Review — Kingston Theatre Alliance

The boundaries between digital art and live performance are blurred in Peerless Productions’ Reflections and Refractions. Presented as part of the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA), the show brings together sound, light, movement, and digital design in a thought-provoking production. Arriving at the Isabel Bader Centre, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I knew it wouldn’t be traditional. That’s part of the FOLDA promise: to offer “what’s […]

Imagine this: you walk into a room and see ten objects laid out in front of you. A wallet, a medallion box, two remote controls, a Father’s Day card, a photo book, a radio, a stack of papers, an empty milk jug, and a cell phone. Carefully and strategically placed by Scenic Designer Helen Yung, you know each of these items holds the memories of a person, but you don’t know who exactly. Soon, you will find that the owner of these belongings is Brian Lewis, an unhoused veteran who is the father of Cole Lewis, the co-creator and performer of 2021. Lewis, along with Co-creator and Performer Patrick Belnkarn will guide you through the video game version of the very real story that is the last two weeks of Brian Lewis’s life. Exploring themes of  parenthood, the effects of war, ethics in artificial intelligence (AI), and terminal illness, 2021 is a show that can connect with people from all walks of life.

When I was a child, a family friend who happens to be a doctor once cautioned me to “be careful, because at a certain age you stop healing from wounds and you start just collecting them.” Warren Winters (Phil Perrin) has reached that age, and is really beginning to find the troubles that come with it. Decrepitude Blues follows Warren through doctor’s checkups and the loss of his job, friends, and wife, all the while highlighting the hardships of turning 70 with dry wit erupting at each new low. 

How do Black Caribbean men say ‘I love you’? Or perhaps a better question is, how do they show it? This curiosity is what sparked Marcel Stewart’s inspiration for creating WindRush. Also playing the character Basil, Stewart pieces together a realistic and gripping story about a Jamaican man experiencing loss, grief, friendships, and siblinghood.

I left the Thousand Islands Playhouse after seeing How the Other Half Loves with a smile plastered on my face. While the play doesn’t offer much depth (it’s about as deep as a puddle), it delivers pure mischievous fun. The show never pretends to be anything other than effervescent fluff, and I found that wonderfully refreshing. What could have felt shallow and cringeworthy instead played like a masterclass in comedic […]

Queen’s Musical Theatre (QMT)’s Heathers: The Musical has all the makings of a killer production: biting wit, belty numbers, and a cast that brings the house down, but the Baby Grand just can’t contain this much teen angst.

Terra (Jarena Lee) has fallen on hard times. Her case worker, Liz (Sierra Zawacki), is asking her to leave her current home at a women’s abuse shelter to make room for new tenants. Meanwhile, her abusive ex (Jonathan Campbell) has just been released from prison, she is meeting with a problematic potential landlord (Matthew Davis), and she is single-handedly raising her five children—Mya (Yashia Allen), James (Iffy Maduabuchi), Anaella (Reese […]

Few musicals capture the highs and lows of being a performer quite like Michael Bennett’s A Chorus Line. Set during a grueling Broadway audition, the show follows a group of dancers fighting for a coveted spot in the titular chorus line. Instead of a typical audition, the dancers are pushed beyond their resumes, answering deeply personal questions about their lives, dreams, and struggles. Through monologues and musical numbers, each dancer […]

Nicole is overworked, underpaid, and at her wits end when she has to meet with two parents of students in her grade three class. Enter John, a worried upper middle class father recently separated from his wife and is concerned about his son’s grades, and Rosie, a mother working multiple jobs to support her husband who struggles with drug addiction and her daughter. Chaos quickly unfolds as the parents panic […]

Love is never simple—and in Domino Theatre’s production of Almost, Maine, directed by Sandie Cond, it’s often downright messy. This heartfelt and frequently hilarious exploration of falling in and out of love is set in the fictional small community of Almost, Maine. The play spans eight individually titled vignettes that unfold over the same ten-minute period, giving us glimpses of touching, romantic, and heartbreaking moments. Strangely, by the end of […]

After having her car towed for the fifth time, Annie (Susan Del Mei) decides not only to get her car back, but to personally change the system and avoid future incidents. Caught in Annie’s crusade is gauche tow truck driver, David (Reece Presley), who is just doing his job, which he describes as fulfilling “…penalties for citizen misconduct.” Theatre Kingston presents Jim Garrard’s Big Ticket in the Baby Grand as […]

I love reimagining classics, but usually I know the source material that is being reimagined. This was not the case for me when I went to see Yu Theatre Society’s production of Snow in Midsummer: The Silence, a 50-minute long mime/dance show based on the 13th-century play The Injustice of Dou E by Guan Hanqing. How would I be able to appreciate someone else’s adaptation when I don’t know the […]