Daniel MacIvor (photo by Guntar Kravis) and Denise Clarke (photo courtesy of Factory Theatre). The solo show is a proud tradition of Canadian theatre. Maybe we crave the intimacy of a direct conversation between audience and performer, or maybe we’re just economical, but one thing is certain: whether it’s a big opening in the Distillery [...]

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann. Continuing the merry trend of importing whatever’s been a hit on Broadway or the West End from the past several years, CanStage kicked off its current season with Tom Stoppard’s latest effort: Rock’n'Roll. In this show, a decades-spanning epic, Stoppard tells the story of a Cambridge University family who become [...]

Each week, Drama Club looks at Toronto’s theatre scene and tells you which shows are worth checking out. Something about this get-up makes us want to shout “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!” Photo by Michael Cooper. Rick Miller has made a name for himself through his explorations of two of our society’s most important (and ever-present) icons: [...]

Each week, Drama Club looks at Toronto’s theatre scene and tells you which shows are worth checking out. Todd Thomson gets serious in Tarragon’s The Patient Hour. Playwright and performer Kristen Thomson wowed audiences and critics alike with her play (and subsequent film) I, Claudia, a touching portrayal of an “official pre-teen” girl trying to [...]

Last winter, CanStage was in a real crisis. Massive lay-offs, dodgy “resignations” and an upcoming season boasting not one single Canadian play had a lot of people pretty peeved. Enter The Berkeley Street Project. Co-productions with Nightwood, Studio 180, and Necessary Angel were announced to round out the season at the company’s smaller theatre, keeping [...]

Nominees for the 29th annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards were announced yesterday morning at the Sony Centre. Over muffins and coffee, various TAPA members, politicians, and mainstays of the Toronto theatre scene presented three awards and read off a long list of those eligible for taking home the coveted (if heavy) jesters come June 30th. [...]

December Man, currently playing at CanStage‘s Berkeley Street Theatre, is not a happy play. But it’s won a Governor General’s Award, so you know going in that it’s going to be about a depressing moment in Canadian history. In this case, the moment in question is the 1989 Montreal Massacre. Rather than dramatizing the events [...]

When it premiered in the 1980s, Fire, a “jukebox musical” set to the music of Jerry Lee Lewis and some Christian spirituals, was considered something of a sensation. Twenty years later, CanStage has decided to revive the show, bringing the multi-talented Ted Dykstra (pictured) back to the role of Cale Blackwell, a fictionalized stand-in for [...]

Gossip no longer, culture vultures. We’ve finally got confirmation on CanStage’s upcoming season. Like it or not, it looks like the rumours are true. As we reported before, the Bluma Appel Theatre’s rather commercial lineup is entirely free of any Canadian-written shows, which has some folks in quite a tizzy. And as we suspected, CanStage [...]

Leave it to CanStage to somehow, in the midst of extreme internal upheaval what is maybe their darkest financial hour, be simultaneously running two of their strongest shows by far in recent memory. In fact, Palace of the End (which closes tomorrow night) and The Clean House (which runs until March aren’t just good shows [...]

Want to hear the news that’s been making its way around the water cooler at theatres all over town this afternoon? Well, do you remember back in May when we reported that actor/director David Storch would be promoted to Artistic Director of CanStage as a result of a recent regime change? Apparently, as of today, [...]

Palace of the End, Judith Thompson’s most recent play, is not only her most political work, it is also her best. As most auditioning actors in this country have discovered, Thompson’s greatest strength has always been her monologues, and in this piece, she uses that strength to its full advantage. In fact, she dispenses with [...]