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.
Eclipse produces a site-specific production of the Kander and Ebb musical in Toronto’s Don Jail
Eclipse, a new theatre company with a mission to produce site-specific musical theatre, chose the historic Don Jail as the site for its inaugural production of the Tony Award-winning Kiss of the Spider Woman, the Kander and Ebb show with book by Terrence McNally, based on Manuel Puig’s novel. The jail, now an administration building for Bridgepoint Health, is an appropriate, eerie match for the musical set in a brutal Argentinian prison in the 1970s during the Dirty War. Directed by Evan Tsitsias and billed as a staged concert production, this instead feels fully realized – and near-perfect.
Bears, created by Matthew MacKenzie and Monica Dottor for Alberta Aboriginal Performing Arts and Punctuate! Theatre, and now back at Factory Theatre after winning Doras for Outstanding Production and Outstanding New Play (Independent Theatre) last year, is a controlled explosion of a show. A longterm, trusted tar sands employee often trotted out as a token Native supporter of Big Oil, Floyd (Sheldon Elter) is now on the run to avoid the company and government’s retribution for a workplace “accident” that seems a deliberate act of sabotage.
The play starts with the action already in progress as Floyd flees, and this rapid pace, tension, and excitement don’t let up for the full, quick 75 minutes. As this sensory treat flies by, you may have to catch yourself, like Floyd does, and remember to breathe.
Preparing food is one of the most everyday experiences in the world. Yet, seeing it happen on the limitations of a stage, a space that was never designed be a kitchen, is strangely thrilling. Kitchen Chicken, performed by Québec City’s L’Orchestre D’Hommes-Orchestres at The Theatre Centre, is a wonderfully madcap demonstration of this phenomenon.
The group has a long association with The Theatre Centre, helping it open its new Queen West space five years ago. In creating tableaux vivants (living pictures) set to themed music, they intend to illustrate moments that thrive on both precision and chaos, and both were completely evident here. There is no dialogue, but a nonstop spate of songs, and the story is a simple concept: a ragtag group prepares an elaborate chicken dinner.
Everyone get ready for Rhubarb! Buddies in Bad Times Theatre presents the 40th installation of the wild and wonderful bite-sized theatre festival from February 13-23, featuring a host of talented creators doing what they do best.
The anarchic and experimental nature of the event, Canada’s longest-running new works festival, makes it a review-free zone. Artists – and there are more than 100 involved this year – are encouraged to run, play, and even cavort with their creative impulses. Some works remain festival-specific, and some go on to expansion and remounting.
The Progress Festival presents a play by Scotland’s Nic Green in Toronto
Cock and Bull, conceived and directed by Scotland’s Nic Green and currently being presented by FADO Performance Art Centre as part of the Progress Festival at The Theatre Centre, was originally devised for the eve of the 2015 UK General election that saw the Conservative Party’s David Cameron re-elected with an increased share of the vote. Winner of the 2016 Total Theatre Award for best visual/physical theatre at Edinburgh, the show sees three women (Green, Laura Bradshaw, and Rosana Cade) create their own party conference, slipping into the role of vacuous male politicians with mushroom cuts and savage aplomb.
Preparing food is one of the most everyday experiences in the world. Yet, seeing it happen on the limitations of a stage, a space that was never designed be a kitchen, is strangely thrilling. 
The Progress Festival presents a play by Scotland’s Nic Green in Toronto