Kick & Push Festival Archive

Still Kicking, Still Pushing: Local Theatre Festival Launches its 11th Year

  • Festival
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Review

If there’s one thing to learn from attending theatre events, it is that live theatre is unpredictable and that’s just part of its charm. The Kick & Push Festival kicked off its 11th year with a launch event at the amphitheater by Springer Market Square. Fittingly, the opening event reflected both the spirit and the name of the festival. (A quick history lesson: “Kick and Push” comes from a nickname […]

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Headshot of Stephanie Rehm. She is outside with her arms crossed and looks upwards.

From the Classroom to the Stage: How Two Sisters Wrote a Play

  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • TK Fringe

There is something beautiful and a little magical about a family that creates together. The Socrates Sisters, Stephanie Rehm and Eleanor Daly, are writers, producers, and musical composers of a new play Detention, which will be premiering at the TK Fringe Festival this summer. For the longtime educators and first-time playwrights, the journey to this year’s Fringe Festival has been a full-on family affair. “We’re not a big troupe—it’s me, […]

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All Aboard the ‘Providence’ Express

  • Festival
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Review

For those who have watched Back to the Future and thought, “I wish I could visit the past!” this is the show for you. Start by finding the entrance to the K&P Trail near Hagerman Avenue where you’ll be surrounded by the buzzing of cicadas and live fiddle tunes played by Jan Leclair on the accordion and Karma Tomm on the violin. You’ll know you’ve arrived when you see an […]

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Human or Computer?: An Interview with Yuriy Popov and Yana Menov

  • Festival
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • TK Fringe

This might not be the first time on stage for Yuriv Popov and Yana Menov—the founder and creative director of Studio Reflection, respectively—but it is their first time performing a piece that is 100% theirs. After translating playwright Igor Yakimov’s The Turing Test from Russian to English, the two get to be their own directors, actors, and designers. With over 50 custom-made video clips, sound clips, and even perfectly timed […]

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Poster for 'Love and Other Letters' in TK Fringe. The title of the show, location, dates, TK Fringe logo, and The Kick & Push Festival logo are on the poster. There is also a small image of two hands reaching out to the other in the centre of the poster.

Creativity Gone Wild: Behind the Scenes of ‘Love? and Other Letters’ 

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • TK Fringe

Alina Siwy and Heiden Jacobi have the kind of creative chemistry that makes collaboration feel effortless. Siwy is currently studying Film at Queen’s with a specialization in Media and Performance Production at the Dan School of Drama and Music. She is also a writer and her newest project, Love? and Other Letters, explores the emotional complexities of loving someone else.  Jacobi is a drama major, actor, photographer, lighting designer, and […]

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a white paper sign with black text reading: "ADVENTURES IN CANADIAN PARKING LOTS"

jem rolls Is a Sensation, and Me? I Can’t Stop Listening

  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Review
  • TK Fringe

During my undergrad I took a Fringe theatre course in which one of our weekly topics was simply titled “jem rolls.” There is a good chance that anyone who frequents Fringe festivals will have met him, or at the very least have heard his name. This physical and poetic storyteller has travelled, as he puts it, “from concrete islands to concrete islands across this sea of green,” and landed in […]

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Partial poster for jem roll's show: 'jem rolls: Adventures in Canadian Parking Lots'. There is an image of a figure shopping, the title, reviews, and the location of the show on the poster.

Reading Between the Rhymes: An Interview with Performance Poet jem rolls

  • Artist
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • TK Fringe

In the uniquely Canadian wagon train that is the Canadian Fringe Festival, jem rolls is kicking off his tour in what might just be his favourite city on Earth: sunny, green Montréal. This one-of-a-kind high-energy English performance poet’s career began at the age of 31, when he semi-accidentally stumbled on stage at a ‘terrible’ open mic in North London and never stopped. Feeling liberated by the possibilities of spoken word […]

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Graphic for the 2024 Kick & Push Festival. The image is blue with white writing of "The Kick & Push Festival 2024" in the centre and orange lines in each of the corners.

10s All Around: A Decade of Kick & Push Festivals

  • Festival
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Kingston Theatre Alliance

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, […]

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Graphic by The Kick & Push Festival for the show: 'What Brings You In'. The graphic includes, the show title, the festival title, the dates, the performance times, and the presenting company. The background is blue with purple squiggly lines.

You Can Relax Your Eyes Now: Listening to ‘What Brings You In’ on the City Bus

  • Festival
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Kingston Theatre Alliance
  • Review

What parts of yourself are you hiding? What do you filter out? Is it safe to be heard? Listen, I’ll be honest—things weren’t going too well for me last Friday. After forgetting my glasses, taking the bus to the wrong venue, and discovering that the lone ballpoint pen at the bottom of my purse had run dry, I almost gave up on seeing What Brings You In.  Luckily, the Kick […]

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Poster for 'Hysterical Historical Improv' playing at the 2024 TK Fringe Festival. The TK Fringe logo is in the top left. The Kick & Push Festival logo is in the top right. The dates of the festival are top centre. In the middle is the title against a yellow background with a drawing of a naked man and a pink ring surrounding with the show's title again and the location of the show. In the bottom right is the logo for Confederation Place hotel and in the bottom centre is the text: "improv-ed history".

‘Hysterical Historical Improv’ Lives Up to its Name

  • Festival
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Kingston Theatre Alliance
  • Review
  • Theatre Kingston
  • TK Fringe

Hysterical Historical Improv delivers on its promise of making history hysterical. From local group Improv Kingston, local history comes to life in a way you haven’t seen before. Dan Walmsley directs, writes, and performs, with the help of additional performers Jon Britton and Henry Korba-Babcock (as well as occasional promised special guests, although none appeared in the performance I attended).  The premise of this “historical improv” is that Walmsley has […]

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Headshot of Bojana Babić. She is in front of a plain wall looking down. The image is in black and white.

Absurdism at The Kick & Push Festival: Bojana Babić’s ‘Basement Girl’

  • Artist
  • Festival
  • Interview
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Kingston Theatre Alliance

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 […]

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Poster for 'Christian Slut' playing at the 2024 TK Fringe Festival. The TK Fringe logo is in the top left. The Kick & Push Festival logo is in the top right. The dates of the festival are top centre. In the middle is an image of one individual with an open shirt. Another individual's back and back of head is seen as they hold the person's waist from a low-to-the-ground position. A purple ring surrounds the image with the show's title and the location of the show.

O Come, All Ye Thirsty: ‘Christian Slut’ Puts The XXX in Xtian 

  • Festival
  • Kick & Push Festival
  • Kingston Theatre Alliance
  • Review
  • Theatre Kingston
  • TK Fringe

A stage set with only a wooden cross draped in lingerie, Christian Slut puts the sexual content right back into a Christian upbringing. The show is a one-person “confessional” (not the Catholic kind), written and performed by Erik Karklins, about their experiences as a self-identified slut while also being a devout Christian. They tease (literally) out the nuances between these two seemingly conflicted identities, critiquing restrictive religious doctrine. Despite its […]

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