All posts by Jennifer McKinley

Preview: New Groundswell Festival (Nightwood Theatre)

Nightwood Theatre presents the New Groundswell Festival in Toronto’s Distillery District

Nicole-Brooks-720x540Women and theatre, power, politics and feminism: these are a few of my favourite things and they are all on offer at the New Groundswell Festival: A National Festival of Contemporary Women’s Theatre. Groundswell is a festival of new works presented by Nightwood Theatre and it is taking place in the Distillery District from September 8-14.

There are two workshop productions this year. Playing in the Dancemakers Theatre is Obeah Opera, performed a cappella by an impressively large all-female cast. Obeah Opera tells the story of the legendary Salem Witch Trials from the unique perspective of enslaved African women.

With Individual Desire is playing down the hall in The Ernest Balmer Studio. Famed bad-girl American poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and her mother Cora spend two months together in a secluded farmhouse near Dorset after Millay flees Paris in this theatrical imagining of what transpired. Continue reading Preview: New Groundswell Festival (Nightwood Theatre) →

Review: Shakespeare In The Park-As You Like It (Canadian Stage)

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AsYouLikeIt
Shakespeare’s Gender-Bending As You Like It Opens In High Park

I attended Tuesday night’s performance of As You Like It a little daunted as it’s been a while since I’ve seen Shakespeare live and because I’ve never read the play. As a young person, it took about one act before I became somewhat comfortable with the language of Renaissance England. I was pleasantly surprised by the accessibility of Canadian Stage’s production.

As You Like It is a comedy full of romance, intrigue and gender reversal. Frederick usurps his older brother’s kingdom, banishes him to the woods and allows his daughter, Rosalind, to remain at court to keep her cousin, Celia, company. The usurping duke fears Rosalind will overtake him and forces her into exile as well.

Meanwhile, Orlando, youngest son of Sir Roland de Boys, is ousted by his oldest brother and meets Rosalind while in a wrestling match at court. The two fall in love, but under the threat of death, flee the royal court. Continue reading Review: Shakespeare In The Park-As You Like It (Canadian Stage) →

Parallel Play (Parallel Play Productions) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review

Parallel Play

Parallel Play is a dynamic sketch comedy show starring Elvira Kurt and Megan Fahlenbock playing at Tarragon Extraspace at the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival. The show simulates the cycle of life; it begins with a scene in vitro and ends with the death of ‘Brain’.  Parallel Play is whip smart, achingly neurotic and unequivocally hilarious. Continue reading Parallel Play (Parallel Play Productions) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review →

An Ode To Dyads (Fishbowl Collective) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review

ode to dyads

An Ode To Dyads is a compact dance theatre piece performed by Hannah Kaya and Connor Spencer at Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace at the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival. The performance explores the dyadic relationship between two beings in a strange world where the passage of time and emotional shifts are dictated by a single ring of a kitchen timer. This is a world with its own specific logic that may not make sense immediately to the audience but is very clear for the onstage duo. Continue reading An Ode To Dyads (Fishbowl Collective) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review →

Elvis and Dick (Bear Productions) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review

Elvis and Dick

Elvis and Dick is a fun, musical imagining of what transpired between Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon during their historic Oval Office meeting in December 1970, when Elvis expressed his interest in becoming a federal agent at large for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The show is playing at Tarragon Mainspace as part of the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival.

Continue reading Elvis and Dick (Bear Productions) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review →