News & Reviews Archive
![](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Cast-and-crew-of-Dress-Rehearsal.-Photo-provided-by-Jen-Buder-1.jpg)
Creepy Clowns, Cups of Coffee, Cringeworthy Cavemen, and Cantankerous Castmates: Come Play By The Lake at Domino Theatre
- Domino Theatre
- Review
At Come Play By The Lake, short works by local playwrights take to the Domino Theatre stage and compete for a place in the Eastern Ontario Drama League (EODL)’s One Act Festival. Ranging from 25 to 55 minutes in length and spanning multiple genres—the 2024 submissions include horror, romance, comedy, and metatheatre—the productions are evaluated by a panel of judges selected from the local arts community. This year, Donna Chambers, […]
![Poster for 2024 Skeleton Park Arts Festival. The title, dates, artists, sponsors, and website are noted. There is also an image of a skull and crossbones but the crossbones are instruments.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SPAF2024_poster.webp)
Singin’ in the Rain: Joy at the 2024 Skeleton Park Arts Fest
- Review
- Skeleton Park Arts Festival
The rain never bothered us anyway! At least not at this year’s SPAF. Skeleton Park Arts Festival (SPAF), a grassroots, multidisciplinary art festival, takes place every summer over the solstice weekend in McBurney—more commonly known as Skeleton—Park. With a humble beginning over twenty years ago as a neighbourhood solstice picnic, this free, family-oriented festival has become a beloved and highly-anticipated event in the community. This year’s celebration fell over the […]
![Image of a person with a phone in front of them. Phone shows a picture of them with a phone in front of them. That phone shows a picture of them with a phone in front of them, so on and so forth.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/766x550-test-SSAW.jpeg)
Fun at FOLDA: Exploring the Festival of Live Digital Art 2024, Part Two
- FOLDA
- Review
The cardinal rules of theatre: sit still, don’t chitchat, and make sure your phone is on silent and put away. Adrienne Wong chooses to challenge these conventions, exploring our relationships with our devices through audience participation.
The 2024 Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA), produced by SpiderWebShowPerformance, took place from June 13-15. In this section (catch Part One here!), I take a deep dive into SmartSmart, an interactive performance by Adrienne Wong that was staged at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. In my previous review of FOLDA 2024, I mentioned that the festival promotes innovation, creativity, and reflection, and SmartSmart very much embodies these values.
![Festival of Live Digital Art 2024's logo is in the top left corner. In the top right corner is an image of people skating. In the bottom left corner is a graphic of someone playing the guitar surrounded by many colours. On the bottom right is an image of a woman onstage wearing headphones and a dress.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FOLDA-MASH.png)
Fun at FOLDA: Exploring the Festival of Live Digital Art 2024, Part One
- FOLDA
- Review
Where can you catch a groovy concert, talk to a multimedia AI interface, and take in a 360-degree film in a dome, all in one weekend? FOLDA, of course! The Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA), produced by SpiderWebShowPerformance, promotes live digital art with the hopes of empowering communities, creating connections, and inspiring critique. The 2024 festival took place from June 13-15, and I was fortunate to have the opportunity […]
![Poster for Domino Theatre's production of 'Brighton Beach Memories'. The title, company, playwright, and director are noted. A baseball sits on grass.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/brightonart.jpeg)
From Pitching to First Base: ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’
- Domino Theatre
- Review
It’s family drama and first crushes, with a side of baseball. Directed by Penny Nash and staged by Domino Theatre, Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs (1982) is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age comedy. It centres around the Jerome family through the perspective of the youngest son, fifteen year-old Eugene Morris Jerome (William Mitchell). Living in Brooklyn, the Jewish-Polish immigrant family experience personal hardships and conflict under the threat of impending war. Meanwhile, […]
![Poster for 'Dressing Amelia'. A woman stands against a blue background holding a jar. The title, playwright, director, ticket price, dates, and presenting company are noted.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/dressing_amelia_graphic.png)
Unpacking Loss with ‘Dressing Amelia’
- Bottle Tree Productions
- Review
On the day of her mother’s wake, Amelia finds herself at a loss for what to wear. It doesn’t help that her dead mum keeps appearing in her childhood bedroom, all smiles and chatter. Written by Chloe Whitehorn and directed by Will Britton, Dressing Amelia unpacks mother-daughter baggage through quippy digs, impassioned speeches, and the ever-tantalizing promise that dirty laundry will be aired. A little bit soap opera, a little […]
