Kick & Push Festival Archive

Poster for 'Here there be Monsters' A man in a striped jacket wears a top hat with grimacing face paint on. Text reads: "DOC WUTHERBLOOM HERE THERE BE MONSTERS"

There’s Magic in Store with ‘Here There Be Monsters’

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

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 […]

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Poster for 'Outheis' A man is seen with a cloth in his mouth that has been wrapped behind his head Text reads: "OUTHEIS WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY GRIFFIN HEWITT JULY 25 -30, 2023 TALK IS FREE THEATRE"

No One’s Home? ‘Outheis’ on the Streets of Kingston

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

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, […]

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Image of the Kick and Push's logo.

Thinking Outside the Panel: ‘Pandora in the Box’

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

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 […]

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Alex Boese rehearsing 'Birthmarks' Photo is in black and white.

Alex Boese and Michael Catlin Talk ‘Birthmarks’

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

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 […]

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Photo of Nam Nguyen.

Playwright & Lyricist Nam Nguyen Talks ‘CAEZUS’ and ‘A Perfect Bowl of Pho’

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

On my first day in Toronto, I lugged my suitcase along Dundas and sat down at Oxtail Pho to chat with playwright and lyricist Nam Nguyen. Nguyen’s musical A Perfect Bowl of Pho (book and lyrics by Nguyen, music by Wilfred Moeschter) premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2022 and is coming to the Kick & Push Festival this August.  In the meantime, his new show CAEZUS (music by […]

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A thin stream leads up to a small, wooden stage that has red curtains pulled across. There is one lawn chair on each side of the stream. A man sits in a wheelbarrow on one side of the stream smoking a pipe and playing a guitar. Trees surround the stage and one has two archery boards attached to it. At the bottom reads: ROBIN HOOD.

‘Robin Hood’ was more than just Fanciful Fun

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

I was nervous when I strolled through City Park and I saw a haphazard setup of black boxes and forest-themed shower curtains. But, the Lakeside Players production of Robin Hood charmed me from start to finish. The well-known fairytale format was both honoured and upended for a modern audience. The writing spoke to the entire crowd, appealing to even the youngest. It was somehow modern and poetic; delectable to the […]

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A green park bench in the outdoors. The purple ring surrounds with wording 'THE DUCK VARIATIONS' and 'The Duck Variations by David Mamet' also appears above the bench. Below the bench reads: 'The Duck Variations is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com'

Two Men on a Park Bench… David Mamet’s ‘The Duck Variations’

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

Who knew that ducks, friendship, and existentialism could coincide into a single theatre performance? These elements came together in a heartfelt conversation between two men in a recent performance of The Duck Variations. bEST Theatre Company’s The Duck Variations that played at the Grand Theatre as a part of the Kingston Fringe, produced by the Kick & Push Festival, was an existential and meandering conversation between two men on a […]

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A blue poster with 'Return of the Megafauna' written in the bottom left, 'The Kick & Push Festival' written in the bottom right, and a curve of lines in the top right.

De-extinction and Puppetry: Speaking with Seymour Irons

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

Return of the Megafauna created by Bad New Days is a physical theatre piece that was a part of the 2022 Kick and Push festival. The piece is contextualized through the company’s understanding of post-humanism and de-extinction, where the images of the future are utopic rather than dystopian. De-extinction is defined as the process of generating an organism that either resembles or is an extinct species.  I encountered the piece […]

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A monastery with a sign in front that reads "MONASTIC AREA DO NOT ENTER" that is bordered with a purple circle that reads "SAILING TO THE MOON"

‘Sailing to the Moon,’ Contemplating the Monastery

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

“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, […]

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A logo titled ' The Murderous Mansion of Mr. Uno' with a dark, creepy mansion that has two lightning bolts striking it.

‘The Murderous Mansion of Mr. Uno’: A Slick and Stylish Escapade

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

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 […]

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Drawings and paintings with text explanations on a white board at Jesse H. Wabegijig's installation of Pictures at an Exhibition displayed at the Tett Centre.

Making a Fairy Tale with Jesse H. Wabegijig

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

Jesse H. Wabegijig is one of the artists for the 2022 Kick & 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 […]

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Studio 013’s ‘R.E.D.’ ⁠— Proof That “Easy” Doesn’t Mean “Good”

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

A one woman, one robot, one act show set on a space station, R.E.D. is the frugal producer’s dream show. But the cracks start to show almost immediately.

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