Kick & Push Festival — Kingston Theatre Alliance

“What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?”- Thomas Merton Presented at Theatre Kingston’s Fringe Festival, Color and Light’s Sailing to the Moon follows a young, wandering man named Tom (Thomas Cherney) who is trying to understand the value in pursuing monastic life in a forest. Injuring his foot on his journey to the monastery, […]

Lovers of Clue, and Murder by Death will be sad to know that they missed out on  Kingston Fringe’s The Murderous Mansion of Mr. Uno presented by The Not So Amateur Amateurs. The story is one you’re likely familiar with. Think Agatha Christie or “closed circle” stories like And Then There Were None. But what makes it exceptional, is the ensemble of young artists that made it happen!  The play […]

Jesse H. Wabegijig is one of the artists for the 2022 Kick and Push Indigenous residency.  They spent the residency working on their new play, where Jesse was able to put together an installation that went up in the Tett Centre for creativity and learning. On the opening night of the installation I got the chance to speak to them about the time in the residency, and to hear a […]

Shrimp cocktail.
Top 40 hits of the 1990’s.
The shady dealings of the 1%.
An unhinged rendition of I am The Greatest Star.

All of these elements and more can be found in Gone, presented by Toronto-based writer and performer Amber Mackereth. A romp in the anxieties of the global citizen, this work is unlike anything else playing at the Kingston Fringe.

Never Swim Alone is a Canadian classic that just needs a little more reinvention than what the script calls for. My understanding of the work is that it’s meant to be a critique of the ways in which men have been socialized, yet the play as it stands does not offer anything more than making toxic masculinity known.

Too Much Information Improvised was a part of the 2022 Kingston Fringe, produced by the Kick & Push Festival. It is performed by two real life exes, Paddy MacDonald and Steph Haller. The allure of the work is the fact that they used to be in a romantic relationship with one another, so the expectation is that maybe there is fighting, and lots of tension. It was a lovely surprise that there was not, like none at all, unless the performance called for it.

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 […]

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 […]