Ilana Lucas has been a big theatre nerd since witnessing a fateful Gilbert and Sullivan production at the age of seven. She has studied theatre for most of her life, holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton and an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia, and is currently a professor of English and Theatre at Centennial College. She believes that theatre has a unique ability to foster connection, empathy and joy, and has a deep love of the playfulness of the written word. Her favourite theatrical experience was the nine-hour, all-day Broadway performance of The Norman Conquests, which made fast friends of an audience of strangers.
LOT’s Sister Act brings the 90’s classic film to the Toronto stage in musical format
You will likely walk out of Sister Act: The Musical, now playing at the Lower Ossington Theatre, with a smile on your face. However, you might not remember anything ten minutes after you walk out that door. The show has a heartwarming message, but features some exceptionally bland book and songwriting, which energetic performances can only take so far.
The chemistry of the nuns’ sisterhood and the standout performance of the Mother Superior are worth seeing. The writing, is, well… nunsense.
The Damage Done, on stage in Toronto, stretches the seams of viability
George F. Walker’s characters are people you wouldn’t normally find at the theatre, although thanks to his decades-long writing career, they are certainly people you find on Toronto stages. Concentrating on the stories of Toronto’s East End neighbourhoods, Walker specializes in the theatre of the marginalized, sometimes returning to favourite characters and stories.
The Damage Done—directed by Ken Gass for Canadian Rep Theatre at The Citadel—is the third play in the story of Bobby (Wes Berger) and Tina (Sarah Murphy-Dyson), whose tempestuous teenage relationship resulted in two daughters, hard times, and a permanent split. In this new volume, the two are older (and maybe a little wiser) but at this point their story has stretched as far as it can go.
Hazel, on stage in Toronto, has some sunny spots but could be gustier
Michael Stittle’s Hazel, presented by Port Moresby Productions at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, is set during the 1954 hurricane, the last of its kind to hit and devastate Toronto and southern Ontario. In the midst of heavy rain and wind, two gangsters struggle into a trailer with a bag of stolen cash—and wounds from a car accident—caused when their third attempted a double-cross.
While they figure out what to do with the money, knowing their boss is waiting, other weather wanderers appear, complicating the situation. It’s an intriguing set-up, but unlike great swaths of Ontario countryside after the hurricane, the plot doesn’t entirely hold water.
This Friday and Saturday at Theatre Passe Muraille, Theatre Gargantua presents a workshop presentation of its new piece, Reflector, which was inspired by the power of the image to galvanize human emotion and action. The heavily visual and physical piece is par for the course for Gargantua, which has been presenting multi-disciplinary works in two-year cycles since its founding in 1992. We asked Artistic Director Jacquie P.A. Thomas to paint us a picture of what the audience might see.
