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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 7:44 PM EST
Pulitzer winner Ruined getting Canadian premiere in January 2010
On Monday, I interviewed African-American playwright Lynn Nottage because Obsidian Theatre’s acclaimed production of her play Intimate Apparel is back in Toronto, promoted from a 200-seat theatre to the Bluma Appel thanks to Canadian Stage Company adding it to their season.
My Q&A with Nottage will appear in the paper on Thursday, but I wanted to mention one tidbit of related news ahead of time.
The Globe and Mail can reveal - sounds so exciting when I phrase it that way, doesn't it? - that Nottage's 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Ruined will have its Canadian premiere in Toronto in January 2011. Obsidian got the rights and is co-producing with Nightwood Theatre at the Berkeley Street Theatre. Philip Akin, who is directing Intimate Apparel, will be back at the helm of the good ship Nottage. (Look, you try to come up with synonyms for "directing".)
Link to this post
Thursday, January 14, 2010 11:46 AM EST
Andrew Lloyd Webber's ideal Dorothy: Avril Lavigne
Andrew Lloyd Webber has beaten prostate cancer and is back at work. That work includes, of course, the upcoming Phantom of the Opera sequel, Love Never Dies, set to open in London with Toronto's Ramin Karimloo in the starring role in March.
But the composer has another project on the burner as well. He's revamping The Wizard of Oz for a new West End production and will cast its Dorothy via a reality TV show to be called either Over the Rainbow or, I think this is a joke, The Oz Factor.
How does he envision the winning Dorothy? Well, his ideal, he told the Scottish Sun, would be a certain rocker girl from Napanee.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 10:26 AM EST
Michael Healey's The Drawer Boy the fourth most-produced play of decade in the US
If we had 11 fingers instead of 10 and organised our calendar accordingly, we might have spent the last few weeks talking about decoding the undecade (or, perhaps, hendecade?). And, in this alternative world where our looks back looked back to 1999, we might have declared Michael Healey the Canadian playwright of the undecade.
In was in 1999 that Healey's hit The Drawer Boy premiered at Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille, directed by Miles Potter and starring Jerry Franken, David Fox and Tom Barnett. It was in the past ten years, however, that it became an international phenomenon.
In fact, crunching the numbers, The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout has determined that The Drawer Boy was the fourth most-produced play in the US during the years 2000 to 2010, ringing up some 36 separate American productions during that time. The only plays produced more often were David Auburn's Proof, John Patrick Shanley's Doubt and Yasmina Reza's Art. (NB: This is based on data that excludes the plays of Shakespeare and seasonal shows like It's a Wonderful Life.)
Monday, January 4, 2010 7:12 PM EST
Round-up of the round-ups: In 2009, Robert Lepage wowed Toronto critics, but let Montreal critics down
Viviane Paradis
Robert Lepage’s new production (seen here in a workshop) stretches boundaries in the spirit of composer Stravinsky.
You've read my oh-so-definitive end-of-year ramblings about Canadian theatre in 2009. (No? Try here and here.) But what did the rest of Canada's critical corps have to say about the last 12 months on the stage? First up in this review of the reviewers's years in review: Toronto and Montreal.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 5:00 PM EST
My top 10 productions of the year (give or take a couple)
'Tis the season for lists, round-ups and starting blog posts with the words "'tis the season". I've already written about the theatrical year in review and my five favourite new Canadian plays (scroll down). But because we have 10 fingers and 10 toes, we must also make lists of 10 – so here are my 10 favourite productions of 2009 in no particular order:
Chilina Kennedy and Paul Nolan were knockouts as West Side Story’s star-crossed lovers Maria and Tony.
West Side Story at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ont.
Why? Gary Griffin's and Sergio Trujillo's energetic direction and choreography, respectively, and a top-notch leading couple: Paul Nolan and Chilina Kennedy.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 4:27 PM EST
Bob Martin's Christmas gift for you next year: Elf on Broadway
Tired of all the Christmas Carols, White Christmases and It's a Wonderful Lifes at your local theatres? Well, Canadian actor/writer Bob Martin of Drowsy Chaperone fame has a new Xmas-themed musical in the works that I'll bet will make its way to a stage near you in a few years: Elf, an adaptation of the 2003 film starring Will Ferrell.
Thursday, December 10, 2009 4:40 PM EST
The Semple Life: Goldie's performances impressed our critics for 30 years
Goldie Semple, left, appeared last summer with Corrine Koslo in the Shaw Festival's production of Brief Encounters.
The Globe and Mail critics who have come and gone over the past three decades have been a diverse lot, but, at one time or another, Goldie Semple managed to win over each man and woman who passed through the job. Here is a sample of what our critics have had to say about Semple, who died Wednesday of cancer at the age of 56, and her performances at Shaw Festival and Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
Brief Encounters, Shaw Festival, 2009
Reviewing these three plays by Noel Coward, I wrote that Goldie Semple delivered "a hat trick of killer performances" and dubbed her "Sticky-fingers Semple" for the way she kept stealing the show.
A Little Night Music, Shaw Festival, 2008
Semple delivered a "touching performance" as Desiree in Stephen Sondheim's musical, according to my review.
The Cassilis Engagement, Shaw Festival, 2007
In his four-star review of this St. John Hankin play, Michael Posner praised Semple's performance: "Semple's Adelaide is a graceful figure of calm conviction."
