’ musings about friendship are aptly discussed in Aaron Posner Chaim Potok’s play The Chosen, based off of Potok’s novel by the same name. Two young men become friends through very unlikely circumstances, and while their upbringings are very different, they connect in so many ways.…
The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996; I started first grade that September, with no clue at all that these schools existed. Like most young Canadians, I didn’t learn about the full extent of the atrocities perpetrated against Indigenous peoples until well into my adult life, and plays like Jani Lauzon and Kaitlin…
For their 2024 season, SummerWorks once again crafted a unique and exciting bill of productions divided amongst their four streams of programming. This year, I checked out two of the staged readings which were part of the SummerWorks Exchange stream: Donovan Hayden’s Suitable Climate and Carolyn Fe’s Aye Caesar. SummerWorks describes their Exchange stream as…
If your child went missing for a year, would you know them if they returned? More importantly, would they know you? Leslie Rhodes faces this unfathomable situation in Tommy Rhodes, a new true crime musical written by Aveleigh Keller and Mateo Chavez Lewis who also directs. Based on a true story from Louisiana in 1913,…
The echo of the courtyard of the Aga Khan Museum allows the call to prayer which signals the beginning of The Caged Bird Sings to reverberate up into the heavens. It draws our eyes upward towards a clear blue sky; though as in the cave, the sun can no longer be seen as the story…
In the lobby outside of the Franco Boni Theatre there’s a quote projected onto the wall: “What you are about to see is not wholly inaccurate. But close.” Rose Napoli, author and star of Mad Madge, sets up our expectations for her play perfectly in two brief sentences. Mad Madge explores the extraordinary life of…
You might think you know about Louis Riel and his place in Canada’s History, but I can guarantee you’ve never heard it told like this! Frances Končan’s Women of the Fur Trade, which is being presented by the National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre and Great Canadian Theatre Company, looks at this tumultuous time in Canada’s…
Without human intervention, how do elephants die? Good Old Neon’s new play Dead Elephants ponders this and much more while exploring themes of death and grief. Written and directed by Co-Artistic Directors Alexander Offord and Nicole Wilson, Dead Elephants delves into these difficult themes through the lens of these magnificent creatures who mourn and grieve…
It is said that there are two sides to every story, but rarely do we get to experience both sides in intimate detail. Donna-Michelle St. Bernard’s 3 Fingers Back allows us to do just that. A pairing of two plays, expertly co-directed by Yvette Nolan and Cole Alvis, 3 Fingers Back asks us to bear…
A View from the Box 