All stories by Robert Cushman on BroadwayStars

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Tomson Highway marks his return to Toronto theatre with The (Post) Mistress, a cabaret act dressed as a play by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: Tomson Highway returns with a more modest work, a show whose principal revelation is that he is a first-rate piano player

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 06:04PM

The Canadian Opera Company’s production of Handel’s Ariodante is full of Shakespearean echoes by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: It offers equally glorious singing, plus inspired and meticulous staging by the British director Richard Jones

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 06:04PM
Tuesday, October 18, 2016

An unsparing performance moves Master Harold while All But Gone displays an iron control by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: Beckett is very much about obedience, while a play by Athol Fugard rooted in autobiography may move you to tears

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 04:04PM
Tuesday, October 11, 2016

‘A continuous symphony of speech’: Justin Tannahill’s Concord Floral is a magnetic piece of theatre by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: We respond to the writing, though, less for its own sake than as one element in a tightly-wound theatrical experience

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 08:04PM
Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Soulpepper’s Hosanna revival is beautifully orchestrated, but can’t help being old-fashioned by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: It withholds information so that it can have a second act while devoting most of its first to having the characters tell each other what they already know

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 06:20PM
Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Sounding off about Nothing On: Despite hilarity on the way, Noises Off lacks shape and purpose by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: Nothing On is an old-school British caper revolving, at a furious rate, around doors and underwear and sardines

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 06:07PM

How the Shaw Festival’s Tim Carroll chose the 2017 program, which offers plenty of intrigue by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: The Shaw’s strength, like Stratford’s, has always been its comparative permanence

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 06:07PM
Wednesday, September 21, 2016

‘The most unsettling piece of devil’s advocacy’: Aunt Dan and Lemon sees an excellent, exacting Toronto revival by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: The play gets an excellent revival from a new outfit, Shadowtime Productions, directed by Dan Spurgeon on a set

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 01:45PM
Tuesday, September 20, 2016

What set Edward Albee apart was the eloquence of his language, restoring the quintessential American wisecrack by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: There cannot be many writers like Albee, who commenced operations half-way through the 20th century and were still going strong at the dawn of the 21st

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 07:43PM
Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Come What Mayhem! has more relevance than the pointless pun that generally adorns the Second City marquee by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: This isn’t the most spectacularly performed Second City show ever, but it may be the best written, at least in recent years

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 05:38PM
Thursday, September 8, 2016

Stratford’s A Little Night Music is a lovely production of a piece that seems to grow richer with the years by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: Debra Hanson’s sets are all right for the vernal second act, and very strange for the urban first one, which is dominated by a line of smoke-stacks

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 09:29PM

John Gabriel Borkman, Ibsen’s penultimate play, aims high and is never less than watchable in Stratford by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: It's one of those in which he seems to be looking back on his achievements and wondering if they were worth it

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 09:29PM
Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Hypochondriac owes much of its success to its leading man, Stephen Ouimette by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: The legendary circumstances of the original run may have given the play a critical status in excess of its actual merits

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 06:56PM
Tuesday, August 23, 2016

‘Good, frank theatre about sex, erotic without being exploitative’: Stratford’s Bunny offers something rare by Robert Cushman

Robert Cushman: Every word, every wince, every nervous smile is perfectly timed, perfectly true: wit in the service of feeling

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 03:57PM
Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Soulpepper’s The 39 Steps spends most of its run time mocking a story it can’t be bothered to tell by Robert Cushman

'Most of the action takes place in Scotland, where the accents seem based on the idea that incomprehensibility is automatically funny'

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 01:24PM

Daniel Brooks’s Soulpepper production of A Doll’s House loses itself in attempts to stay contemporary by Robert Cushman

The production, on an ice cold set by Lorenzo Savoini, has a certain visual style, though with plenty of oddities

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 01:24PM
Tuesday, August 9, 2016

‘It has the feel of greatness’: Father Comes Home From the Wars is the most exhilaratingly ambitious Canadian debut by Robert Cushman

'Mengesha’s direction is spare, clear and driving, on an impressively raw set by Lorenzo Savoini, lit with pitiless exactness by Kevin Lamotte'

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 05:25PM
Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Sweeney Todd is the best musical production to ever grace the Shaw Festival Theatre stage by Robert Cushman

'From the first dark notes of the introductory Ballad of Sweeney Todd, this “musical thriller” musically thrills'

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 03:09PM
Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Engaged until the Dance of Death do them part, lovers are schemers at Shaw Festival by Robert Cushman

The Dance of Death is in repertory until September 10, Engaged until October 23

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 01:36PM
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Friday, July 8, 2016

The music might miss its mark, but Mirvish’s Matilda is a fast and slick production by Robert Cushman

The standout? Dan Chameroy as Trunchbull, who 'brings something to the role and to the show that I never thought to see'

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 01:54PM
Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Toronto Fringe Festival award winners Cam Baby and Life After deserve their early honours by Robert Cushman

The two productions arrive at this year's Fringe as winners of the festival’s awards for Best Play and Best Musical

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 01:23PM
Tuesday, June 28, 2016

‘Palpable and moving’: Stratford Festival’s A Chorus Line beats strong with sentimentality by Robert Cushman

'The audience dutifully applaud as if they’d been given a happy ending though it is, at the most, bittersweet'

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 05:50PM
Thursday, June 23, 2016

Stratford’s Shakespeare in Love and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe offer real talent and wit by Robert Cushman

Shakespeare in Love is in repertory through October 16; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe through November 5

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 04:19PM
Wednesday, June 15, 2016

If Stratford’s Macbeth is straightforward, its As You Like It is anything but by Robert Cushman

Macbeth is in repertory until November 5, while As You Like It is until October 22, both at the Festival Theatre

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 07:40PM

‘We’re both populist and rule-breaking’: Laurie Sansom talks The James Plays and Scottish theatre by Robert Cushman

The ambitious Scottish production will be put on by Sansom at the Luminato Festival in Toronto this month

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 07:40PM
Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Outstanding productions of Incident at Vichy and All My Sons honour the memory of Arthur Miller by Robert Cushman

Reviews of Soulpepper's production of Incident at Vichy and the Stratford Festival's performance of All My Sons

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 05:01PM
Monday, June 6, 2016

400 years after his death, why should we care about Shakespeare? by Robert Cushman and Mitchell Cushman, Special To National Post

National Post theatre critic Robert Cushman and his son Mitchell Cushman, who is directing adaptations of Shakespeare's histories, discussed the Bard and his works

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 10:43AM
Wednesday, June 1, 2016

The Heidi Chronicles and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder offers heights and depths by Robert Cushman

A Gentleman’s Guide is running at the Princess of Wales Theatre, while The Heidi Chronicles is in repertory at the Young Centre

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 09:28AM
Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Both causes to take cover, The Model Apartment and The Testament of Mary don’t reveal enough by Robert Cushman

On The Harold Green Theatre's The Model Apartment and the Young Centre's The Testament of Mary

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 07:18PM
Wednesday, May 18, 2016

The Shaw Festival goes back down the rabbit hole, with Alice, Uncle Vanya and Mrs. Warren by Robert Cushman

'Our first sight of the Shaw Festival’s Alice in Wonderland raises expectations and raises them high'

SOURCE: news.nationalpost.com at 03:43PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards