We’re headed into the home stretch of the Toronto Fringe Festival! I had two shows to kick off this week, both at the main Fringe hub at Soulpepper Theatre. I love getting to bump into folks and talking to the volunteers while we wait in line; so much of Fringe is the wonderful social aspect…
When was the last time you really let your rage motivate you? When you used that anger you’ve been bottling up to change your life for the better? Maybe a rage session at “The Gorgon’s Cave” will help you harness that pent up energy into something more...constructive. Erin Shield’s Medusa, directed by Mitchell Cushman, is…
“My father lost me to the Beast at cards.” Hailey Gillis’ opening line of Tiger Bride lets us know that this is not your average fairy tale. Based on Angela Carter’s “The Tiger’s Bride”, a gothic retelling of the classic “Beauty and the Beast” story, Tiger Bride is a dark, music-filled fantasy that’ll leave you…
Where you do find inspiration? In nature? Other art? Or maybe even in another person? When the muse calls, no matter where you find it, you always feel compelled to answer, even if answering it might take over your life. Christina Anderson’s How to Catch Creation, directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu, examines the lives of…
It’s a hot July day in the town of Glorious Hill, and passions are running as high as the temperature when young Johnny Buchanan returns to town. Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke brings the heat in more ways than one, as it tells the tumultuous love story of Alma Winemiller and her childhood sweetheart John…
What would you do to get what you want? Who are you willing to use or betray? Your lover? Your family? What will you let stand in your way? Eden has been waiting for her moment for too long, and she’s not going to waste a single opportunity. Natasha Mumba’s gripping drama Copperbelt is into…
“I just find it so hard to have hope” What does it say about about me when my inner-most thoughts are being echoed by the devil? When a character initially full of hope succumbs to the harsh reality which surrounds him? Jen Silverman’s Witch, deftly directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, focuses on such questions: questions…
What’s your favourite season? I love the spring, because everything is new and fresh and getting warmer, but not too hot. But what if you lived a world of only winter? Where nothing ever changes and the frozen wasteland goes on as far as the eye can see. Bad Hats’ Narnia, adapted and directed by…
Have you ever had that eerie impulse to look beyond the veil? To see what awaits for us on the other side? Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ The Comeuppance, directed by Frank Cox-O’Connell, allows audiences to do just that: to get a glimpse of what awaits five friends as they celebrate their 20th High School Reunion. Hauntingly accurate…
Look! Can you see it? That bright streak across the sky, you can see it even in the daylight! Halley’s comet looms large in Lucy Kirkwood’s The Welkin, an emotionally driven and intense journey into womanhood through the lens of twelve women who suddenly find themselves thrust together to decide the fate of one of…
A View from the Box 