It’s been 50 years since Disney made PL Travers’ Mary Poppins really famous, and the enigmatic, “practically perfect” nanny has aged very well. Neptune does the beloved story proud, pulling out all the stops with a well-acted, gorgeously-dressed, musically-expert production. Uber-talented triple-threat performer Heather McGuigan is fantastic as the starchy yet adventurous Mary and Kyle […]
Kate Watson
Posted inArts + Music
Awarded on Merritt
The 2014 Merritt Awards payed homage to the past and pointed the way to a bright future for theatre in Nova Scotia. The ceremony, a three-hour long marathon held in the Schooner Room of Casino Nova Scotia, was hosted by funny-man Bill Wood who joked that he’d been instructed to shape his hosting style as […]
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Never a Syllable
Benny Fong Halifax circa 1813 comes to life in Never a Syllable Theatre based on historical facts can be a mine field. So often, the playwright feels the need to share every fact that has been painstakingly gathered from the archive and ends up with a play that is an inert info-dump lacking in drama. […]
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The Mother Club
Juanita Peters’ The Mother Club is a play rich with historical detail and mystery. It is a testament to the enduring strength of women. The story is specific in its setting (a rural community in Nova Scotia in the 1930’s), but it’s also very relevant, since it deals with violence against women and the toll […]
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Working Up a Lather‘s spin city
A three-course meal and a play for 15 bucks just might be the deal of the century, but patrons of Spencer House Seniors’ Centre’s ridiculously affordable dinner theatre aren’t the only ones who’ll be getting something of value from the experience. The cast and crew of the upcoming production of Working Up a Lather are […]
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Doctor Faustus
MJ Photographics Dealing with the devil Time is running out to catch Vile Passéist Theatre’s terrific production of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and if you miss it, you’ll be sorry. This tale of an egotistical 16th century scholar who trades his soul for 24 years of pleasure is darkly funny and visually captivating. Pasha Ebrahimi’s portrayal […]
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Oil and Water
Artistic Fraud’s telling of the true story of Lanier Phillips, the only African-American to survive the sinking of the USS Truxton off the coast of Newfoundland in 1942, is an uplifting, heart-touching, soul-filling experience. It’s gorgeous to behold, with fine acting, a stunningly simple impressionistic set and a powerful a cappella mix of African spirituals […]
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Halifax Camerata Singers’ “Saints and Legends”
Nick Rudnicki Jeff Joudrey leads a heavenly chorus Choral music is not my thing. While this may be an odd way to begin a review of a choral music concert, I don’t think you need to be a choral music connoisseur to sing the praises of Halifax Camerata. This mixed choir, led by Artistic Director […]
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MIMI or A Poisoner’s Comedy
Pleasure in Paris It’s not often that “feather-light”, “sexy” and “serial killer” belong in one sentence, but for MIMI, a light-hearted musical comedy about a comely, hedonistic 17th century mass murderer, the words go well together. This is a show that’s all romp, from its opening ménage à quatre through Mimi’s discovery of the pleasure […]
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Mimi helps you pick your poison
Mary Lou Martin is not a woman who minces words. If a show is shit, she’ll be the first to tell you. So when she has high praise for something like TheatreSpeak’s production of Allen Cole’s musical farce Mimi (or A Poisoner’s Comedy)—which she is directing—it pays to listen. “This show is so funny, so […]
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Chess with the Doomsday Machine
Duty and compassion. For Moosa, a young soldier in Abadan during the Iraq-Iran war, the two compulsions are at odds with each other. His assignment is to identify an enemy radar system, but he has also become somewhat responsible for a misfit band of civilians damaged by the war. Can he do his duty plus […]
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The Woman in Black
I find it charming that in this age of big budget gore-fests, an old-fashioned ghost story set at the turn of the century can still have the audience shivering in their seats. Written as a play-within-a-play, The Woman in Black stars Jesse Robb as an aging solicitor who asks an actor (James MacLean) for help […]
