Theatre

I walk into Java Blend early in the morning. Ben Stone and his dad John welcome me with big hugs and hot tea. Both bearded and bright-eyed, the Stones exude a familial warmth that wraps around me like a soft woven blanket. Their casual leans and finish-each other’s-sentence-style closeness is contagious. After my first sip […]

At $10, the hottest ticket in town right now is probably also one of the cheapest. That’s right, for 10 bucks you can take in The King’s Theatrical Society’s fabulous production of the very funny Noises Off. The play follows a troupe of actors from creaky dress rehearsal to the hilarious goings-on back stage during […]

When it comes to learning lines, Raven Dauda and Kevin Hanchard are having an easier time than the rest of the cast of the Neptune production of Intimate Apparel. It’s not that they have über memories or have discovered a magical recall system— it’s just that this will the fourth time they’ve starred together in […]

It’s been more than a decade since Wendy Lill wrote Corker, a play that explores the tragedy of our over-burdened social service system and the need for the “haves” in society to both help and learn from those who face great challenges. The titular character is played with great energy by Will Brewer, a young […]

Snip. Snip. Snip. That’s the sound of the judicious pruning that Vile Passeist Theatre needs to employ when it stages its next play from the Jacobean era. With a start-to-finish time of over three hours (including a 15-minute intermission) their current production of Marlowe’s Edward ll is simply too long and repetitive to enthrall a […]

Since it’s inception in 1996, The Vagina Monologues has become an international household name, wowing crowds in endless cities, languages and venues. But somehow, no matter how uniform the script, it’s never the same show. “Every year a new woman reads the part and brings her own experience to the piece,” says Danielle Dufour, the […]

The first ten minutes of Whale Riding Weather are basically a soliloquy by an aging queen named Lyle. He’s fey yet charming, caustically funny and very drunk. Likeable, really. But as you watch the face of his younger lover Auto, who is sitting clench-jawed and vacant-eyed, you begin to wonder how charming and cute Lyle […]

Three actors, a director and a playwright (with an Italian greyhound in tow) file into the Neptune Theatre board room on a dreary January afternoon. The space is big enough that it would still seem ample with twenty people around the table, yet this group radiates enough artistic energy to make the room feel full. […]

Men, beware! You may well find your wife wants to dissect the state of your union after seeing Mrs. Parliament’s Night Out. It’s the story of an unfulfilled middle-aged woman (played with coltish charm by Sheila McCarthy) who suddenly realizes that life is short. She seizes the day by enrolling in multiple, wacky activities where […]

10. Cabaret (Dartmouth Players) was my favourite show by an amateur theatre company, but I also loved Be My Baby (DP), Private Lives (Bedford Players) and Captain Hook’s Revenge (TAG). 9. The Passion of Adèle Hugo (Eastern Front Theatre): An original musical with a local connection that wowed. 8. Saltwater Moon (King’s Theatrical Society): Creative […]

The Theatre Arts Guild’s Christmas pantomime is a tradition for many families in HRM, and TAG certainly knows how to deliver an entertaining show. This year’s offering, Captain Hook’s Revenge, seemed like a particularly magical mix of sparkly costumes, lovely music—including an exquisite duet between Emma Cruddas’ Peter Pan and Emily Stuart’s Tinkerbell—and laugh-out-loud humour. […]