Review — Kingston Theatre Alliance

On November 13th, I had the unique privilege of virtually attending a digital live-stream of The Chemical Valley Project, a production featuring a unique mix of projection design, object puppetry and solo-performance. This show first premiered in 2017 at the Art in Solidarity: Performance in Protest in Toronto, Ontario. Since its original premiere, the show has toured across Ontario, BC, and even in Germany in 2018. The production was performed […]

DSS, a long-running staple of the Queen’s University theatre scene, is a collection of short plays entirely written, directed and performed by Queen’s Students. I had an inkling that the theatre group that was already known for their innovative and boundary-pushing theatre in a pre-COVID world would be able to adapt to these unimaginable circumstances in inventive ways. Not only did they achieve this, but they were able to exceed all expectations.

rom November 1st to November 7th, I had the privilege of attending the Shortwave Theatre Festival, a festival of radio dramas presented by CFRC. While the festival featured six different radio plays, I had the opportunity to listen to and review three.

In her new radio play The Soundcastle, Sarah Emtage explores what happens if a tree falls in a forest and somewhere, rather than someone, is around to hear it.

Similar to all theatre productions in 2020, Blue Canoe’s The Last 5 Years was originally slated for the Juvenis Festival in May of 2020 and cancelled as a result of the pandemic.

On October 2nd, I had the privilege to enter the immersive world of Virtual Reality to attend the 2020 Performance & XR Conference, co-hosted by Electric Company Theatre and Single Thread Theatre Co. Performance & XR is a conference discussing the unique intersection of XR and Performance. With respect to the conference, XR is an umbrella term that can refer to Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality. While the […]

At the inaugural Performance and XR Virtual Reality Symposium, award-winning lighting, set, projection and mixed reality designer Beth Kates guides us through an experimentation of creating performance in XR.

First performed on a picnic table at the 2000 Toronto Fringe Festival, the play has made quite a journey to its 2020 conception at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning. While playwright and director Dickens seeks to explore how even ancient stories can have surprise endings, it’s more of a poetic rendering of the classical Greek myth than it is a reimagining.

Set in 1965, the production could not feel more relevant in today’s political climate. In the midst of the chaos that is 2020, The Meeting serves as a perfect antidote. The play, written by Jeff Stetson, and originally performed in 1987, could not have felt more timely and appropriate in the wake of BLM and rising racial tensions in the world. In essence, the play is a piece of revisionist […]

This is how playwright and storyteller Ned Dickens describes why a bunch of strangers are collected together on a conference call. From Kingston’s Breakwater Park to my stepdad’s deck in Toronto to the bedrooms of a youth theatre group in India, Luke and the Big Circles is a cycle of four stories in verse and over the phone.

immersive and inter-disciplinary theatre company Outside the March returns to the Kick and Push Festival for their fourth year with The Itinerary: Playtest. Broadcasted through Zoom and enacted through your phone, the performance is literally in the hands of the audience. Players select from a series of actions to be carried out by performers Amaka Umeh and Sébastien Heins, taking us through the death, life, then death again of the one and only: Elaine.

Given the chance to create utopia, what would it look like? Would it be possible? And would we even want to? Fusing strategic gameplay with a theatrical narrative, the Vancouver/Toronto-based company Re:Current Theatre has created an experience that is as immersive as it is interactive.