Written by Simon Stephens this two-person play features talented actors Tamara Hickey as the talkative Georgie Burns and Malcolm Ingram as the mature and compassionate Alex Priest. Set in present-day London, we watch as the relationship between two unlikely companions changes over the course of six scenes. A common thread that connects them is the loneliness they feel because they have lost the people who meant the most to them. Georgie is a vibrant, spirited woman in her forties who mistakenly kisses the neck of Alex in a busy train station thinking he was someone else. Alex, poised, quiet, and seventy-five, becomes entangled in Georgie’s life, but it might just be the excitement his solitary life needed.

Blithe Spirit, directed by Victoria Mack at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, is a classic play by Noël Coward that deals with the supernatural in a humorous way. The novelist Charles Condomine, invites the medium, the eccentric Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. Coward remarkably wrote the play in just six days. The play performed on the West End during World War II, providing audiences with much-needed escapism during this difficult time in history.

One can only imagine how hard it would be to enter into the Witness Protection Program. Having to leave behind your old life, your true identity, your family, and anything else that may have been part of your past. The pain is only made worse, if the person with whom you’re stuck in the program with is a lifelong criminal and a domestic abuser. That’s exactly what we see with our own eyes in All the King’s Horses, a short but potent drama from award-winning playwright Pamela Scott playing at the Bridge Theatre at Shetler Studios.

Soulpepper is adding a splash of fun to the dog days of summer, with Bed and Breakfast, a comedy by Canadian playwright, Mark Crawford. Bed and Breakfast is a delightful romp about a young gay couple, Brett (Gregory Prest) and Drew (Paolo Santalucia), who are growing ever tired of Toronto’s urban rat race and frustratingly competitive real estate market. An opportunity drives them to move to small-town Ontario and turn a beloved deceased aunt’s house into a bed and breakfast.

Through all their faults, mistakes and errors, Eduardo De Filippo has written a story of human individuals who have learned to embrace their foibles and weaknesses no matter how awful and terrible in whatever time and place these people find themselves. This production of Napoli Milionaria does appeal to our humanity and, in doing so, this appeal has enabled the playwright “to find an eager audience among all social classes’ as Cimolino writes in his Director’s Notes.

The unforgettable, moving story of a group of members from one of the Women’s Institute’s Yorkshire branches has been inspiring viewers, and more recently audiences, for over fifteen years. I am of course talking about the story of Calendar Girls, which found life and widespread attention and success in the form of Nigel Cole’s 2003 film, with a screenplay by Tim Firth. In 2008, the film was adapted into a successful film, and ten years on, it’s found its way back onto the stage, this time in the form of a musical. With Firth returning to his work, the writer paired up with Gary Barlow to bring the vibrant story of the triumphant women to a theatre at the heart of Yorkshire: the Leeds Grand Theatre.

Purported to be the last play the Bard had written alone, Stratford’s version of The Tempest captures a sweeping tale of revenge, compassion, empathy and forgiveness now on stage at the Festival Theatre. I can recall reading the rather challenging text during my undergraduate years and remembering there was so much going on at so many levels. It would take a discerning vision somehow to connect all that is going on to a diverse twenty first century audience taste.

Initially I wasn’t too sure if I really wanted to see Rocky Horror again as I felt I had seen it enough already. Director Donna Feore certainly made me feel welcome, when I changed my mind, with the warm invitation in her Director and Choreographer Notes: “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from; right here, right now, you’re family. So come as you are, in whatever you like, and take your rightful place.”

It’s basically an open secret that the NYC club scene can be a very gritty and intense world. It’s arguably like the rest of this city, in that it can be full of fun, but also full of danger and risk. If you’ve never been to a club like the one I’m describing, then perhaps the next closest thing to knowing what it’s like to be there, in the middle of the action, is seeing Death of a Bottle Girl, the brand new autobiographical solo show from Sydnee Washington.

Most statistics show that the vast majority of marriages today end in divorce. While many kids with divorced parents ultimately grow up to become very happy and successful adults, the fact of the matter is that it still isn’t a pleasant experience, while growing up. So what do you do about it? Make a few jokes about it, of course! At least, that seems to be one of the lessons from Serpent’s Tooth, an event of various featured storytellers – revolving around the theme of memorable awkward events, when they were younger - on the last night of The Tank’s highly successful Speak Up, Rise Up festival.

William Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It is a story of love and the adventurous journey towards new beginnings. Duke Senior has been banished from court by his younger brother Duke Frederick. Frederick then banishes his niece Rosalind who has grown close with his daughter Celia. The pair attend a wrestling match where Rosalind first lays eyes on Orlando whom she quickly becomes enamored with. Orlando flees from his older brother Oliver who is threatening his life and withholding his rightful inheritance from their father Sir Rowland. He ends up in the Forest of Arden, where Duke Senior, Rosalind and Celia have also found sanctuary. But as we see in the play, when characters take on a foreign persona and live in disguise happily ever after doesn’t come as quickly as they’d like. 

The revival of Grammy-Award-Winning “Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber & Stoller,” having headed south from its recent engagement at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, has landed at Stage 42 in New York City to positive notices from the press – including this one! Forty iconic Leiber and Stoller hits in ninety minutes would be glorious enough, but hearing those songs delivered by a cast of nine extraordinary singers and dancers backed by a powerhouse eight-member band is an experienced not to be missed. “Smokey Joe’s Café” currently running at Stage 42 delivers more that might expect from any musical revue.

It’s a very familiar feeling, which I’m sure we’ve all had before: Whether it was a party, a wedding, a meeting, etc., we’ve all been to events before where we felt compelled to go to, but were desperate to find a way out of. Whatever the reason may be, from anxiety to awkwardness to simple boredom, we’ve all been there before. That much is clear, given the overwhelming reaction last week to I’m Choking (and other excuses to leave a party) by Josh Johnson, one of many outings recently presented at The Tank’s Speak Up, Rose Up storytelling festival.

Have you ever wished that you could just take something, and you’d be cool instantly?

No? You probably thought junior high was fun, too, I’ll bet. So, for those of you who remember the teen years as something resembling medieval torture, you know what I’m talking about. Those times where everything you said and did rendered you eating your lunch alone… again.

It is difficult to separate “Be More Chill,” currently running The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center, from the hype surrounding what has become a teenage cult musical since its 2015 run at the Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. This hype has been heightened by a cast recording and an extensive marketing campaign. What is this musical about and how successful is its current incarnation?

Rockwall Summer Musicals’ production of the cherished classic, The Music Man, directed by Barbara Doudt, transported a Dallas, Fort-Worth-area audience away from the complex demands of modern life to an era of simple, sincere pleasures through lively song and dance celebrating turn-of-the-century America. Through this production’s passionate jubilee, talented performers, both young and old, took us on a spirited journey to find redemption through acts of love and kindness.

Porn.

Just the word alone invokes something dirty, kinky, and raunchy. Naturally, when hearing about a place such as a porn video store – back in the late-90s, when video stores were still a thing – one might think exactly how dirty could such a place potentially be, if they’ve never been inside one. Yet one new solo show which recently played at The Tank as part of the Speak Up, Rise Up festival this past week – Don’t Reach in the Bag – is here to show a more human side to the reality of what it’s like to work in such an environment.

I must have been one of the rare and few individuals who did not see the original Toronto production of Mamma Mia when it played the first time in 2000 with Canadian chanteuse, Louise Pitre. Yes, I did listen to Abba’s music during my undergraduate years from the early 1980s, but life moves forward and we move away from music that we liked to other genres.

When I heard that a story had been created with Abba’s music that would open in London’s West End in 1999, the concept just did not appeal to me whatsoever. From what I recall, international reviews were favourable but I still had no desire to see it. When the original Toronto company premiered with Ms. Pitre, again still no interest.

With showstopping dance numbers and a true ensemble overflowing with talent, Reagle Music Theatre’s production of “The Music Man” provides a spirited and heartfelt end to the theater’s 50th anniversary summer season.

I’ve read several recent online articles about the value of the spontaneous standing ovation, and if it is now somewhat expected at the end of each play rather than earned by hard-working actors. Has the standing ‘O’ lost its’ impact because audience members simply jump to their feet since they either are friends of the cast or director and do not want to disappoint or offend anyone? I’ve noticed recently in some of the larger professional/semi/non-professional Toronto/GTA houses that, while I may have enjoyed a performance but felt it did not merit me standing, I’ve had to do it begrudgingly, so I can watch the actors take their earned bows.