A Mickey Full of Mouse opened in the Red Sandcastle Theatre. A map drawn out in chalk is on the set wall, showing the passage through the United States, with Florida as the ultimate destination. Dawna Wightman moves around the stage, sweeping the floor with a janitor’s broom. She sings to herself, blocking out the audience in front of her. As we know with most Disney productions, a song is just the beginning of the story.

A Mickey Full of Mouse, written by Dawna Wightman and directed by Josh Downing, describes itself as a comedy about a trip to Walt Disney World with an alcoholic. Anna, played by Laura Kyswaty, meets up with her old friend Margaret, who shows her a magical snowglobe. When the snowglobe is used three times, the holder is transported to a childhood memory, and must live through the memory to return. The memory brings Anna and Margaret to the summer where they went on a impromptu roadtrip that took them to Walt Disney World.
Continue reading Review: A Mickey Full of Mouse (Red Sandcastle Theatre) →

Tapestry Opera previews new Canadian opera works in Toronto in Songbook VI

Tapestry Songbook VI was very much like a series of opera trailers; teasers that left you wishing that Canadian new opera were performed in this city as often as Hollywood blockbusters. Continue reading Review: Songbook VI (Tapestry Opera) →

Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre presents the searing, political comedy Cowboy Versus Samurai

Soulpepper has had a lot of success staging updated adaptations of classic plays so who better to mount a production of Cowboy Versus Samurai, American playwright Michael Golamco’s hilarious, clever, edgy and political adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s classic play Cyrano de Bergerac? Cyrano, the man with the poet’s flair and famously large nose, believed that his ugliness denied him the dream of being loved. But for Travis, the protagonist in Cowboy Versus Samurai it’s not a giant nose that renders him unloveable it’s his race.  Continue reading Review: Cowboy Versus Samurai (Soulpepper) →

Royal Winnipeg Ballet takes on the legacy of the residential school system in Going Home Star

It was an intense evening at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts last night for the opening of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Toronto leg of their Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation tour. The strength of the RWB dancers and their dedication to telling this story, the story of residential schools and the terrible mark they’ve left on the Indigenous community, make this ballet one of the most powerful and necessary dance productions I have seen in a while. Continue reading Review: Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation (Royal Winnipeg Ballet) →