Ilana Lucas

Anyone who’s spent ten minutes online in the past decade knows that we live in an age of anger and polarization when it comes to the issues and identities we hold dear. Stories abound about families who can no longer speak to each other or even share a meal, with jagged cracks in the foundations of relationships that only widen as news cycles churn.

In Jen Silverman’s The Moors, the slightly deranged love child of the Brontës, Waiting For Godot, and Six, Emilie the governess (Blessing Adedijo) arrives at a manor amidst the titular plains to find that nothing is quite as she expected. Branwell, her supposed employer and warmhearted correspondent, is nowhere to be found, nor is the child she expects to teach.

When it comes to adaptations of French playwright Edmond Rostand’s romantic tragedy Cyrano de Bergerac, you can take your pick of the nose.

What did our critic think of THE NEIGHBOURS at Tarragon Theatre?

Bad Dog Theatre’s new improv show at Factory Theatre revolves around a storyteller who shares three short stories from their lives about what it means to be a person in Toronto. After each tale, the team of improvisers serves up a set of improv based on—or, at least, tangentially related—to objects, ideas, and themes from the piece we’ve just heard.

Master puppeteer Ronnie Burkett brings the beautiful handcrafted marionettes of the Daisy Theatre to Canadian Stage’s Berkeley St. location for a run of LITTLE WILLY, an anarchic riff off Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in the same vein as 2022’s Little Dickens.

I grew up with Robert Munsch stories. If you grew up in Canada, it’s likely you did, too—or you’ve read them to your children, or grandchildren.

Many of us have, at some point in our lives, operated on the basic assumptions that our chosen communities, particularly those aligned by basic ideology, had our best interests at heart and would look out for each other.

Erin Shields’ beautiful YOU, ALWAYS, directed by Andrea Donaldson at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre, is a kaleidoscopic, fragmented look at all moments of a sibling relationship, from childhood to maturity and everything in between.

BroadwayWorld spoke to Roy about the play’s history, her fascination with writing complex women, and the possibility of a future instalment to make Chaya’s story a trilogy.

The fish leads a more exciting life when it jumps out of the water to visit mischief on the birds. That’s what Emily (Nicole Joy-Fraser), a 288-year-old spirit, tells Brooke (Lisa Nasson), a young Mi’kmaq woman who Emily feels is treading water instead of emerging from it.

BroadwayWorld spoke to actor Aidan deSalaiz, who plays Bobby in the immersive production, about the show’s contemporary relevance, its fascinating and revealing contradictions, and the joys of connectivity in an increasingly isolating world.

In a world where AI increasingly tries to consume and simulate real human experiences, theatre sometimes feels like one of the last gasps of being in a room together. When we watch a show with others, respiration synchronizes, empathy increases, and information retention improves. It’s one of my favourite feelings.

Within a week, Toronto audiences had the opportunity to see two musicals which parody that scourge of November to January television, the Hallmark Christmas Movie.

“Since we surveyed, mapped, explored, and planted a flag,” writes Robert Lepage in his director’s note to THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON, “our interest in the moon seems to have greatly diminished.” Lepage, however, believes that, while it may no longer be as much of an enigma, the moon will never lose its poetic appeal.

What did our critic think of SPOTLIGHT AT THE SECOND CITY at Second City? For its October Spotlight series, the featured acts were $20 Sandwich and Sarah Bennett.

What did our critic think of TICK...TICK...BOOM! at Alumnae Theatre?

Tim Burton, praise Hecate in his name. That’s the refrain you’ll be encouraged to intone many times at THE BURTON EXPERIENCE, the second edition of a pop-up held at Novotel’s downtown location at 45 Esplanade.

Are the kids all right? It’s hard to say, but it’s easy to leave the show with hope for the future, and an appreciation of intergenerational artistic collaboration.

Ting’s performance art piece-cum-concert is part life confessional, part experimental violin recital, and part meditative state.