REVIEW: The Beast is BACK!
The current production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast comes from our spunky local musical theatre production company, Foote in the Door. The troupe began when a group of graduates of the Citadel’s Foote Theatre School, having tasted the magical waters of musical theatre, decided to found a platform for their continuing obsession. Earlier productions […]
Formula for a brilliant Citadel hit: 6 wives of Henry VIII, + Spice Girls + #MeToo
The spirited new musical SIX has catapulted onto the mainstage of the Citadel, pausing here on its way to an official opening next year on Broadway (where the theatre is already booked). SIX began its life in the midst of a poetry class at Cambridge in 2017. Toby Marlow had just been awarded a spot […]
REVIEW: Workshop West drama exposes dark underbelly of Edmonton
Back in 1978, Workshop West was just a gleam in Gerry Potter’s eye. He founded the company to give Alberta playwrights a shot at seeing their works actually produced on a stage. Since then, many plays have graced its various stages. In 2014, playwright Vern Thiessen returned from New York, changed the name of the […]
REVIEW: The Odd Couple meets Breaking Bad in Shadow Theatre production
The Roommate at first glance plays like a re-imagining of The Odd Couple – but it’s much more than that. Jen Silverman’s new comedy-drama, which comes to Edmonton for a Shadow Theatre show after a successful run at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, strikes off in its own subversive directions. It plays at the Varscona Theatre until […]
REVIEW: E-Day a frenzied political comedy – just in time for the real election!
In the political circus to the South and the attendant carnival in Canada, Edmonton’s adventurous independent company The Serial Collective has chosen to look backward at a time of political ferment in Alberta. E-Day is a comedy based on playwright Jason Chinn’s time as a volunteer with the NDP during those heady days of their […]
REVIEW: Baroness Bianka’s Bloodsongs a Delightfully Grisly Comedy
One always approaches Northern Light Theatre Artistic Director Trevor Schmidt’s new seasons with a sense of wonder. Where does he find these plays? He must spend a lot of time scouring dusty scripts from all over the world because he inevitably finds hidden treasures and spins them into theatrical gold. Perhaps it’s not the plays […]
Experimental reality show at the Citadel reveals our true selves – and it’s not pretty
It’s Fight Night – and we’ve been conditioned to expect what comes next. It’s a boxing match. There’s a ring. A pool of light. A mic drops down from the darkness and a droll soft-spoken dude in a suit and bow tie announces the battle to come. What follows seems to be a random series […]
REVIEW: Richard III feels like Trump I
If ever a play was written for our times it is Shakespeare’s Richard III – even if it was penned in 1593. Now is a time when global politics seems to be sliding deeper into cynicism and gaslighting. “Don’t believe what you’re seeing and hearing – just believe ME!” This production is another in a […]
REVIEW: Taj Express a bombastic bonafide Bollywood bonanza!
Last year, India’s Bollywood film industry sold more tickets than Hollywood. The plots of these films are as thin as a Bombay fakir but are tricked out in massive production numbers featuring a combination of traditional and modern elements. The films tend not to take themselves seriously, are self-aware, funny, bright and entertaining. Because of […]
REVIEW: Silent Sky Showcases Struggles of the Sisters of Science
They even have a name for it. It’s called the “Matilda Effect” – coined in 2013 in a report stating that scientific research papers by men were regarded as stronger than those by women. The long, sad story of women in science who were ignored, had their findings stolen by others (physicist Lise Meitner) or […]
REVIEW: Ditzy old Lemoine sparkles with fresh cast
Playwright Stewart Lemoine writes in many genres. He has penned funny plays that say something about human relationships, and funny plays that have nothing but entertaining us on their ditzy little minds, plus everything in between. Vidalia, an older work last seen here in 2002 and remounted at the Varscona Theatre until Oct. 12, squarely […]
REVIEW: The Color Purple gets superb treatment it deserves at the Citadel
When I first saw the Broadway production of The Color Purple adapted from Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning best seller, I was unimpressed. As is often the way with Broadway, when they get their hands on an intimate story they produce the living daylights out of it. Walker’s tale is certainly a decade-spanning epic but […]
