News & Reviews Archive

A DJ’s-Eye View of Hotel Bar Bacchanalia: ‘ABD with Mark the C’
- Kick & Push Festival
- Review
- TK Fringe
“I was in the car the other day, listening to music and thinking about loss.” So begins Threshold Theatre’s ABD with Mark the C, a gently humorous memoir of the 60s and 70s delivered from inside a DJ booth. Written and performed by Mark Cassidy and directed by Hume Baugh, the show traces Cassidy’s journey through small-town Ontario as a child of hotel entrepreneurs. Let’s tackle the title letter by […]

Watch Where You Look: Orpheus Learns About Narcissism in ‘Lillian’s Thief’
- Not So Amateur Amateurs
- Review
Please note this review mentions sexual abuse. Despite getting tuned up with a modern setting, Lillian’s Thief: A Modern Orpheus can’t help but look back to classic, old-fashioned tropes. The play was written by and stars both Sara Beck as Morana and Christian Milanovic as Corvin, with direction by Abby Wolfe and produced in association with Not So Amateur Amateurs. Beck and Milanovic have a clear connection and rapport that […]

Lucy Darling: An Indulgence in Wit and Glamour
- Review
- Theatre Kingston
Lucy Darling means glamour in the true sense of the word—as in both elegant fashion and spellbinding mystique. The stage persona of Carisa Hendrix, Miss Darling is a self-described female magician and “classy bitch,” hosting a sophisticated yet scrappy 1950s Hollywood look complete with a smooth drawling accent. Darling is highly recognized for her efforts, as a 15-time Award-Winning Entertainer featured in the Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley’s […]

A Devilishly Delightful Prelude to TK Fringe: ‘El Diablo of the Cards 2.0’
- Review
- Theatre Kingston
A tight 45 minutes of magic served with a citrus twist. Hailing from Ouro Preto, Brazil, Ewerton Martins—better known as El Diablo of the Cards—is a globetrotting magician and card-carrying clown. His last local appearance was at TK Fringe in 2019, where audiences were enraptured by his devilish charisma and skillful sleight of hand. This year, El Diablo is back to kick off Theatre Kingston’s summer programming with two performances […]

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, […]

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 […]

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.

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]