Artist — Kingston Theatre Alliance

Shanique Peart is a Kingston-based multidisciplinary artist who mixes performance and media, with a focus on dance and photography. She’s also a delightful person to chat with—we met for the first time last week, and within minutes it felt like catching up with an old friend.  With two artist residencies and a festival performance around the corner, Peart has a full summer of creative projects planned. As we sat in […]

Kingston’s annual Juvenis Festival run by Blue Canoe Productions is underway and this year’s lineup of shows includes the premiere of Shay O’Brien’s Unknown Caller. The fourth year Queen’s University student has not only written the hour-long piece but is directing the show as well. After reading its mysterious description, my attention piqued and once I was put in contact with O’Brien, an interview was born. I hopped on Zoom […]

You know how the story goes: boy meets girl, girl meets Satan, Satan tempts girl, girl eats fruit, boy eats fruit, humankind becomes doomed, and for some reason it’s all girl’s fault. Or something like that. Adam and Eve’s fall from innocence has been told and retold across millennia. Perhaps the best-known English-language version (and certainly the one most often assigned to university students) is John Milton’s 1667 epic poem, […]

In early February, I sat down with Stephanie Fung, previous editor of the Kingston Theatre Alliance (KTA)’s Performance Blog to ask what’s up with them?!  I met Steph in the summer of 2021, and was immediately drawn in by their simultaneously cool and perceptive nature. They were a mentor for me as I was learning more about theatre criticism in Toronto Fringe’s New Young Reviewers (NYR) Program, and we stayed […]

When I learned that Darrell Christie was starting a new ensemble, I was intrigued, and I was doubly intrigued when I saw Matthew Shepard’s name in the season announcement. After nearly a decade away from choral singing, something about this confluence of elements—a former Cultural Studies classmate starting a new project and an iconic name in queer history appearing as the subject matter—nudged me to return to the choir kid life. 

After a dreamy debut last fall, Queens Theatre Troupe (QTT) has announced their sophomore play: The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine.  Founded in spring 2023 by a group of five Queen’s students, the education-focused club is dedicated to creating space for exploration through ambitious productions of published plays. Amidst a busy rehearsal schedule, Ernest director and QTT board member Victoria J Marmulak was gracious enough to make time for a […]

Jim Garrard calls himself a tyrant, but this season, he’s softening his grip. After announcing his ‘sort of’ retirement in 2015, the playwright, actor, and director has remained a presence in Kingston’s theatre scene, most recently in his TK Fringe performances of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. This winter, Garrard directs Bakersfield Mist by Stephen Sachs for Theatre Kingston, starring Rosemary Doyle and Cassel Miles.  Inspired by true events, Bakersfield […]

In the first week of January, while many of us were still crawling out of our holiday haze, Sophia Fabiilli was hard at work developing her latest play: Why It’s Impossible To Raise A Girl. Fabiilli spent a week at the Thousand Islands Playhouse (TIP)’s rehearsal hall, turning the existing script on its head with thoughtful input from actor Zoë Sweet and director Evalyn Parry. Toward the end of the […]

Wilding is one of those hard-working, energetic people who seems to be everywhere, supporting everybody, at any given moment. When we first met last spring, I was immediately impressed with their quick thinking and cheerful, quippy demeanour. It came as no surprise that Wilding’s art form of choice—when they’re not busy making things happen behind the scenes—is improv comedy.  With both of us juggling a million obligations—this week alone, Wilding […]

After 180 years, you’d think A Christmas Carol would be as dead as a door-nail.  First published in 1843, A Christmas Carol is one of Charles Dickens’ best-known literary works. The story follows Ebenezer Scrooge as he’s visited by a series of ghosts and is transformed from a misanthropic miser into a gentler, more generous person. A Christmas Carol, which has remained in print for nearly two centuries, has also […]

Chloë Whitehorn’s new play, Blood River, is set in a world where Roe v. Wade has been overturned and abortion is illegal. The play follows three women—a mother, a daughter, and a reproductive rights activist—as they navigate life where the lines between law and religion have become dangerously blurred.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity. So yes, okay. It is about abortion. But to call Blood River […]

Steampunk, solarpunk, cyberpunk, and sci-fi—when you think of live theatre, these probably aren’t the first words that come to mind. Well, tether your top hats and hold on to your cybernetic limbs: award-winning playwright Brandon Zang is on a science fiction kick, and he’s taking us with him. Zang is the 2023 winner of the Voaden Prize Playwriting Competition, a biennial award presented to Canadian playwrights by Queen’s University. This […]