Author Archives: Liz Nicholls

Fast and furious: the righteous frustration of Ashleigh Hicks’ characters in Brick Shithouse, at Found Fest 2024

Posted on July 2, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The largest production in the Found Festival’s 13-year history of unexpected encounters with art opens this week in a place you might not even know about yet. As in most of Found’s surprises, that place is … Continue reading →

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Nostalgia at the lake: On Golden Pond at the Mayfield, a review

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “How does it feel to turn eighty?” a 15-year-old kid demands of Norman Thayer, the curmudgeonly retired English prof/ octogenarian wiseacre in On Golden Pond. “Twice as bad as turning 40,” he says without missing a … Continue reading →

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Finding Found, the festival of unexpected encounters with art and artists

Posted on June 30, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “What’s going on here?” There’s a question that tickles the perpetrators of the Found Festival, devoted to art (and encounters with artists) in unexpected places. For a dozen Julys, no alley or park, no warehouse, or … Continue reading →

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Storytelling in the theatre: a long weekend on Edmonton stages

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A long weekend in Edmonton: four plays, four stories that demonstrate, in four very different ways, the possibilities of storytelling on a stage, in a theatre. •Michel(le), the season finale at L’UniThéâtre, from Vancouver’s Théâtre La … Continue reading →

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Lost dreams restored in theatre magic: Michel(le) at L’UniThéâtre

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Dramatic, tragic, eventful, and very singular.” That’s how Joey Lespérance describes the real-life story that inspired his first-ever solo play Michel(le). The L’Unithéâtre season finale opens Thursday at La Cité francophone (in French with English surtitles), … Continue reading →

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The Sterlings, a coda

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Diverse disconnected thoughts from the Sterling gala Monday night. •It was an evening of three-and-a-half-plus hours hosted by a pair of improvisers, Marguerite Lawler and Gordie Lucius from Rapid Fire Theatre who actually (on purpose?) managed … Continue reading →

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Celebrating the season in Edmonton theatre: Mermaid Legs leads the way at the 36th annual Sterling Awards

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The spirit of off-centre ‘small theatre’ originality blew through the 36th annual Sterling Awards gala Monday night as the theatre community gathered to toast the 2023-24 season on Edmonton stages. And two challenging productions that live … Continue reading →

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The gods have their eye on you: Zulu creation mythology erupts in dance at Theatre Prospero. A review

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “In the time before time….” The gods were busy creating and discussing and arguing, and generally keeping an eye on cosmology. Because that’s what Zulu gods do. They’re busy. Actually, their all-seeing eyes are upon us, … Continue reading →

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‘Rough magic’ for the great outdoors: Freewill Shakespeare’s The Tempest, a review

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca On a perfectly calm summer evening under an azure sky, a tiny ship, The Lady Capulet, careens among us, capsizing its way toward the stage, flinging drunken party people here and there, topsy turvy. It’s a … Continue reading →

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A first for Grindstone: a mainstage subscription season of big musicals at the Orange Hub

Posted on June 19, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The little comedy theatre that never sleeps just got bigger. The little theatre with the insomniac energy has announced their first mainstage subscription season, three big musicals, two from Broadway and one original. With a big … Continue reading →

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