Haley Sarfeld — Kingston Theatre Alliance

What began as a mutual admiration between neighbours has blossomed into a collaboration across artistic disciplines. Spoken word poet and storyteller Billie Kearns and visual artist and educator Jill Glatt often run into each other on neighbourhood walks in the Inner Harbour. This fall, they’ve teamed up to present Storytelling and the Land: Who is Belle Island?, a public workshop in preparation for their upcoming exhibition at the Agnes Etherington […]

Like red-tinged leaves, flannel shirts, and droves of students lining up for lattes, Kingston WritersFest has been a fixture in the autumn landscape for as long as I’ve lived in the Limestone City. This week, I sat down with Artistic Director Aara Macauley to discuss this year’s theme—Unbound—and to learn how the festival, which runs from September 27th to October 1st, plans to connect Kingstonians with literature beyond the printed […]

If you’ve been to a handful of Kingston’s jazz nights, indie shows, musical theatre productions, or music festivals in the past decade, chances are you’ve heard Michael Broadhead on the upright or electric bass. In the wake of the Labour Day long weekend, I met up with Broadhead to talk about music, labour, and how performing artists can support one another in Kingston’s arts scene.  This interview has been edited […]

A peculiar parlour game, a sauce salesman, a ghost ship, and a little girl behind a door. In Creeping Murmur; Poring Dark, John D. Huston transforms an unassuming hotel conference room into a site of spectral thrills. Though breakfast had barely settled in my stomach by the time I took my seat, I was immediately transported to a late-night world of chilling tales by Huston’s wry, lively storytelling.  Huston presents […]

No, it’s not a typo—The Fronge Festival is a festival within a festival at TK Fringe, and it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in Kingston this year.  The concept is simple and absurd: at each performance, the audience is offered a list of Fringe shows from another Canadian city and gets to decide which ones the Fronge’s troupe of improvisers will ad lib. Director Kyle Warne performs alongside […]

There’s no “I” in RAPP BNGO. There are no prizes, no winners, and no losers. Instead, there’s DJ Seith and his record collection.  Get ready for the mildest party of your life.  RAPP BNGO takes hip hop and bingo and creates a mellow, stakes-free opportunity for people to hang out and listen to music. Each participant gets a bingo card full of words and phrases from rap lyrics (mine included […]

Life is rife with heartache, but Blueberry Fever is ripe with humour. Created by Karina Milech and Ben Jensen-Reid, this contemporary show about nothing follows a small group of friends as they navigate adulthood in Toronto.  The play opens with a montage of scenes set to a song—it’s bass-heavy and sexy, with a silky alto voice carrying the melody. It feels like a sitcom intro—one I wouldn’t ever want to […]

In Living With Shakespeare, Jeremy Smith takes a personal approach to a playwright who has loomed over his career for the past thirty-odd years. Beginning as “a shy kid from Nowhere, Ontario” and eventually becoming the artistic director of Driftwood Theatre, Smith recounts the rain storms, lullabies, motorcycle rides, and missed family gatherings that have shaped his Bard-imbued life.  The script, written by Smith and director Steven Gallagher, incorporates beloved […]

One rainy night, 70-year-old Mary Louise (Janet-Leigh Green) invites an Internet friend (Booth Savage) over for coffee. (You can tell they’re in their 70s because they say “Internet friend”.) She wastes no time stripping him of his wet clothes, dressing him in her husband’s hand-me-downs, and interrogating him within an inch of his life. In the time it takes for his things to dry, the situation goes from weird to […]

So, you’re 50 years old and sobbing under a desk at work. Where do you go from here? If you’re Sandra Banman, you’ll crawl out and craft a beautiful memoir. Presented with gentle wit and a generous spirit, Menno-Morphosis is a one-woman show written and performed by Banman and directed by Catherine Hume. It takes a lot to grow up and out of a strict Mennonite family in Manitoba. Banman […]

Kingston’s underground world of goblins and ghouls is home to more monsters than usual this week. Descend into the Kingston Gaming Nexus, if you dare, and follow the eerie carnival noises through a maze of board games to the back of the basement store. Here, you’ll find an unusual sight: Eldritch Theatre has set up shop, and Doctor Pretorious Wuthergloom (Eric Woolfe) is prepared to entertain and educate the masses […]

If you saw a man with a bandaged head carrying a CD player as he dashed down Princess Street this week, don’t worry—it was no one.  By no one, I mean it was Outheis. From Barrie, Ontario, Talk Is Free Theatre (TIFT) presents Outheis, a multi-site immersive theatre experience at the Kingston Grand Theatre. Conceived and directed by Griffin Hewitt, this show features captivating performances by Troy Adams, Taylor Garwood, […]