News & Reviews — Kingston Theatre Alliance

The Tom Hendry Awards began in 2002 with one award honouring the talents of a Canadian playwright. The program has grown exponentially in the last 23 years, adding awards such as the Theatre for Young Audiences award and the Carol Bolt Award for scripts that recently premiered. Now comprising eight annual awards, the Tom Hendry Awards offers a wide range of categories that recognize theatre pieces of various genres and […]

When Dmitry Zhukovsky was a teenager, he stumbled into a small community show and fell in love with the expressive storytelling nature of theatre. He has devoted his life to it ever since. A long-time appreciator and admirer of the famous dramatist Anton Chekhov’s work, Zhukovsky will be directing I Take Your Hand in Mine by Carol Racamora as a part of the Chekhov Collective during the 2025/2026 Theatre Kingston […]

I went to a murder trial for fun. Or at least that is what it felt like. I had the pleasure of seeing Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution on opening night, and I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to walk into such a buzzing room. Domino Theatre was almost packed, full of people who clearly knew their Christie. Once invited into the theatre, the room felt charged while waiting for […]

In times of tragedy, music can be a source of comfort, which makes it all the more painful when grief stifles the melody. In my experience as a musician, heartbreak often makes it impossible to create those sounds which once brought comfort; your hands feel like weights hovering over piano keys, your voice feels trapped in the back of your throat, and the music you depended on is buried by […]

Content warning: ‘Never Swim Alone’ contains depictions of violence. While these topics are not discussed in depth in this review, they are prominent topics in the performance.

Despite it being a Saturday, I woke up the morning of seeing Thousand Islands Playhouse’s production of 9 to 5 feeling much like the first verse of the titular song. Trying “to come to life,” with “a cup of ambition” in hand before the long day ahead. Needless to say, there is no better way to come back alive than to experience two and a half hours of peppy fun […]

By: Malobi Elueme Five years ago, in the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, the King’s Town Players closed their doors. There was no send-off, no emotional goodbyes or one last show due to the pandemic.  The past weekend, the King’s Town Players celebrated their 10-season anniversary in bold and hilarious fashion: with a brand new production presented by Scurra Sacra. The Complete Works of the King’s Town Players (abridged) is […]

I went into the Kingston Theatre Alliance’s Artistic Council Meeting not quite sure what to expect. I had imagined something like a long boring board meeting: agendas, motions, votes. What I found instead felt more like a creative co-working space, where artists, administrators, and theatremakers gathered around a shared table (this time, a virtual one) to swap updates, brainstorm solutions, and ground ourselves in the state of Kingston’s theatre scene. […]

Warning: This article contains some spoilers for The Crackwalker. This article also contains reference to Substance Use, Child Abuse, Systemic Neglect, Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, and Mental Illness.

A dark comedy, Morris Panych’s 7 Stories follows an unnamed protagonist, Man (Aaron Manier), as he prepares to jump from the seventh floor of his apartment building. However, his various eccentric neighbours interrupt him with stories from their own chaotic, comedic lives in ways that are often metatheatrical, leaving audiences to reconsider what we perceive as performance. Panych’s commentary is embedded into the humour of the play, in a way that may go undetected. It’s etched into each character’s incorporation of how they are perceived or the way they perceive others, tying into the ultimate idea that performances as we know them are more frequent than we may believe. 

Two farmers, a folksy artist, a collective theatre project, and a secret between friends kept for decades: what could go wrong? The Drawer Boy, an award-winning play by Brockville’s Michael Healey, tells the story of two old friends in 1972 rural Ontario. Angus (Tom Barnett) and Morgan (Patrick McManus) live and work alone on their farm, but their lives change when Miles (Stephen Jackman-Torkoff), a young actor from Toronto working […]

A wedding is widely regarded as the “happiest day of your life” but the stains of actually achieving that blissful status often turn the festivities sour. Bonnie (Emily Lukasik) and Brad (Henry Beasley) are throwing a stag and doe in preparation for their wedding. Unfortunately, after a terrible storm, Rob (Kyle Brown) and Mandy (Romi Shraiter) have had to relocate their wedding, and the only venue in town that can […]