It is Solved by Walking is a journey into the mind and heart of a 53-year-old woman named Margaret (Ruth Lawrence) who’s struggling to unearth the roots of her failed marriage and her thwarted dream of becoming a poet. She has the help of an unusual muse: the dead American poet Wallace Stevens (Hugh Thompson), […]
Neptune Theatre
Posted inArts + Music
Fall Arts Preview – September 2014
11 The Coast Fall Arts Preview hits the streets! You’ve got one, you’re OK. Atlantic Film Festival kicks off today, running to September 18, read our coverage on page 16 to plan your fest. 12 Darrin Rose brings his live stand-up show, My Dad’s Other Son, to the Neptune Theatre. Read more on page 22. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Fall Arts Preview – November 2014
1 Vile Passéist Theatre: We love you. Keep doing what you do, you crazy diamonds. Devoted to performing strictly early modern plays, this not-for-profit art society pushes audiences past Shakespeare and into worthwhile scripts by lesser-known playwrights from the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Coming up in November at the Bus Stop Theatre, John Lyly’s Gallathea, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Definitely not the opera
Most of us can remember our first foray into high school theatre. Usually in an auditorium, usually performing—with varying degrees of enthusiasm—a play carefully vetted by the drama teacher, usually about high school, usually written by someone you’ve never heard of, lucky if it was written in the last decade. Contrast that with the youth […]
Posted inArts + Music
Spring Awakening
MJ Photographics A passionate performance by Neptune Theatre School’s Pre-Professional Training Program cast Spring Awakening is an old play (written in 1891) given a new twist by a pop rock score that allows the troubled teen characters to unleash their tortured inner monologues. It’s a work that’s both provocative and disturbing, not because of its […]
Posted inArts + Music
Miss Caledonia
Peggy Ann Douglas—tomboy, farm girl and dreamer—has a plan to escape her dreary rural existence. Against the wishes of her dour father and with the help of her resourceful mother, she’ll climb to the pinnacle of the small town pageant world with the hopes of opening doors to the wide world beyond. Melody A. Johnson’s […]
Posted inArts + Music
Mary Poppins
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 […]
Posted inArts + Music
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 […]
Posted inArts + Music
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 […]
Posted inArts + Music
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 […]
Posted inArts + Music
Greatness awaits
Daniel MacIvor, king of the one-man show and the pared-down aesthetic, set out to explore a different theatrical vision when he conceived of His Greatness. “I wanted to have a play with a set. A door that opens and closes. A chandelier…I wanted to create a well-made play that was an homage to Tennessee Williams, […]
Posted inArts + Music
On stage in 2013
In the course of a year, there are well over 100 plays to be seen in and around Halifax. They run the gamut from works taking their first baby steps into the world to big-budget extravaganzas. What I find interesting when I compile this annual list of favourites is that the plays I remember are […]
