TORONTO THEATER REVIEWS

Who lives in a pineapple on a big stage? THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL, presented by TO Live and NETworks Presentations, seems more than ready to make its Toronto premiere with a perfectly-cast ensemble, imaginative sets and costumes, and enough optimism to rival the yellow sponge himself....

Following a transfer to the Elgin Theatre that lasted most of 2019, COME FROM AWAY has returned to its original Toronto home, the Royal Alexandra Theatre, in full form. Under director Christopher Ashley, writers and composers' Irene Sankoff and David Hein story of what happened in the town of Gander...

Presented as part of Harbourfront Centre's The Festival of Cool: Arctic, IKUMAGIALIIT (Inuktitut for a?oethose that need firea??) is an experiential journey presented by a four woman performance art band, who collectively go by the name Ikumagialiit. Made up of Christine Tootoo, Cris Derksen, Laakku...

In the Toronto International Ballet Theatre and Bolshoi Ballet's (TIBT) production of THE NUTCRACKER, choreographer and artistic director Tatiana Stepanova takes a traditional approach to the beloved story that proves it doesn't need a modern-day refresh to appeal to a modern audience. From the glit...

Patrick Combs was knee-deep in credit card debt when he got a piece of junk mail that caught his eye - a phony cheque for nearly $100,000. He knew the bank would never cash it, but he had nothing better to do, so he popped it into an ATM and - lo and behold, it cleared. Now Patrick Combs, slacker wa...

Within the Trinity-St. Paul Centre's high ceilings and warm wooden walls, audiences can experience a telling of the nativity unlike anything created today. SCH?oeTZ'S CHRISTMAS STORY, produced by The Toronto Consort, is a seasonal program centred on Schütz's works, featuring a few other German comp...

TORONTO, I LOVE YOU has been playing on and off for a while now but, like the 6ix itself, the story is always changing. At the start of each show, the cast takes a few suggestions (Koreatown! The Alexandria Park pool!) so every night the action ends up somewhere different....

It's a story with dozens of iterations and adaptations, but a few small adjustments to this beloved Christmas tale make all the difference in Soup Can Theatre and The Three Ships Collective's A CHRISTMAS CAROL....

What happens when a modern-day Little Red Riding Hood gets pulled back in time, dropped in a forest, and comes face-to-face with Maid Marion, Robin Hood, and an evil sheriff? A lot. And it all happens hilariously, with full musical numbers, in Ross Petty's LIL RED ROBIN HOOD....

In the last decade or so, musicals based on movies have become a regular occurrence. It seems like several new shows are opening each year, so it's not surprising that a?oeAnastasia,a?? Don Bluth's semi-unconventional take on a princess movie, made the transition a?' and thankfully, the end result m...

Thorne and Mullen have a natural stage chemistry, an easy back-and-forth that lets them bounce dialogue and jokes off each other like a game of table tennis. They are joined in I BE LIKE.... by Gavin Pounds, who opens the show with a stellar bit of inspirational comedy, and is a welcome addition to ...

Although STAND! is full of romance, it is boldly honest in its historical depictions. Xenophobia and racism take centre stage in the story. Canada gets at best an ambivalent treatment, as a place where the lucky are lucky but the unlucky struggle just to avoid harm. One of the central questions of t...

FIGARO'S WEDDING, first staged by Against the Grain in 2013, is a perfect example of how a good story and timeless music can transcend hundreds of years and switch languages, and still be rapturously funny. Featuring an English libretto by director Joel Ivany, the production still utilizes Mozart's ...

CATS is a show that, on paper, isn't necessarily an easy sell. The narrative is simple: once a year a group of cats come together for the jellicle ball, and their leader Old Deuteronomy selects one cat to ascend to the Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a new life. There isn't too much structure to ...

SOLDIER ON comes to us from the UK, where a variety of audiences, military and non-military alike, have had the chance to enjoy its easy humour and satisfying plot. It tells the story of a group of servicepeople and their families who have come together to talk through their issues and put on a show...

In life, we all get dealt a hand the moment we're born. The choice is whether to play it or try for better cards. Walter Washington never knew his own father, but he kept trading in his cards, refusing to become a wanderer, a deadbeat. He got a job on the force, an apartment, a family, a spoon colle...

What happens when a monogamous lesbian songwriter and a polyamorous bisexual poet fall in love? Boundaries are set, broken, upheld, muddled, and re-established over and over again in a story that reflects the complications of modern dating and romantic relationships....

Pinocchio is not a new story by any means, and according to director Sheila McCarthy's program note, it's been translated into 260 languages since it was written in 1881. With such a wealth of imaginings and interpretations already in the world, Brian Hill (book) and Neil Bartram (music and lyrics) ...

A frothy holiday confection playing out in Hollywood inspired Technicolor-come-to-life is the best way to describe the Shaw Festival's jubilant production of Irving Berlin's HOLIDAY INN now onstage at their Festival Theatre. Based on the 1942 movie of the same name starring Bing Crosby and Fred A...

HERE ARE THE FRAGMENTS combines strong acting, independent exploration, and topical subject matter to create one of the most unique theatrical experiences in Toronto right now. Created by Dr. Suvendrini Lena, it's an immersive look into the life of Dr. Chauvet (Allan Louis), a Black doctor who is di...

Dr Jon Lien, the whale man of Memorial University, earned his nickname over a lifetime of rescuing trapped whales off the coast of Newfoundland. His brilliant career, as well as the painful circumstances surrounding his death, inspired Newfoundland's own Robert Chafe to write BETWEEN BREATHS, a shor...

In the world premiere of Anosh Irani's BUFFOON, at Tarragon Theatre, Anand Rajaram plays Felix the clown, a child of the thrilling, vicious world of the circus. On a bare gray stage with nothing but a chair for company, Felix tells his life's story, beginning with his frightening birth, through the...

Even though the weather in Toronto is flip-flopping between fall and winter, there are plenty of ways to celebrate the holiday season around the city a?' and The Second City's joined that list with the UNCONVENTIONAL HOLIDAY REVUE....

The National Ballet of Canada's ORPHEUS ALIVE is a ground-breaking theatrical production, with heavy focus on theatre. Choreographer Robert Binet has taken some huge chances with the incorporation of lengthy, text-driven components (writing, dramaturgy and text direction by Rosamund Small) that do a...

Theatre Gargantua's THE WAGER is a flat-Earth musical with talking birds. ...