News & Reviews — Kingston Theatre Alliance

What is the Critic Looking For? What a loaded question! Let me ask you one. What makes great theatre? I’ll even tell you the answer.  Artists.  You want artists to be there. Artists, technicians, administrators, engineers, carpenters, bartenders, ushers, whatever their job title, you want these masters of their craft there. You want them in there doing what they love to do; making theatre happen. Ideally, you’ll find artists who […]

An immersive student production transforms the Isabel Bader Centre’s studio theatre into a site of divine reckoning. Branden Jacob-Jenkins’ Everybody is a contemporary adaptation of the 15th-century morality play Everyman. A popular genre in medieval and early Tudor theatre, morality plays typically feature personifications of abstract concepts alongside angels, demons, and an ordinary human protagonist. In Everyman, one man—representing all of humanity—goes on an allegorical journey through the afterlife, addressing […]

The perennial City of Wine offers its first full bloom with Harmonia, a tale of forbidden love between a goddess and a mortal. Harmonia is the first in the nine-play cycle by local playwright Ned Dickens, which the Grapevine Theatre Project plans to produce as a series over the next five years. After an enormous effort by a network of over 300 theatre lovers, Harmonia is the magnificent fruit of […]

1922: Catherine, Frances, Charlotte, and Pearl are the four shining faces of the factory workers at the Radium Dial Company. For eight hours a day, they paint tiny numbers on pocket watch after pocket watch, laughing and talking as they dip their brushes in radium-laced paint.  When she first joins the company, Catherine is put off by her coworkers’ habit of licking their brushes to make the ends pointy, but […]

It’s a classic clash of generations: Canadian high school grad Tanya arrives in Ireland and is flabbergasted by her grandmother’s seemingly backwards lifestyle. Mary, Tanya’s Nan, is set in her ways— she prefers to cover the electric stovetop with a tablecloth and cook her meals on a fire, so-called progress be damned. Over a long summer filled with uphill bike rides, intercultural misadventures, and cups of tea with a mysterious […]

A combination of shadow puppetry, singing, hurdy-gurdy drones, cackles, moans, and good old-fashioned solstice sorcery brings a crowded living room to near silence on a cold December night. This is Birdbone Theatre’s Broom Dance, a show that has enchanted me twice this winter. The first time was at the Department of Illumination’s Firelight Lantern Festival in November, followed by a house show in Kingston’s Skeleton Park neighbourhood just before the […]

Job Description The KTA is looking to hire a Theatre Critic for the Performance Blog. The Theatre Critic is responsible for attending and reviewing 1-2 shows in the Kingston area per week. They will work very closely with the Editor of the Performance Blog to discuss articles, edits, and timelines.  Responsibilities Requirements Pay As an independent contractor, pay will come as a stipend of $550 per month with the expectation […]

Like many, the idea of an online theatrical experience doesn’t excite me like it did pre-pandemic.  The anticipation of being involved with new technology has been dimmed by having to creatively engage with it out of necessity rather than curiosity for the last two years. This was the unfortunate attitude that I held when I went into the PXR (Performance and Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality) Conference. Immediately I felt […]

The KTA would like to release an open letter to discuss our goals for the performance blog.  The blog is a space for reviews, interviews, and opinion pieces surrounding the arts that we hope will engage with the community of Kingston. We strive to spark dialogue that can enrich theatre and provoke valuable conversation. Theatre is—and should be— constantly growing. It is a passion of ours to communicate about the […]

At the Domino Theatre, a by and for family Christmas meditation on what it means to believe is showing. Miracle on 34th Street as it exists onstage was adapted from the 1947 film of the same name. The premise of the show sees a stranded Kris Kringle (Phil Perrin) as he tries to spread Christmas spirit around New York City, encountering the unlikely trio of Doris Walker (Jennifer Tryon), her […]

Mel Brooks’ film The Producers was his 1967 directorial debut. Starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, the story followed fading Broadway producer Max Bialystock (Mostel) as he and accountant-turned-producer Leo Bloom (Wilder) attempted to put on the worst Broadway show of all time. The Broadway musical adaptation of the film, and subsequent movie musical, stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Brodrick, following the same plot. Put on by The Kingston Meistersingers, […]

Let’s talk audio plays. There’s an obvious challenge here: Keep an audience engaged through only sound. Under-do it: you’ve lost their attention. Over-do it: tumultuous confusion. Finding that happy medium is really where a show sells itself. Now, one begs the question, does Shannon Kingston’s Garden of Edith find that sweet spot? …Yes. With beautiful precision. Presented by First Ditch Collective, the premiere of Garden of Edith begins with a […]