![Poster for 'Menopause the Musical 2'. The title, presenting companies, location, and date are noted.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MTM_KIN_1080x1920_72DPI.jpeg)
A Flashy Homage to Our Hormones: ‘Menopause The Musical 2’
- MODO-LIVE
- Review
The night Menopause The Musical 2: Cruising Through ‘The Change’ came to Kingston, my mother was in town, so naturally I invited her along as a guest expert. She’d seen the original Menopause The Musical on tour several years ago and hadn’t enjoyed it much, offering such sizzling critiques as “I think there’s a certain type of ‘hilarious’ humour that I don’t like,” and “I hate the Beach Boys.” Ever […]
![Poster for 'Arsenic and Old Lace'. Company, title, playwright, director, date, time, location are listed.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Lace-Cropped.jpeg)
The Most Hospitable Murderers You’ll Ever Meet: ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’
- Not So Amateur Amateurs
- Review
It’s tough being a drama critic at the best of times. For Brooklyn-based theatre journalist Mortimer Brewster (Danny Lalonde), the drama is seeping into his home life at a worrying pace. Mortimer has just promised to marry his long-term girlfriend, Elaine (Wendy Stephen), when a chance peek into his aunts’ window seat reveals that life in the Brewster household is not all as it seems. Aunt Abby (Charlene Wehlau) and […]
![Blue Canoe Productions' 'Rent'. The title and presenting companies are noted. There is an animation of a brick wall with four different coloured windows and shadows inside them.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Season18Announcement1.png)
Tangoing with ‘Rent’
- Blue Canoe Productions
- Juvenis Festival
- Review
A group of young artists puts on a musical about young artists in a festival for young artists. Blue Canoe Productions and the 2024 Juvenis Festival present Rent, directed by Dylan Chenier. Jonathan Larson’s Rent, loosely based on Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème, tells the story of young artists as they traverse through gentrification, love, and the HIV and AIDS epidemic present in the 80s and 90s. With New York City […]
![Poster for Domino Theatre's production of 'Ten Lost Years'. The title, playwrights, director, and presenting company are noted.](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/lostyearsart-scaled.jpeg)
From the Canadian Perspective: ‘Ten Lost Years’
- Domino Theatre
- Review
“I’ve seen tears in men’s eyes… It was a very emotional time when a man came in and went up to the counter.” -Relief worker in Barry Broadfoot’s Ten Lost Years: 1929-1939. Ten Lost Years is a play based on the 1973 book of the same name by Barry Broadfoot playing at Domino Theatre this spring. Written by Cedric Smith, George Luscombe, and Jack Winter, and directed by Martha Bailey, […]
![Purple logo for Kingston Theatre Alliance](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/share_graphic.png)
Job Opening: Development Coordinator
- Industry
- Kingston Theatre Alliance
- News
The Development Coordinator will be responsible for acting as a community ambassador for the Kingston Theatre Alliance and The Kick & Push Festival through the development, planning, and execution of the initial stages of a year-round development plan to both strengthen the organization’s relationships with existing funders, and identify and pursue new fundraising and sponsorship opportunities. This role can be done in a hybrid work environment until the Festival start in July, at which point the role requires being on-site in Kingston, ON until the completion of the Festival in late August.
![Animated purple curtain with the words: "The creativity dilemma. Exploring the divide between higher and lower budget productions."](https://kingstontheatre.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Creativity-Dilemma.png)
The Creativity Dilemma
- Kingston Theatre Alliance
- News
- Opinion
Last summer I booked a trip to New York City as I hadn’t visited since I was very young. I was extremely excited as I really wanted to see a Broadway musical for the first time. As I hopped online looking for shows to see, I remember thinking, “Back to the Future the Musical… Why?” I have no hate for the idea—it could be an amazing musical—I was just surprised at the idea of a Back To The Future musical and it having a spot on Broadway. I continued searching and found that around half of the musicals on Broadway at the time were either remakes of hit movies or revivals of older shows. At first, I was surprised but after further thought, it made sense. I recently looked at Broadway.com’s list of current best-selling Broadway shows and saw that four out of the top ten shows on Broadway right now are direct adaptations of former hit movies, while five out of ten of the shows are connected to an already existing popular product or a revival of an old show.