So Much Heart in Country Music There’s another crowd-pleaser on stage at The Victoria Playhouse in Petrolia: The Men of Country ~ From the Heart. In a season full of box office hits and happy audiences, co-artistic directors David Hogan and David Rogers have done what they set out to do. As Mr. Hogan told […]
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How Does He Do It? Reviewing a magic show is outside of my usual fare – I am much more comfortable blogging about musicals or plays. This promises to be different, I thought. And it was! Guests for The Ruse are ushered into a special room at Kitchener’s Walper Hotel where we see a short
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From Our Old Favourite Musicals Around the Piano is a musical revue where the team at Victoria Playhouse does what they do best. With Mark Payne at the grand piano and David Rogers singing favourites from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s songbook, they have created another wonderful show, sure to please the VPP audience. Mark Payne brings
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Scatology on the Festival Stage The Hypochondriac, which has just opened late in the season on the Stratford Festival Stage is full of scatological humour, but thankfully offers a satiric look at the medical profession which redeems it. Otherwise it would just be Borat dressed up for the Festival Theatre. The Hypochondriac is one of
Who Says Rural Life isn’t Exciting? There is plenty of hilarity for the 60-plus, small town crowd at the Port Stanley Festival Theatre where The Birds and The Bees is now on stage. The laughs come one right after another in this comedy that covers sex and romance for the somewhat older crowd. I can’t reveal
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Loving the Local Humour Little Miss County Fair, now on stage at Victoria Playhouse Petrolia, is a satirical salute to local country life. Written and directed by David Rogers with music by Mark Payne, this musical covers rural life in southwestern Ontario. The clever construction of this play is a first for this VPP creative
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Without a song or a dance what are we? “So I say, thank you for the music!” That’s the audience’s message for Mamma Mia!, now on stage at Grand Bend’s Huron Country Playhouse. The encore number, complete with spandex and gold lamé, gets a loud and long standing ovation. Mamma Mia! is the quintessential juke
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It’s a Magic Carpet Ride The key to a good panto is to engage the kids, and give the adults plenty of laughs, too. After all, those kids can’t drive themselves to the theatre, so the panto must also entertain mom and dad and grandma and grandpa. Aladdin – The Panto, now on stage at
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The Fate of Robert Southwestern Ontario just can’t get enough of the Donnelly story. If you live in this area, you know the story, you’ve been to Lucan, you’ve sung the songs, and you’ve seen it on stage. In fact, there are many stage versions of the Donnelly story, each more popular than the last.
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Missing your Mom Denise Mader, in her one-woman show now on stage at the Port Stanley Festival Theatre, moves us from hilarious silliness to overwhelming sadness, and then brings us around to foreseeing her happy future. It’s an autobiographical story, where Mader talks to the audience as if we were friends sitting at her kitchen
