Monthly Archives: June 2018

Things I learned at the Sterling Awards gala: a coda

Posted on June 26, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Thoughts from the Sterling gala (directed by Kate Ryan and written by Shannon Blanchet and Belinda Cornish). •For openers: Co-hosts Rachel Bowron and Hunter Cardinal were sparklers. They opened the show with Beauty, a witty and … Continue reading →

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Nostalgia for a lost age: Forever Plaid at the Mayfield, a review

Posted on June 26, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca In their one review ever, in The Wiltsburg Times Chronicle, a nameless writer delivered the opinion that The Plaids’ sound “is to modern music what Formica is to marble.” It is a measure of their infinite … Continue reading →

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The Sterling Awards celebrate the season in Edmonton theatre: Onegin, Métis Mutt, Terry and the Dog lead the way

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A Canadian indie-rock musical hit that played its hot-blooded operatic passions with an irreverent light touch scored top musical production honours from jurors at the 31st annual Sterling Awards gala Monday night. And a solo coming-of-age … Continue reading →

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An exciting new Hamlet for the park: a review

Posted on June 23, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Is not this something more than fantasy?” The guards on duty in Elsinore are talking about a dead king who’s been appearing nightly from behind his official royal portrait. They’re right on another count, too.  Something … Continue reading →

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The world’s a zany, baffling place: The Comedy of Errors in the park

Posted on June 22, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca At a crucial mistaken-identity moment in The Comedy of Errors — a transaction-gone-askew involving a goldsmith, a chain, and a wayward husband arranging delivery on pricey bling for someone not his wife — a magpie perched … Continue reading →

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Taking comedy and tragedy to the park: the Freewill Shakespeare Festival returns

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There’s a vast expanse of theatrical distance between the two shows you’ll see alternating in the outdoor Shakespeare festival that opens tonight in the river valley. Tonight’s show is a comedy, and a farcical one at that; … Continue reading →

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30 summers of Shakespeare in the great outdoors

Posted on June 20, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca ‘Tis wondrous strange, but there was a time, now receding into the mists of the past, when Shakespeare (Will to his friends) didn’t camp out in the river valley every summer. When you couldn’t drift down … Continue reading →

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But hark, a new play! Thou Art Here at Freewill Shakespeare Festival

Posted on June 17, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “For the long and short is, our play is preferred….”  (IV, ii, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) In one of the most reliably hilarious (and heartwarming) sequences in all of Shakespeare, a co-op of serious and inept … Continue reading →

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What to see at Improvaganza: thoughts from sampler night

Posted on June 14, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Improvaganza is back — and with it the chance to be with people, onstage and off- who are making it up as they go along.  Rapid Fire Theatre’s 18th annual international extravaganza, which assembles top improv … Continue reading →

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The art of spontaneity enters a disturbing new dimension: The Society of Strange comes to Improvaganza 2018

Posted on June 13, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Unlikely. Improbable. Unpredictable. Improvaganza, the 10-day festival with bona fide global connections, expressly devoted to the adrenalized art of the spontaneous, is all of that. With The Society of Strange, arriving from across the pond for the … Continue reading →

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