The Magic Fire, Shaw Festival, 2006
Kamal Al-Solaylee had one word for Goldie Semple's performance as Elena in this play by Lillian Groag: "note-perfect".
Monday, November 30, 2009 12:54 PM EST
Monday round-up: Douglas Campbell memorialised in Stratford, Lady Gaga reviewed as musical theatre
Just a few quick notes and links to pass along on a Monday lunchtime:
- If you're in or around Stratford, Ontario, today, a memorial for the great Douglas Campbell will be held at the Festival Theatre, 55 Queen Street, at 3 pm.
- Lady Gaga is calling her new Monster Ball touring show an "electro-pop opera", so I took a stab at reviewing her Saturday night gig in Toronto as musical theatre for the Guardian. (Liam Lacey's review for The Globe is here.)
- Elsewhere in the Guardian, Timberlake Wertenbaker, whose adaptation of Phedre premiered at Stratford last summer, accuses the British critics of being too boozy and tired to appreciate her latest play, The Line. (In his Stage blog on the subject, Mark Shenton's brings the recent row between David Mirvish and Toronto critics to his British audience's attention.)
- Ecce Homo protested production of The Pastor Phelps Project: A Fundmentalist Cabaret is being revived for a single performance at the Robert Gill theatre in Toronto tomorrow. Creator Alistair Newton connects the show to the Adam Lambert AMA controversy in this interview with Xtra where he also says: "I don’t like that pastor Fred called me a fag on the internet but the alternative was worse."
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 1:41 PM EST
What has been going on with Mirvish opening nights?
On Sunday afternoon, I went to the opening night -- opening matinee, really -- for Studio 180's production of Stuff Happens, which Mirvish Productions are currently remounting at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre. The show packed a punch the first time around, and I was pleased to find out it still does.
I'm always happiest delivering good news, but the odd thing is Mirvish Productions didn't seem to want me to deliver it.
Here's what's been going on behind the scenes the past couple of weeks: Two Fridays ago, all the critics in Toronto got an e-mail from a Mirvish publicist uninviting them to the opening nights for My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding (MMLJWW from here on in), Stuff Happens and Fiddler on the Roof. "New dates are TBA," we were told.
It's not that unusual for an opening night to be delayed by a day or two due to the illness of a cast member or some other unforeseen circumstance. Longer delays can take place too when something bigger goes awry. Newspapers will almost always wait to review (and report on the delays, of course).
What was unusual -- unprecedented, maybe -- about the current situation is that Mirvish did not postpone the official openings of these shows, just the "media night". And the "media night" wasn't pushed back just a few days, but weeks or a month. The shows in question would no longer be in previews, tickets would be sold as regular tickets and everyone going to see the shows would assume they were up and running -- but the professional critics weren't being invited to weigh in on them.
After a flurry of queries, Mirvish then sent out "re-invitations" asking critics to review Stuff Happens on Dec. 5, halfway through its limited run, and, even more bizarrely, to review MMLJWW on Dec. 10, two weeks after it was originally scheduled to close. (It's now been extended to January 3.)
After pondering the situation -- and not being offered any clear rationale for these delays -- I consulted with my editors and we decided to buy tickets to review Stuff Happens and MMLJWW. At a time when bloggers and Twitterers now regularly write about shows whenever they see them, even while they're still in previews, it made no sense to us to wait weeks after "opening night" had come and gone to inform The Globe's readers about the quality of these two hotly anticipated homegrown shows. I had already heard from a few readers wondering how MMLJWW was and why a review wasn't up.
The Toronto Star, I'm glad to see, is on the same page -- they ran a full review of MMLJWW last Friday.
The question everyone has been asking, though, is: What on earth is going on at Mirvish HQ? Last week, Martin Knelman noted that Mirvish's publicists were sending out press releases about MMLJWW that quoted ordinary ticket buyers, leading to a rumour that they are taking a tip from movie studios that now release certain populist movies (like G.I. Joe) without sneak peeks for critics.
As I was writing this blog post, however, I got the following email from David Mirvish (click through to see). Looks like they're not writing off critics. Still not sure what's been going on, but I'm glad to see they want to avoid this type of confusion again in the future.
Friday, November 13, 2009 4:30 PM EST
After The Beatles and Elvis, will Cirque du Soleil tackle Michael Jackson next?
On his Showbiz 411 blog, Roger Friedman is reporting that Cirque du Soleil is "heavily courting" the Michael Jackson estate for the rights to do a Vegas extravaganza in the style of its Beatles show Love and its upcoming Elvis show, Viva Vega.
Writes Friedman: "The money involved is said to be astronomical." I'm sure it would have to be.
In more confirmed Cirque news , the Montreal-based circus company's upcoming touring show directed by Robert Lepage has its first dates nailed down. Tentatively titled Cirque 2010, Lepage's show will be presented in the Old Port of Montreal in April 2010. The show will also tour to Quebec City. No other cities or dates are yet announced. Tickets go on sale to the public on December 15.
Nestruck on Theatre Contributors
J. Kelly Nestruck
J. Kelly Nestruck has covered theatre in Canada, as well as in New York, London, Dublin, Edinburgh and other thriving international scenes. He joined The Globe in February of 2008 and has been blogging in some form or another since February of 2003.