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.
d’bi young anitafrika’s Esu Crossing the Middle Passage arrives on the Toronto stage
Esu Crossing the Middle Passage, by d’bi young anitafrika, playing at the Storefront Theatre, is a show with a bitter pill to swallow at its heart. Focusing on the African slave trade, and linking that past horror with current problems of racism and forced diaspora, the show delivers blunt truths in the form of repeated ritual. It is not, perhaps, a “fun” show, but it is often absorbing and sparks a necessary conversation.
Theatre TOnight presents a moving dance piece exploring modern love on stage in Toronto
Orpheus and Eurydice, devised and directed by Julia Krauss and Nicholas Walsh of Theatre TOnight, is an hour-long dance piece at Canadian Stage’s Rehearsal Hall that merges myth and modern love. It is entertaining and impressive, with strong ideas about the connection, emotion and potential destruction between people involved in relationships, that ultimately don’t completely coalesce into something fully cohesive. However, even considering the concept is worth your time. Continue reading Review: Orpheus and Eurydice (Theatre TOnight)→
You Will Remember Me is not to be forgotten, now on stage in Toronto
There are a lot of metaphors woven into You Will Remember Me, a beautiful play about early-onset Alzheimer’s by Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Francois Archambault (translated by Bobby Theodore), now playing at Tarragon Theatre in a co-production with Studio 180.
This makes a lot of sense. Dementia, particularly in a family member, is hard to face or explain head-on; the gradual loss of everything that makes up a person we know is difficult to bear. The play is richly written, thematically resonant, and well-constructed. It’s also funny, emotionally stunning, and deeply moving. Continue reading Review: You Will Remember Me (Tarragon/Studio 180)→
Jen Silverman’s Still is based on the almost-true story of a woman’s stillbirth, as told in professor Lisa Heineman’s memoir Ghostbelly. It’s wonderfully theatrical, with rich language and inventive, complex characters, in particular featuring a trio of fascinating, strong women. The play won the 2013 Yale Drama Series Prize, and Binocular Theatre‘s production at Unit 102 is its first professional one following a run at Juilliard. It definitely has the feel of graduate theatre school about it (in a good way), packed with a polished, controlled rawness and delighting in the form.
On Sunday March 6th 2016, the Harold Green Jewish Theatre presents a dramatic reading of Mikveh, by Hadar Galron, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. When Mikveh premiered in Israel in 2004, it was met with wide acclaim and some controversy. The show throws open the doors to not only a very private ritual in the Orthodox Jewish community (a mikveh is a bath used for ritual immersion, often used by women to regain purity after menstruation or childbirth), but also secrets and scandals that echo real ones faced by the community: felt, but rarely discussed. Continue reading Preview: Mikveh (Harold Green Jewish Theatre)→
d’bi young anitafrika’s Esu Crossing the Middle Passage arrives on the Toronto stage
You Will Remember Me is not to be forgotten, now on stage in Toronto
