Review: The Ghost Project (Unit 5 Theatre Collective)

Picutre of Karie Richards in The Ghost ProjectCollection of 13 Ghost Stories is Intimate, Mysterious, and Masterful

The Ghost Project, a documentary solo show by Karie Richards, is deeply intimate storytelling. Starting in 2017, Richards began conversations with friends (and eventually friends of friends) about whether anyone had ever had an experience with the spirit world (read: had a ghost story to share). In response, many a story came floating her way. The culmination of these conversations comes together here.

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Review: Barber of Seville (Canadian Opera Company)

Classic Opera Revels in “Fluff and Nonsense,” now on the Toronto stage

Much of the music of The Barber of Seville (Gioachino Rossini, 1816) is familiar to me from the iconic Bugs Bunny sketch “Rabbit of Seville” and constitutes one of my earliest exposures to opera. It is clear when watching Canadian Opera Company’s current production that the rascally rabbit took notes on comedic genius from Rossini and librettist Cesare Sterbini. Two hundred years later, this quintessential opera buffa is still effervescent hilarity. Continue reading Review: Barber of Seville (Canadian Opera Company)

Review: 8 minutes 17 seconds (Blue Ceiling dance)

What would you do if you only had 8 minutes 17 seconds? Blue Ceiling dance poses this question in its science-infused dance work presented in the Franco Boni Theatre in The Theatre Centre. It is the exact amount of time it takes for light to travel from the sun to the earth. It is how much time we would have if the sun were to die.

Conceived and co-choreographed by Lucy Rupert, the evening consists of twelve performers using dance to explore a range of emotions and responses to this time constraint, with input from local physicists.

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Review: Suitcase/Adrenaline (Theatre Mada and Theatre Passe Muraille)

Photo of Ahmad Meree in Suitcase Adrenaline by Peter Riddihough

Beautiful double bill tells powerful stories that have audiences both laughing and in tears

What is the price of safety? What must you leave behind forever in transit to a new life? Theatre Passe Muraille, in collaboration with Theatre Mada, raises these questions in Suitcase/Adrenaline, a timely double bill of one-act plays by Ahmad Meree, on the multilayered experiences of Syrian refugees.

Presented in Arabic with English surtitles (with some in-ear described performances available), the program invites us to meet these characters on their own terms.

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