PLAYBILL: Let’s talk about love
There have been more love songs on the subject of love than any other self-referencing genre, such as rock ‘n’ roll songs about rock ‘n’ roll, or dance songs about dancing – although “love” is technically not a musical genre, so never mind. OK: There are more love songs than any other kind of song. […]
Detective farce a riot at Mayfield
We’re going to get quite a bit of Ken Ludwig in Edmonton in the next while. On March 4, the Citadel opens his Gershwin musical, Crazy For You – and in the meantime, until April 2, fans can see his comic take on the sleuth of 221B Baker Street at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre: Baskerville, […]
Bust hits close to home for Theatre Network
For a company dedicated to presenting local productions, it’s hard to imagine a more Albertan show than Theatre Network’s current offering, Bust. At the Roxy on Gateway until Feb. 26, Matthew MacKenzie’s play takes place in Fort McMurray just after the great fire in May of 2016. It features two couples trying to cope with […]
Everybody Footloose in marvelous MacEwan musical
Sorry, all of you who fondly remember the 1984 film Footloose as a quintessential part of your teen years – it really wasn’t much of a movie. No one expected much from it. And who was this kid, Kevin Bacon, anyway? Anyone who knew about those things was surprised when a whole generation of restless […]
PLAYBILL: Bust goes boom
The good people of Fort McMurray have been an inspiration for strength and resilience in the face of the fire that devastated their town in May of 2016, and – with a few exceptions – remarkably patient with the parade of celebrities trying to make them an example for the perils of global climate change. […]
Walterdale cancels Othello over racial tempest
It’s clear that society isn’t ready to see a white woman play a black man on stage – if it ever will be. After an uproar that was said to include threats, the Walterdale Theatre has cancelled its upcoming production of Shakespeare’s Othello, which was to open Feb. 8. At the centre of the tempest […]
PLAYBILL: Fashionable Cinderella
Let’s face it: Most Cinderella stories do a bad job when it comes to the clothes. It’s usually set in medieval times, first of all, when muddy rags were all the rage. And trained magic birds can only do so much: Sewing her frumpy, froofy, glittery, totally unsexy gown in story after story. The pretty […]
Dinner party implodes in powerful Disgraced
Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Disgraced is a worthy member of a theatrical sub-genre that might be described as the “imploding dinner party.” A group of people gather in a living room for an evening of civil conversation, there are already tensions in the air when the evening starts and everything goes south from there. […]
PLAYBILL: The end of the world as we know it
A group of scientists sequestered in a secure facility in the Far North are tasked build a device that will destroy the sun. Why? Who knows? But Star Killing Machine a musical comedy! How’s that for a twist? They can make anything into a musical comedy these days – and the world is better for […]
REVIEW: Fire from the ashes in Annapurna
Twenty-five years ago, actors Shaun Johnston and John Hudson put together a new company called Shadow Theatre to present “modern theatre for adult audiences.” A lot has changed. Hudson also still performs, but now is best known as a sensitive director with a deft feel for text. Johnston went on to be a staple of […]
Fortune Falls more style than substance
Of Jonathan Christenson’s dark Catalyst Theatre off-Broadway production of Nevermore – The Imaginary Life & Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe, one waggish New York reviewer observed, “Quoth the raven – Lighten up!” It looks as if Christenson took it seriously. His latest musical, Fortune Falls, which plays through Feb. 5 on the Citadel’s Maclab […]
PLAYBILL: Awkward encounters
A Muslim, a Jew, an African-American and a white person have a heated conversation over dinner in New York City. What could possibly go wrong? Didn’t you listen to your mother?! No sex, politics or religion at the dinner table! All the characters in Ayad Akhtar’s explosive drama break mom’s rules in a play that […]
