Madeleine Copp saw her first show when she was four years old and it was love at first sight. She pursued a bachelor’s in theatre production and design and English literature, culminating in a love for flexible, innovative, and diverse theatre artists that challenge all our preconceived notions of the stage. Her thesis, Printed Voices: Women, Print, and Performance pushed for new interpretations of closet drama from the early modern to modern period in the hopes of seeing more female playwrights included in the performance canon. Since graduating, Madeleine continues to seek out unexpected, startling, and challenging works that leave her angry, speechless, and wonderfully confused.
A new play by Rouvan Silogix taking on white supremacy in Canada is now on stage in Toronto
I want to say that Blood + Soil by Theatre ARTaud playing at Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace is one of my favourite plays I’ve seen this year. The mixture of absurdity, pointed commentary, and stellar performances makes for an unforgettable evening. It also makes for a show with intense imagery, uncomfortable truths, and questions of innocence.
The Lightning Thief is an ode to its source material, zeroing in on its age-demographic, and its core audience. With an aim to please, I argue it only half-succeeds.
Toronto comedian Ashley Botting remounts her delightful musical improv Fringe show
It’s hard to articulate a show like Ashley with a “Y” playing at the Bad Dog Theatre. Musical improv that changes with every show, totally dependent on the talent and charisma of one woman and her pianist, sounds like it could be the lead up to, well, one heck of a joke.
Playwright Kaitlyn Riordan had Shakespeare’s women—or lack thereof— on her mind when she constructed Portia’s Julius Caesar for Shakespeare in the Ruff playing in Withrow Park. She decided to create “a new Shakespearean play where we meet all kinds of women” using a mixture of Shakespear’s language from plays, sonnets, poetry and her own writing.
The result is an attempt to flesh out women’s roles that doesn’t quite succeed for me in the execution.
Despite excellent parts, Picnic in the Cemetery feels it should be better than it actually is. Moreover, as an audience member, I feel like I should have liked it better than I did. It’s a show where all the excellent smothers what’s actually good.
A new play by Rouvan Silogix taking on white supremacy in Canada is now on stage in Toronto
Mirvish brings the musical adaptation of the popular children’s book to the Toronto stage
Toronto comedian Ashley Botting remounts her delightful musical improv Fringe show
Scorch dazzles on the Toronto stage with questions about gender and justice
Toronto’s French-language theatre stages a new production of Pierre de Marivaux’s play
Obsidian Theatre’s “pitch perfect” musical play Oraltorio: A Theatrical Mixtape takes the stage in Toronto
Measure for Measure doesn’t break molds but delivers stellar performances, playing in Toronto
Picnic in the Cemetery is beautiful but lacks cohesion, at the Berkeley Theatre in Toronto