The Little Prince gets a contemporary update in a new family play now on stage in Toronto

A few minutes into the The Little Prince: Reimagined all you can hear is the rustle of paper being folded. Almost everyone in the audience is making a paper airplane. Most people are carefully following Richard Lam’s tutorial from the stage; some are winging it, following some half-remembered instructions from childhood. Kids in the audience seem to be following their adult’s lead.

When the rustling dies down and the chatter picks up Lam invites us to throw the planes at him. It’s a delightful start to a charming play. Continue reading Review: The Little Prince: Reimagined (Puzzle Piece) →

Toronto’s Alumnae Theatre previews new plays in development at their New Ideas Festival

One of the really nice things about the New Ideas Festival at Alumnae Theatre is that it’s juried. While some of the plays may not be to your taste at least you know that they are chosen because the jury believes they have merit. The festival has been running for 31 years so they’re doing something right.

I always look forward to this opportunity to see new works and works-in-progress from experienced and emerging playwrights. The festival runs for three weeks and each week the format is the same; three or four short pieces make up the main program with a rehearsed reading of a new piece on Saturday at noon. The program is different each week. Continue reading Review: New Ideas Festival 2019 – Week 3 (Alumnae Theatre, Ilana Linden, Simone Goldberg and Meredith Heinrich) →

Dark comedy Mules is funny yet tragic, playing at the Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre in Toronto

MULES is billed as a dark comedy about friendship and drug smuggling. It is funny but more in the first half of the show. Things get pretty tragic after that. It’s about two women, both of whom have fairly hard lives. Crystal (Eva Barrie) is a single mom, she got pregnant on prom night, who works at a supermarket and is a new mule -a drug smuggler. Cindy (Anita Majumdar) is an exotic dancer, sometime drug dealer, maybe sex worker who doesn’t have a job and owes serious money to her dangerous boyfriend Sully, and is a wannabe trafficker.

The play is about the desperate decisions people will make when they feel powerless and trapped with no way out. Continue reading Review: MULES (Theatrefront in association with Hit and Myth) →

Exciting negotiations take centre stage in Oslo, playing in Toronto

Oslo – a Studio 180 Theatre production playing at the CAA Theatre as part of the Off-Mirvish Season – is remarkable theatre.

Who would expect that a play about peace negotiations would be so thrilling, engaging, and witty, that almost three hours would pass in what feels like no time?

Continue reading Review: Oslo (Studio 180 Theatre production, presented by David Mirvish) →