Opera NUOVA’s Secret Garden blooms in dark musical at Festival Place
Many remember Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved 1911 novel The Secret Garden as a great read from their childhood. It’s about a hidden garden that flowers and brings new life to all who enter. A new production of the Lucy Simon (music) and Marsha Norman (book & lyrics) 1991 musical from Edmonton’s Opera NUOVA – in […]
REVIEW: Two-minded winter play sparkles in summer Shakespeare festival
The Winter’s Tale is Shakespeare’s great “problem play.” It has been staged with varying degrees of success for 500-odd years and is still regularly produced today. At the Freewill Shakespeare Festival in Hawrelak Park until July 14, this is the “serious” play to balance the comic one (Two Gentlemen of Verona: READ REVIEW). Actually The […]
Shakespeare sitcom gets a Freewill facelift
Geoffrey Rush’s seedy theatre manager character has a bit of advice for budding young playwright William Shakespeare in the movie Shakespeare in Love. “If you want to succeed as a writer,” he suggests – all you need is “comedy, love and a bit with a dog – that’s all they want.” Tom Stoppard (who won […]
REVIEW: Mayfield masterfully mines mid-Century mystery
British mid-Century writer Anthony Shaffer was an aficionado of gaming. From tic-tac-toe to three dimensional chess, he loved them all. So was his close friend, the Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Back in the late ‘60s Sondheim challenged his game buddy to write a play about a complex battle between two skilled players. Shaffer did just […]
REVIEW: New Lemoine a witty wise whimsical comedy
A Likely Story is a new play by Stewart Lemoine and starts the current season for Teatro La Quindicina. A few years back, his adventurous local company decided to upend their year. Never afraid of striking out into new waters, they decided to ignore the traditional pattern and spread their plays through the summer. It […]
A Little Night Music goes a long way
A Little Night Music whirls to the rhythm of three-quarter time. Composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim wrote all the music – mazurka, polonaise, gigue, gallops, waltzes, etc. in different triplicate meters: The “one-two-three” of the waltz. The work is based on Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night. The composer was intrigued by the notion of […]
REVIEW: Harold Pinter’s Betrayal unpacks painful love triangle
The new Broken Toys production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, playing in The Studio of the ATB Financial Arts Barns through June 2, is said to be the first Edmonton showing of the play. That’s a rather surprising note in a town that has seen a lot of Pinter over the years. (Movie fans might remember […]
REVIEW: Silence screams #MeToo from a thousand years ago
Silence, the season closer for the U of A’s Studio Theatre, takes us back 1,000 years to the time of King Ethelred, known to history as “The Unready” – who ruled the English from 966 to 1016 AD. Moira Buffini’s sprawling saga is set in the shadow of the end of the world. Like many […]
REVIEW: Life is a Cabaret, old chum!
Edmonton’s ambitious ELOPE Musical Theatre company is attempting to take us back to 1930s Germany in a new production of the classic musical Cabaret. As we enter the Westbury Theatre in the ATB Financial Arts Barns – where the show plays until May 11 – we immediately find ourselves in the “Kit Kat Club,” a […]
REVIEW: Literary mash-up a farce to be reckoned with at the Varscona Theatre
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a 2012 comedy written by Christopher Durang. His playful sense of humour can be seen in such hits as Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, Beyond Therapy and The Idiot Karamazov. He also has written serious plays on child abuse, Roman Catholic dogma and homosexuality. […]
REVIEW: Banned in Iran, Nassim an experimental trip at the Citadel
Nassim Soleimanpour is something of a world-wide theatrical phenomenon. The Iranian playwright now has several international hits to his credit. Alas, his own country has never seen his work – he’s banned back home. His latest play, simply titled Nassim, has played in many venues including both the West End and Off-Broadway – where it […]
THE TEMPEST: Shakespeare all shook up at the Citadel
Citadel Artistic Director Daryl Cloran promised us a “Reimagine Season” this year – and has largely validated that mandate. He is closing his year with an elemental, uncompromising, inventive staging of Shakespeare’s last great play, The Tempest – performed by hearing and deaf actors in both English and American Sign Language. It certainly demonstrates how […]
