Festival — Kingston Theatre Alliance

The 17th edition of Kingston WritersFest (KWF) is about to kick off! From free events like Literary Trivia Night to the Writers Studio masterclasses, KWF 2025 has something for everyone. We sat down with local authors Ying Lee, Merilyn Simonds, and Jamal Saeed to learn a bit more about some of the names behind this year’s fest. Ying Lee: Creativity and Crafting Worlds by Mariam Tirani Ying Lee has published […]

When the TK Fringe began this year and I received my press pass I found myself thinking: “How much can I abuse this power?” Each of the KTA’s three summer critics were assigned five shows to review, so I knew not everything would be covered and I would not be assigned to see every show I was interested in. So rather than simply abuse the power of the press pass […]

From the depths of kelp forests to the red soil at the Mars Desert Research Station, Erin Kennedy’s robots have tackled some of the toughest terrains out there. This robot inventor and analogue astronaut has designed robots that can be worn, pick up trash, collect sea urchins, and even conduct research in space. Now, Kennedy is bringing her newest robot, a motion-sensing butterfly, to the Tett Centre for her special […]

A beautiful wedding has been ruined by the murder of the groom. The crime has eight suspects, and rather than bother a judge with the issue, Vic Vanderspank (Shanique Peart), the evening’s host, has assembled a collection of jurors (the audience) to decide by vote. The jury is not voting on who is guilty though: the trial is broken up into rounds with someone being voted off as innocent each […]

Whether you are familiar with the original novel by Kenneth Grahame, the stop motion film, the Disney animated short film, or the more recent 2016 musical, it is hard to deny The Wind in the Willows as one of the greats in children’s literature. The adventures of Mole (Liv Hendy) and Rat (Essie Latimer-Scahill) as they try to help the infamous Toad (Kai Kerr) out of his nasty habits have […]

Being a teacher is difficult: parents demanding the world for their children regardless of the effort being put in on the student’s end, a complete lack of social life because of all the time needed for marking, and to top it all off there’s the endless torment of your unenthusiastic pupils. Samantha Twiggs (Eleanor Daly) embodies all of these struggles and shows what happens when just about everything goes wrong for […]

It’s 1969, the Vietnam war is at its peak with more than 500,000 American soldiers overseas and to protest the war and advocate for peace, John Lennon and Yoko Ono are staging a bed-in at a Montreal hotel. Enter Micheline (Lilli McDonald) and Suzie (Gia Silva), two Canadian teens trying to hitchhike their way to Montreal to allegedly join the protest efforts. They soon meet Sammy (Kieran Chenier), a young […]

With soft, calming classical music drifting through the venue, your eyes are drawn to a single tent pitched at the center of the stage. At first, nothing happens, then a single sock pokes out from the slightly opened zipper. Then another sock pops out, tied to the first, followed by a folded lawn chair. Suddenly a tennis ball flies out of the tent, then a crumpled newspaper right after it, […]

I knew I was in for a good time as soon as Hillary Yaas strutted on stage in a long Cruella De Vil-type coat and the biggest, most colourful wig I have ever seen. Co-creator Selena Vyle calls out to her from the stairs of the Baby Grand, and from the moment they are on stage together, the whole room feels alive. Their latest show A Play We Just Wrote […]

Performing on the stage is one of the oldest and most universal forms of expression—or rather—it tries to be. But so much theatre is dependent on language, and theatres globally have been attempting to tear down this language barrier for years. Canada has made some great strides in the past with the Canadian Opera Company introducing Surtitles  in 1983, but reading words far above the action of a piece hardly […]

Artificial Intelligence has long been a fictional harbinger of the apocalypse, but in recent years this dystopian trope has become all too real. The issue threatens millions of jobs, especially those of artists, so understandably the arts community is grappling with these concerns through their respective mediums.  Now playing at the TK Fringe: Studio Reflection presents The Turing Test, translated by Yuriy Popov and Yana Menov from the Russian play […]

Metamorphosing Spaces into Stories Today, clothing only lasts as long as the trend does, meaning it gets worn once, and then tossed into landfills. This normalization of fast-fashion is making modern day sustainability more important than ever. Fiber Artist Leisa Rich stitches together pieces of felt, sequins, glittery mesh, wigs, feathers, and even reusable Metro bags to create colorful, immersive, and diverse art experiences while keeping sustainability in mind. Rich’s […]