Archives

Let’s Celebrate Canada Every Year!     What happens when Alex Mustakas and David Rogers work together?  You get a hybrid:  a superior product, by putting two shows together.  Mustakas, artistic director at Drayton Entertainment, and Rogers, co-artistic director at Victoria Playhouse, Petrolia, have both created all-Canadian shows in the past.  So now they’ve taken the […]

Grandparents & Kiddies Alike will Love the Ugly Stepsisters    Drayton Entertainment has hit the mark again with a panto that offers lots of fun for the wee ones and enough laughs to keep Mom & Dad or Grandma & Grandpa entertained.  Caroline Smith, the same playwright who brought us the Aladdin and Snow White

Like Piglets, this Play Needs a Chance to Grow Here’s the best thing about Blyth Festival:  It introduces brand new Canadian works.  Then it helps those plays find their place on Canadian stages.  As their audience, we get to see the birth of a play, and sometimes we are allowed to see it grow. With

Nostalgia Trip Back to the Diner    Note:  This show was originally reviewed at Huron Country Playhouse.  It is now playing at Drayton Festival Theatre August 22 to September 1, 2018. A row of shiny, colourful automobiles was parked in front of Huron Country Playhouse on opening night of Cruisin’ Classics:  a 1960 Pontiac, a

Amazing Modernization of Coriolanus Note:  Extended to November 3.  Stratford Festival is making Shakespeare “woke”.  If the goal of a Shakespearean festival is to get young people interested in the Bard, this production of Coriolanus should do it, if anything will.  (Just to get all my readers woke – it means to suddenly become understanding

Reliving 1974 with John Denver It’s rather amazing that the five performers on stage at Victoria Playhouse, Petrolia are singing and playing the wonderful songs of John Denver from 1974, and not one of them was alive then.  In fact, they were just small children when he died in 1997.  Yet they have perfectly captured

Hurry Hard to See Mark Crawford’s Newest Comedy The Scots invented curling one day when they got bored and started sliding rocks across a frozen pond.  Then, a rock-sliding Scot immigrated to Canada, and soon white Canadians of British descent perfected the sport of curling.  They reluctantly invited white European immigrants to join them.  And

Martha Henry is Spellbinding as Prospero    There is magic when Prospero raises her staff on the Festival Stage in Stratford in The Tempest.  Martha Henry in the iconic role of Prospero conjures the magic and holds our attention for over two and a half hours. Where was the magic back on May 28, The

Yee Haw – Y’All Be Havin’ Lotsa Fun! Note: This was reviewed at Playhouse II, Grand Bend.  Stacey Kay is now in the role formerly played by Kelly Holiff.  Now at King’s Wharf Theatre, Penetanguishene, September 13 to 30, 2018 and Drayton Festival Theatre, Drayton, October 5 to 14, 2018   It might feel like the

Romeo & Juliet set in 1957 New York    Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s best known tragedies.  With that in mind, a creative team including the best in the business – Robbins, Laurents, Bernstein and Sondheim – turned the plot into a musical for the 1950s.  But, both Romeo and Juliet and West