Photo of Haley Sarfeld

Haley Sarfeld

Current Contributor

Haley Sarfeld (she/they) works as a theatre critic for the Kingston Theatre Alliance and Kingston Whig-Standard. As a playwright, performer, and composer-lyricist, she has been featured in the Shortwave Theatre Festival, Watershed Festival: Reimagining Music Theatre, and the Kick & Push Festival. Since completing her MA in Cultural Studies at Queen's University, Haley has worked in administrative and marketing roles for a variety of local arts organizations. Haley's writing can be found year-round in the Skeleton Press, where she contributes themed crossword puzzles and writes articles about sidewalks, dreams, and the radio. She has also been known to air small-city drama in Intermission Magazine. Photo by Jeff Henderson.

Articles by Haley

Headshot of Nic Lindegger. They wear an off-the-shoulder red top. The background is full of trees. Lindegger stares straight into the camera, slightly smiling.

A Deep Dive into Directing: Nic Lindegger Talks ‘Robin and Magpie’

  • Artist
  • Interview

Nic Lindegger is ready to leave the nest.
After working as Evalyn Parry’s assistant director on two shows in 2024—first Erin Shields’ Paradise Lost for the DAN School Drama Major, then the independent debut of Sophia Fabiilli’s Why It’s imPossible—Lindegger is spreading their wings as a solo director. When we spoke in December, they had just signed on to direct Victoria Marmulak’s new comedy, Robin and Magpie, which plays this weekend at Theological Hall.

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Group of five people sitting against a large white pillar. They are all dresses in casual summer clothing and looking off in different directions.

What Does It Take to Be A Producer? Grace Delamere Talks ‘Sharing Is Caring’

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Of The Sea Productions

How well do you know your loved ones? In Sharing Is Caring, a group of close friends finds themselves opening up in unexpected ways over the course of a night spent in an old, abandoned church. Written and produced by Grace Delamere, Sharing Is Caring is the fourth new work to be presented by Of The Sea Productions, an independent theatre production company founded in 2023.

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The Triumphant Return of ‘JOSIAH’: A Conversation with Cassel Miles

  • Artist
  • Interview

In the middle of a prolific career as a dancer and Dora-nominated actor, Cassel Miles found himself losing his passion for performance. After a period of depression, which turned into a ten-year hiatus from professional theatre, he moved from Toronto to the Kingston area—where community connections and a long-awaited project rekindled his passion and brought him back to the stage. 

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Image of a man with dark hair, wearing a dark shirt and dark pants stands low to the ground on a rock. He holds a cigarette in one hand. Deep blue water and a deep blue sky are behind him.

Experimental Mime and Shadow Play: Nathan Zhe Talks ‘Snow in Midsummer: The Silence’

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Yu Theatre Society

To call Nathan Zhe the co-producer and director of Yu Theatre Society’s Snow in Midsummer: The Silence feels like an oversimplification of his role. After all, he’s also the show’s technical director, sound designer, and live sound programmer, as well as one of two student playwrights who adapted the 12th-century Chinese script to create a non-verbal performance using shadows and movement. 

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Poster for Kingston Meistersingers' production of 'Bonnie & Clyde'. The poster shows the title, music credit, book credit, and lyrics credit, with the slogan: 'Kingston's most wanted musical!'

Put Your Hands In The Air For ‘Bonnie & Clyde’

  • Kingston Meistersingers
  • Review

They’re young, they’re in love, and they’re in possession of stolen firearms. The Kingston Meistersingers are stealing hearts this season with Bonnie & Clyde, a fast-paced musical based on the story of real-life crime duo Bonnie Parker (Rachel Savlov) and Clyde Barrow (Rowan Engen).  Parker and Barrow’s infamous exploits and violent deaths in the 1930s sparked enduring public interest, inspiring numerous adaptations in the nearly hundred years since their heyday. […]

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Headshot of Elsa McKnight, with long brown hair, in front of a green, leafy backdrop, looking off into the distance.

