These Dancers ARE the Stars! If you are sitting at home watching Dancing with the Stars on TV, shame on you! Get off the couch right now, and go to the Grand in London to see Dance Legends. It is so much better! This is a high energy show, with thrilling choreography, guaranteed to impress [...]

Changing Traditions… Fiddler on the Roof is a show for singers and Stage West’s current production is well cast with amazing voices. George Masswohl is the quintessential Tevye: He has the rich full voice to sing the favourite songs, such as Tradition and If I were a Rich Man. He has the look, and portrays [...]

For Crying Out Loud – You’ll Laugh Out Loud Back in the 1990s a group of actresses got together when they became new moms. Like most new mothers, they were exhausted, frustrated and feeling overwhelmed. They decided to write about their experiences, and these short stories evolved into a play – a series of vignettes [...]

Flying High in New Digs There is nothing like having a new home – Mary Poppins flies into the Banks’ household and becomes an important part of the family, even though her stay is relatively brief. The production of Mary Poppins is also located in a new home – the Dunfield Theatre in Cambridge. It’s [...]

Conspiracy Theory Story Lacks Strategy Some stories just don’t translate well to the stage. I think that may be the case with Yankee Tavern. The plot itself seems very intriguing. Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory? Yet the dialogue seems to bog down, before the mysteries unwind. Yankee Tavern starts the evening with great [...]

Like Father, Like Son I grew up the only Anglo-Saxon-Protestant kid in a community of immigrants from Holland. Both sides of my family tree had arrived in Canada more than 100 years earlier, but my playmates’ parents had just left the “old country” recently. The parents would talk to the kids in Dutch and the kids [...]

All Aboard the Love Train If you only need one good reason to take a weekend jaunt to Mississauga to see a show at Stage West, here it is: Aurianna Angelique. Rather, I should say, here she is. Aurianna is well worth the drive to Mississauga. Her rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love [...]

Believing in the Christmas Spirit London’s Grand Theatre has a tradition of mounting a heart-warming family-friendly Christmas show and this year’s production of Miracle on 34th Street fills the bill. Based on the 1947 movie (with child star Natalie Wood as little Susan), this musical is fundamentally the same story, with a few changes to [...]

Be Careful What You Wish For The play now on stage at St. Jacobs Schoolhouse Theatre is a classic illustration of “Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it…” The Love List is another of Norm Foster’s relationship comedies. Foster, as Canada’s most prolific and most produced playwright, has over 45 [...]

Baring their souls…and bodies I love it when a playwright can make me laugh out loud and shed a tear, both in the same show. And that’s what special about Calendar Girls: There are many opportunities to laugh out loud, and there is a jolt where you need to reach for your Kleenex. There is [...]