Festival — Kingston Theatre Alliance

“If I hear another friggin’ theatre thing where someone tells me that we’re all family, I will just run, turn the other way and run. The interesting thing: I was not met with that kind of language with SPAF, but I was definitely met with the actual feeling of being a part of the family. The amount of people that lived around the park that actually offered me their actual bed to rest in during the festival, or their bathroom to use, or food to make like—I have never been a part of an arts event, a theatre event, that extended that kind of awareness of neighborhood.”

Ways of Being was an interactive performance for two different groups of audience, in two different cities simultaneously. Returning to Kingston as a part of FOLDA 2022, the work transformed me into both the performer and audience, spectator and entertainer. And as someone interested in the human condition, Ways of Being gave me the space to explore and understand, “How do we become the people we are at any given moment? […]

Told through the literal lens of digital technology such as phones and computers, the internet and social media play a critical role in communication and evidence.

The performance of You Should Have Stayed Home, directed by Michael Wheeler, was a component of the Festival of Live Digital Art (FoLDA) and as a work it explores the tensions and political possibilities inherent in virtual reality.

I was once told that a contract is meant to be a conversation, and hopefully, a dialogue. Yet it is rarely treated as such.  In reality, a contract often brings up feelings of fear. Perhaps these anxieties regarding contracts come from a worry that one may misunderstand the legal jargon, or maybe it comes from an understanding of a history of manipulation and deception. Contracts as we know it, and […]

The Maydee Box, created by Murdoc Schon and Rebecca Cuddy, was presented at this year’s Festival of Live and Digital Art in the Isabel Bader Center’s Art and Media lab. The work is an audio, visual, and tactile piece in the real world, but amplified by augmented reality. Advancing the physical world through a smart device, Schon and Cuddy have used this technology to present the actual performance of the […]

There is a conventional expectation of what a Western opera performer and performance should look like. With expensive sets and costumes and elaborate orchestrations, it is an artform who’s high-brow reputation is the only part I’m familiar with. But Musique 3 Femmes’ presentation of SOLO at this year’s Watershed Festival, the “tour-de-force double bill for solo voice” actively subverted the Eurocentric tradition inherent to opera allowing the songs and stories […]

On a Saturday morning, I was handed a chair. By the afternoon, I was sitting on the floor. Every audience member arrives with something different, and Clayton Lee and Michael Rubenfeld are asking for it. Ways of Being, the last addition to this summer’s Kick & Push Festival, is a performance project in-progress “made in the moment, with whoever is in attendance.” Two artists, two time zones, two audiences—how lucky […]

WARNING: This review contains spoilers, but you can play Mosher Island first here. From the ancient events of Olympia and its outstanding legacy, to every bustling grade school recess, to the unfathomably powerful computers in everyone’s pockets these days, it’s always been apparent that humans simply adore games.  Admit it! You absolutely DO got games on your phone (See meme to the right). Theatre’s strength as an artistic medium is […]

For the first time in a while, I was able to understand what it means to be in the present. On August 20th, I received a special invitation from the Kick & Push Festival to attend an award ceremony in a concrete gazebo standing in the middle of the beautiful Cedar Island, with large trees and hills joining the party.

Roll Models succeeds on its charisma saving throw! Roll Models developed by The ArtFolk Collective, partnered with The Kick & Push Festival, is a new theatrical work focused on bringing the fantastical world of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) to the stage. The improvisational story takes a new shape every night as the Dungeon Master (DM) Tyler Check begins the show by asking an audience member about a recent adventure they […]

Hear ye, hear ye! Calling all medieval tale lovers and outdoor theatre enthusiasts, does The Kick and Push Festival ever have a show for you! Deep in the thick forests of City Park, the Lakeside Players (creators of last year’s Cyrano de Bergerac) present another lively tale, or rather a small collection of them, in their fanciful production of Robin Hood. Developed by Jake Rennie and Andrew Cameron (who, in […]