Keeping the 88s Straight Mark Payne is Liberace, Victor Borge and Glenn Gould rolled into one. He has showmanship and flair, he’s silly and witty, and he can play the classics with passion. While his usual role is that of musical director in the background at Victoria Playhouse, he is now taking centre stage at […]
Rockin’ Good Time The Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll are back at Huron Country Playhouse after an absence of eight years. It’s the follow-up to Twist and Shout: The British Invasion which was revived last summer. While Twist and Shout brought us the English bands of the sixties, in Legends, it’s 1975 and Roy Solomon
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Lotsa Laughs in Love’s Labour’s Lost The Shakespearean comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost opened late in the season at Stratford, to gales of laughter on the Festival Stage. In this play, Shakespeare had great fun with puns and wordplay, and the cast makes it even funnier. Four male students believe that their education is all-important and
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War, Love, and Farming Back in 1972, a group of young Toronto actors came to Huron County, in southwestern Ontario, to write a play about farming. The Farm Show became a renowned piece of Canadian theatre, along with its modernized 2013 version, Beyond the Farm Show. The making of the 1972 Farm Show was a
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A Seventy-Six Trombone Celebration The Drayton Theatre, the original flagship of the Drayton Entertainment empire, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary by bringing a musical theatre favourite to the stage – The Music Man. The Music Man captured the hearts of Broadway audiences when it first opened in 1957, winning five Tony awards. The heart-warming story,
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From War to Wedding and Back Mary’s Wedding is an engaging tale with a melancholy ending, now on stage at the Blyth Festival. A young couple meets, falls in a love and he then he leaves to fight for Canada in what was then called the Great War, or as we know it today, World
A Canadian in Kansas Outlaw, now on stage at Victoria Playhouse, Petrolia, is not your usual Norm Foster fare. Instead of a comedy based on relationship problems, Outlaw is a Western who-done-it. While it’s a departure from the usual Norm Foster comedies that rely on witty banter, Outlaw still provides lots of laughs, as the
Spectacular Dance that could make Headlines For dance fans, Newsies is the ultimate show. Based on the true story of the 1899 newsboys strike in New York City, Newsies was created first as a movie in 1992, and then re-made for Broadway, winning the Tony for best choreography in 2012. The Broadway tour is now
Back to 1913 on Lake Huron The play Fury, now on stage at the Blyth Festival, combines a heartbreaking love story with a stormy historic event. The romantic triangle of Margaret, David and Michael is set against the severe weather of hurricane proportions that hit Lake Huron in November 9, 1913. This notorious blizzard took the
Chop, Chop, Woody! One of the unfortunate things about going to theatre regularly is that it becomes increasingly difficult to find fresh comedy that amuses us. Some shows are too predictable, others repeat old jokes, and some just aren’t funny. Even worse, some cast members aren’t funny. So the more shows I go to, (for
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