Interview — Kingston Theatre Alliance

“Everything is useful. Everything is worth studying.” When I met with Elsa McKnight to discuss EXPERIMENT 1a, I was slightly surprised by her cheerful demeanour. While the show’s marketing has a rather ominous tone—with black-and-red posters that read “Tabula Rasa Laboratory: We Are Always Watching” and Instagram posts with captions like “lean into the uncertainty” and “have you given up on society?”—its creator is warm and chatty, with a distinct […]

At PXR 2024, performance meets expansive realities across physical and digital spaces. Established in 2020, the PXR (Performance and XR) Conference is Canada’s first and only conference on XR (Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality) performance creation. PXR 2024, hosted by Single Thread Theatre Company, takes place in-person in Kingston, Toronto, and Vancouver, as well as virtually, from Friday, November 8th to Sunday, November 17th—local Kingston events are in partnership with […]

The classic saying is, “The show must go on!” Well, so must the review… sort of.  With our small team at the KTA, unfortunately when one of us is struck with sickness, there’s a bit of reworking to be done. This was the case last week, just as we were about to review Theatre Kingston’s production of Boy Beatle. However, we luckily managed to work out a short interview through […]

Become bewitched, bothered, and bewildered in the best way! Bee Dupuis, also known as BeeWitched, wears many hats including drag performer, event organizer, advocate, and chair of Kingston Pride. Recently I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with BeeWitched about performing drag, advocacy work, witchcraft, and the Halloween season.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  Dupuis’ drag persona, BeeWitched, is “the embodiment of all the beautiful, but […]

The tenth day of the tenth month. What better time to read about the Kick & Push Festival’s tenth season?  Although summer may be long over by now, the KTA has just finished wrapping up the necessary paperwork that must come with the annual Kick & Push Festival. As my colleague and Artistic Producer of the Kick & Push Liam Karry recently closed the books on this year’s busy run, […]

Participating and playing in this year’s WritersFest is Jeff McGilton, a multi-faceted artist who Kingston has the pleasure of engaging this week as he and Mariah (Mo) Horner will be facilitating a workshop in the September festival titled Participatory Play. Earlier this year, Horner and Jenn Stephenson published Play: Dramaturgies of Participation and the workshop—a TeensWrite Studio event—will guide teens through concepts in the book, mainly focussing on participatory theatre. […]

Bring a “yes, and…” approach to your writing, with help from Wilding! In their workshop at this year’s Kingston WritersFest, Writing With Wilding – Through an Improv Lens, they offer an improvisational-based approach to energize your writing practice. Originally from Vancouver, Wilding arrived in Kingston six years ago, having spent the last 25 years (at least) working within a variety of improv, performing, and teaching roles, exploring different ways that […]

Jesse Gazic is a Toronto-based game designer, theatre maker, and Queen’s alum—and this summer, he’s been leading a puzzling adventure to catch an elusive butterfly in High Park. When I first arrived at Queen’s in 2014, I thought Gazic was the coolest person in the very grown-up-seeming cohort of third-year drama students. Though our paths have seldom crossed since he graduated—he’s somewhat elusive himself—I recently managed to catch Gazic for […]

It’s the last show of the 2024 Kick & Push Festival—Basement Girl, a play about PhD student Jovana navigating her new life in Canada while dealing with some eerie sounds in her apartment. Director, playwright, and actor behind Jovana, Bojana Babić was kind enough to sit down with me this past week for a Zoom interview about the show.  This interview has been edited for clarity and length.  Could you […]

Artistic work that’s been a part of the Kick & Push Festival for several years now, the Cedar Island Residency returns for 2024 and this year’s creations will be shared today. By collaborating with Parks Canada to make this residency possible, the work on Cedar Island began just under one week ago on August 12th. With a busy past few days of creation, myself and B. Solomon—a creator in the […]

The 2024 Kick & Push Festival is well underway with their upcoming closing weekend ending on a bang. With just over half the programming still remaining in its final days, wonderfully fabulous artists and their innovative creations will be leaving their mark on the Tett Centre, Cedar Island, City Park, and more. Amongst them is Seymour Irons—a man who wears many artistic hats but we’ll dive into that later—and his […]

Mercury is in retrograde at Kingston Fringe this August as the stars collide in Death of a Starman, starring real life astrologer Zaid Bustami. I had the pleasure of chatting with co-writer and director of the show, Kay Komizara, about toxic masculinity, storytelling, and of course, the stars. Komizara has been a creator for the last 11 years, having worked in Victoria, Montreal, and is now touring Ontario for Death […]