Review — Kingston Theatre Alliance

The Dan Studio Series Theseus was an interesting series of shows to say the least, ranging from existential crises to Western moral stories.

At the top of the show, the audience was asked to participate in a quick census by clapping to indicate which generation we belonged to. First, the “Baby Boomers” were called—raucous clapping filled the traditional theatre space as almost everyone around us slapped their hands together.

I was surrounded.

Cindy Ci and Jeff McGilton are speaking on a video call to discuss the production of ‘Mercy’ they had watched two nights prior.

Accompanied by local favourites Rowena Whey, Tyffanie Morgan, Lilith Cain, Mimi Osa, and Rane St. Cloud, Rowena Whey presents: Icesis Couture marks the headliner’s return to Kingston as Canada’s next Drag superstar. But take everything you learned from Drag Race and throw it out the window. The hit reality competition television show is an incredibly popular point of contact for Drag culture at large, but don’t expect the drama, spectacle, and competition you see onscreen onstage.

While some pieces of theatre find their footing in fiction, others find meaning and shape in the staging of true events. In the last stretch of this past Black History Month, an example of the latter came in the telling of an essential piece of American and Canadian Black history. JOSIAH, co-created by director Charles Robertson and sole performer Cassel Miles, was a multi-disciplinary dip into the life of Josiah […]

I’ll admit, various lines of conflict come into play as I type these words. Not only was I the rehearsal stage manager, but I am a student who is currently attempting to pass public judgement on a show that her professors developed. In juggling how to approach this post, one thing is certain: everything I am going to say has been guided by the knowledge that my professors have passed […]

[TLDR is an abbreviation for ‘too long; didn’t read’, usually followed by a brief synopsis] If the pandemic has taught us anything in the last year and a half, it has been how to adapt. While an inability to gather has seen the closing of countless theatres, some companies have turned to the internet as a means of staying afloat. By broadcasting performances and moving programming online, digitizing became a […]

Prior to logging onto Zoom to watch a live performance of DAN Studio Series: Odyssey, I considered how the DAN School of Drama and Music student festival played a part in my undergraduate experience. In addition to developing friends and connections throughout my years at Queen’s University, these experiences saw the honing of skills in acting, writing, and collaborating. Created and produced entirely by undergraduate students, the DAN Studio Series […]

The most cohesive piece of theatre I have seen in Kingston. Content Warning: The Sylvia Effect carefully explores several mental health struggles such as depression, anxiety, trauma, and suicide. It holds little back and asks for us, as a community, to begin examining how we respond to these problems. In light of this, the following review will explore some of the listed elements above. Written and directed by Peter Hinton-Davis, […]

“Write what you know. And what you don’t know, research.” Playing the young and bold Tia, Makambe K Simamba speaks these words and thunder ripples across the darkened theatre. It is with power and conviction that she stares down her fictional screenwriting superior, and with a warning that finds relevance even outside the story world. Everyone is shaken with the implications. This is my second time seeing a performance of […]

It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon when I asked my father to join me for some caramel corn and a matinee performance of Thom Currie’s Back in ’59, the Thousand Islands Playhouse show that is Mashed Potato-ing its way through a sold-out run (or in our case, available via streaming online). Despite not being present for all the toe-tapping and in-seat jiving I’m sure accompanies the live productions, we found […]

I’ve come to realize that while I have spent several summers and the last year here, I am clearly not (yet) a Kingstonian.  Why do I say this? Over the course of (length of show), I walked into an oral history of  old locations in the downtown core, superstitions of the citizens regarding ghosts, and odd decoration choices like the carpets at The Toucan, and realized how unaware I was […]