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Lively Cast Showcases Canadian Talent In 2017, Canada will be celebrating its 150th anniversary.  Victoria Playhouse should start making plans now to re-mount Canada Sings for the Sesquicentennial, and in fact, a cross-country tour might be in order.  This show, now on stage in Petrolia, provides more than just a lively and entertaining evening, it […]

Devilishly Good Times Huron Country Playhouse has a heart-warming home run hit with Damn Yankees, now on the main stage.  This little-known Broadway musical dates back to 1955, and while you might not be familiar with the show, you will certainly recognize some of the tunes. Based on the Faustian legend about a German scholar

Killer Thriller Mystery In a departure from the comedies and farces that usually grace the stage at Playhouse II, I’ll be Back Before Midnight is a murder mystery thriller.  You are guaranteed to gasp out loud, be jumpy and startled, and then you will wonder “whodunit”. But along the way, you will have some laughs,

Being Tied to the Kitchen At the season opener of the Blyth Festival, the audience was asked to stand and sing O Canada.  It is a nice touch, a proud moment.  In fact, unless we go to a hockey game, when do most of us have the opportunity to sing O Canada? I was happily

Dysfunctionally Happy Together In her notes in the program, Director Alisa Palmer compares Noel Coward’s Hay Fever to the TV show Seinfeld.  It’s a play about nothing, just as the Seinfeld creators said about their show. And like Seinfeld, Hay Fever is a group of quirky, eccentric people who pretend they are normal.  The Bliss

 Violin Rock ‘n’ Roll for Baby Boomers Last year, Victoria Playhouse presented Fiddler on the Loose and billed it as Country, Celtic and a Dash of Classical, making it a show all would enjoy.  This year, they are reaching out to baby boomers with a rock and roll fiddler.  Don’t worry, they throw in a

Intriguing Farce Spies, surreptitious characters, secret passwords and clandestine meetings:  With James Bond music playing as the play begins, you might think you are in for a thriller.  Instead, Look No Hans is a door-slamming, silly British farce.   Of course it has all the elements of a spy thriller but nonsense soon takes over, on

  She is Yar The Philadelphia Story, on stage at the Shaw Festival, takes the audience back to 1939, to the wealthy who have survived the Great Depression.  Survived?  It looks like they flourished! The audience applauds the luxurious set as the curtain is raised.  Everything is gold, silver and white – a lavish grand

Love & Prejudice on a Tropical Island South Pacific is a big musical: in true Rodgers and Hammerstein style it has everything.  There’s comedy, tragedy, war story suspense, unrequited love, and a lesson in the evils of racism.  The production, now on stage at Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend, does justice to this old

A Wedding Day Party The first hint that this was going to be a different sort of Midsummer Night’s Dream was obvious when we entered the theatre.  Puffy white bows adorn some aisle seats – we are guests at a wedding.  On the stage are the wedding guests, tipping back beer bottles, sipping from wine