The sound of knitting needles greeted me as I walked into the BMO Incubator at The Theatre Centre. But it wasn’t a pre-show sound effect, there were folks knitting as they waited for the show to start. Many others were clad in knit goods, a product of the cold but also showing enthusiasm for the…
So, you want to know about the famous Forty Elephants, the girl gang who terrorized West London? It’ll cost you a drink or two, friend, and you’re certainly not guaranteed to get the full truth. Margo MacDonald’s historical fiction solo show The Elephant Girls is back in Toronto for its 10th Anniversary tour, and it’s…
I had another fabulous day at Fringe! I spent the whole day at Soulpepper, and got to see so many friends! It’s so great bumping into folks and getting to connect with them at the Fringe! Maurice Henry Carter and Doug Tjapkes Next Stage Festival - Justice for Maurice Henry Carter - Arbez Drama Projects…
Growing up in South Western Ontario, I knew that where I lived was one of the first Canadian safe-havens for formerly enslaved peoples on the Underground Railroad, however I never learned about where that pathway to freedom actually ended. Lost Heroes of Oro, written and directed by Alinka Angelova, is a new musical about just…
What do you remember about 1999? I had turned 9 just days before New Year’s Eve, and the panic around Y2K was real. Adam Meisner’s For Both Resting and Breeding imagines a timeline where Y2K, or something like it, happened. For Both Resting and Breeding is an intriguing look at history, memory, and our tendency…
Travel back in time to the jazz age, where the gin flowed all night in the speakeasies, music can be found around every corner, and women have just been given the right to vote in Canada (well, some women). The world premiere of The Bee’s Knees, written and directed by Judy Reynolds, is an interesting…
“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 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…
A View from the Box 