New play’s tale of an anxious boy’s mystical adventure is endearing even if it’s not revolutionary.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 12:50PMPlaywright Johnnie Walker shows the audience his struggle over how to tell the story of a 2013 knife fight that sent Luke O’Donovan to jail.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 01:55PMPresented as one act in about 90 minutes, the quickened pace of Soheil Parsa’s adaptation lessens the characters’ ennui and detracts from the play’s sense of tragedy, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:01PMLocal production of Broadway smash has found a worthy star in Robert Markus, to go with powerful story and songs.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 10:00PMDirector Krista Jackson seems to be caught between making Lucas Hnath’s play a farcical comedy or a serious living-room drama, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 10:00PMFor collaborators Martin Julien, Samantha Serles and Rae Johnson, the book presents a hard-won history of a distinctly Canadian type of theatre and its passionate beginnings.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 07:00AMPresented by new company Puzzle Piece, The Little Prince: Reimagined digs into deeper humanistic lessons around love, patience, connection and wonder with the novella’s signature enigmatic…
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:33PMThe passing of a decade, actor and co-creator Meegwun Fairbrother’s narrative choices keep his affecting message from having a bigger impact.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 12:31PMBitter grew up in Caracas and wanted his one-man show, now at Theatre Passe Muraille, to be about more than a gay man coming out, he tells Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 01:03PMGhanian-American’s play is remarkable for not only skewering petty teenage female power grabs, but for exposing their root causes as deeply serious, systemic and colonial.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:48PMIn latest collaboration, Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young reimagine Nikolai Gogol’s mid-19th-century play The Government Inspector.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:56PMAs it begins previews in Toronto, composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, director Michael Greif and others talk about understanding the human story behind the production, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 03:36PMTowards Youth pulls back director Andrew Kushnir’s misplaced fear toward teens and reveals the humour, anxiety, thought, and, most importantly to Gallagher, hope, that affects their world …
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 04:21PMAs quirky, introverted Dougie, MacIvor reveals that the quirks mask a deep trauma: they’re coping mechanisms in a small town that hides its pain, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 01:15PMOther aspects were less successful but dance element at heart of show playing through March break grips its young audience.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 12:28PMThe actors find the key to the humour and Pinter’s cultural criticism in this 90-minute collection of short plays, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 05:48PMTales of boyhood from immigrants’ son benefit considerably from more ambitious presentation at Toronto’s Aki Studio.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 08:55PMSting’s orchestral score shows off the cast’s divine vocals. He and the set by 59 Productions are reasons to potentially forgive the musical’s missteps, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 01:04PMThe designer behind the woodsy set in last year’s Jerusalem is converting St. Matthew’s Clubhouse for Human Animals and the Don Jail for Kiss of the Spider Woman.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 07:00AMEric Peterson is best at capturing Andre’s childlike helplessness, culminating in a moving final breakdown, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 01:41PMThe two have collaborated on The Apocalypse Plays: A Legacy Project, the end of a trilogy that Lushington began in the 1980s, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 07:00AMAs Trickster, Marshall Vielle is a trustworthy guide through history and his sense of humour stops We Are All Treaty People from feeling too much like a lecture, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 06:21PMThe production fuses a Downton Abbey-like look at both the menial workers and famous guests at a nameless hotel with the jazzy sights and sounds of the 1920s, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:31PMThe main subscription series also features Tony winner The Band’s Visit, Hello, Dolly!, the Toronto premiere of Piaf/Dietrich and the stage version of Emma Donoghue’s Room.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 06:00AMIt’s rare to see an hour-long show so affecting that encompasses hundreds of years, many miles and several generations but feels intimate, immediate and personal, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:05PMDonaldson, a long-time collaborator with the feminist company, takes over from Kelly Thornton in May.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:00PMThe relationship in this play about a First World War romance would border on the almost manipulatively saccharine if not for the chemistry between the real-life couple playing the leads, wr…
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 03:30PMThe show about love, money and how we invest in relationships is part of the Progress Festival of international work, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 07:00AMOne has to surrender to a narrative that doesn’t always make sense, but the Soulpepper cast and its warm heart make it easy to overlook the faults of this new musical, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 02:36PMThe Great Hall’s stateliness is fitting for a rendezvous with rich, powerful and mysterious Count Dracula, but the written text needs improvement, writes Carly Maga.
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 04:29PMFournier was beginning to feel her trilogy of plays about a fictional imperial civilization was ‘unstageable,’ but a New Chapter grant helped kick-start a project that includes The Scave…
SOURCE: Toronto Star at 07:00AM