Elsa McKnight Gets Experimental

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Queen's Theatre Troupe

“Everything is useful. Everything is worth studying.” When I met with Elsa McKnight to discuss EXPERIMENT 1a, I was slightly surprised by her cheerful demeanour. While the show’s marketing has a rather ominous tone—with black-and-red posters that read “Tabula Rasa Laboratory: We Are Always Watching” and Instagram posts with captions like “lean into the uncertainty” and “have you given up on society?”—its creator is warm and chatty, with a distinct […]

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Poster for Domino Theatre's production of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. The theatre company, title, author of the novella the play is based on, adaptation credit, and director are noted. There is also a hand holding a beaker filled with green liquid.

Disturbingly Congenial and Delightfully Frightening: ‘Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde’

  • Domino Theatre
  • Review

Whether you recognize it from the theatre, the cinema, the Victorian novella, or the iconic Arthur song, the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an enduring cultural touchstone. With a healthy mix of good and evil, fantasy and drama, this story provides the perfect recipe for a spooky autumn play—which means it’s arrived at Domino Theatre just in time.  Based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 gothic horror […]

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Poster for The Spire's production of 'All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten'. The organization name, dates, times, supporters, where to find tickets.

Going Back To School with “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten”

  • Review
  • The Spire

Amid the bustle of back-to-school season, a new local theatre club offers a charming take on an old collection of stories. Full of thought-provoking subject matter and peppy performances, The Spire’s Seniors’ Theatre Group presents All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Conceived and adapted in 1992 by Ernest Zulia with music by David Caldwell, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is based […]

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Photo of Jesse Gazic. He is smiling, against a red, pink, and green wall.

Catching Up With Jesse Gazic: ‘The Hunt for the Brightwing Butterfly’

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Lockwood Immersive

Jesse Gazic is a Toronto-based game designer, theatre maker, and Queen’s alum—and this summer, he’s been leading a puzzling adventure to catch an elusive butterfly in High Park. When I first arrived at Queen’s in 2014, I thought Gazic was the coolest person in the very grown-up-seeming cohort of third-year drama students. Though our paths have seldom crossed since he graduated—he’s somewhat elusive himself—I recently managed to catch Gazic for […]

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Graphic by The Kick & Push Festival for the show: 'What Brings You In'. The graphic includes, the show title, the festival title, the dates, the performance times, and the presenting company. The background is blue with purple squiggly lines.

You Can Relax Your Eyes Now: Listening to ‘What Brings You In’ on the City Bus 

  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Review

What parts of yourself are you hiding? What do you filter out? Is it safe to be heard? Listen, I’ll be honest—things weren’t going too well for me last Friday. After forgetting my glasses, taking the bus to the wrong venue, and discovering that the lone ballpoint pen at the bottom of my purse had run dry, I almost gave up on seeing What Brings You In.  Luckily, the Kick […]

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Five people outside sitting and leaning against a stone wall. Four people wear light green jumpsuits and golden headpieces. The fifth person wears a grey jumpsuit.

Ephemeral Public Art at the Kick & Push Festival

  • Centre culturel Frontenac
  • Corpus Dance Projects
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Review

From singing goddesses to living sculptures, strange and striking works of art have been appearing downtown as the 2024 Kick & Push Festival rolls out its summer programming. Specializing in one-of-a-kind, immersive theatre experiences, the festival’s tenth season offers a range of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it performances from July 25 to August 18.  Corpus Dance Projects’ Divine Interventions made a brief appearance at the start of the festival, bringing celestial wonder to three […]

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Poster for 'ABD with Mark the C' playing at the 2024 TK Fringe Festival. The TK Fringe logo is in the top left. The Kick & Push Festival logo is in the top right. The dates of the festival are top centre. In the middle, is an image of a young boy with the show's title and a purple ring surrounding with the show's title again and the location of the show.

A DJ’s-Eye View of Hotel Bar Bacchanalia: ‘ABD with Mark the C’

  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Review
  • TK Fringe

“I was in the car the other day, listening to music and thinking about loss.” So begins Threshold Theatre’s ABD with Mark the C, a gently humorous memoir of the 60s and 70s delivered from inside a DJ booth. Written and performed by Mark Cassidy and directed by Hume Baugh, the show traces Cassidy’s journey through small-town Ontario as a child of hotel entrepreneurs.  Let’s tackle the title letter by […]

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