Festival — Kingston Theatre Alliance

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 […]

Who committed the crimes? No one knows. Welcome to the Disoriented Express. Surely, Sherlock is a witty musical written by Ann Marie Mortensen and Daniel Smith with lyrics and music by Michael Capon. The musical is a parody of the 2017 hit movie, Murder on The Orient Express, and is being performed at the Baby Grand Theatre in the 2023 Kingston Fringe Festival as part of the 2023 Kick and […]

One rainy night, 70-year-old Mary Louise (Janet-Laine 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, […]

The Kick & Push Festival opens on a hopeful note with Pandora in the Box at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning. Transforming the Tett’s Rehearsal Hall into a maze of giant comic panels, this immersive work by cartoonist Lorena Torres Loaiza revisits the story of Pandora from Greek mythology to explore the nature of hope. Through a blend of real-world and virtual spaces, Pandora in the Box follows […]

Recently, I had a chance to sit down with performer Alex Boese and director Michael Catlin to chat about their upcoming play Birthmarks, which will be playing at Kingston Fringe. The play was written by Canadian playwright Alexandria Haber and follows Alex’s character, Kate. Birthmarks follows Kate as she tries to get over a tragic loss in her life while also trying to reconcile the relationship with her mother whom […]

The theatre is dark. A single video game controller sits under a spotlight in front of a projector screen. With no rules, and in no established order, audience members take turns leaving their seats and approaching the stage. One at a time, these brave players take control of asses.masses. Over several hours, a story of revolution, carnage, reincarnation, and collective care unfolds.  Presented by the Festival of Live Digital Arts […]

How would you feel if someone invaded your home—a place meant for comfort and security? Home is a solo performance starring Beau Dixon, performed at the Isabel Bader Centre and was a part of the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA). In Home, Beau Dixon recalls his personal experience of a home invasion and how it changed him. He describes and recreates important moments of his life, but we are […]

Imagine being in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb dropped. Now imagine having no way to hear it. Scored in Silence is an excellent solo show, starring Deaf performer, Chisato Minamimura, and was performed as part of the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA) at the Isabel Bader Centre. The performance recounts World War II and the effects of the atomic bomb on Japan, but more specifically how it affected the […]

“VOTES FOR WOMEN” read the posters, props, and pre-show backdrop at the Kingston Grand Theatre. The Lancashire Lass is a new musical by composer/lyricist/librettist Leslie Arden. Commissioned by the Dan School of Drama and Music in 2019 and workshopped in 2021 and 2022, the show had its official premiere this year in the Watershed Festival. Directed by Tim Fort, The Lancashire Lass recounts the women’s suffrage movement in 20th-century Britain […]