Author Archives: Liz Nicholls

An Indigenous prophecy and a rare birth: The Herd premieres at the Citadel. Meet playwright Kenneth T. Williams

Posted on April 5, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The Herd, premiering this week at the Citadel, is powered by the rarest of rare events: the birth of twin white buffalo calves on a First Nations ranch. It comes attached to a sacred Indigenous prophecy … Continue reading →

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A comedy set in Kelowna? Teatro La Quindicina turns 40 with Caribbean Muskrat, a review

Posted on April 2, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s telling that the oddball 2004 comedy launching Teatro La Quindicina’s return-to-live 40th anniversary season seems to wriggle out of every known category of their specialty. I refer of course to comedy. Teatro, after all, is … Continue reading →

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The Citadel announces a new Size Large season, led by two new Canadian musicals

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca After two contortionist years of stops and starts, indefinite postponements, cancellations cast hopefully as delays, re-bookings, digital work-arounds, the Citadel Theatre has cheering news. And it’s on a grand scale. “It’s big and it’s busy … … Continue reading →

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‘What makes us laugh?” Teatro La Quindicina launches its 40th season with Caribbean Muskrat

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Comedy. That was the only stipulation when Teatro La Quindicina got a joint commission in 2003 from a short-lived comedy festival in Edmonton and the prestigious High Performance Rodeo in Calgary. That open-ended proposition was meat … Continue reading →

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More theatre news: Expanse Fest is back and Grindstone’s hitting the road

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Generations” and “generational stories”: that’s the connective tissue of this year’s edition of Expanse, Azimuth Theatre’s annual “celebration of the body in motion.”  For 2022 the agile festival with the Expanse-ive embrace returns to the live … Continue reading →

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Springboards: a signature new play festival returns home to Workshop West

Posted on March 16, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s a felicity of timing, an alignment of stars, that our first chance to visit Workshop West Playwrights Theatre in their new home in Old Strathcona is Springboards.   The festival of staged readings, workshops and … Continue reading →

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Live theatre’s back, hurray, and 12thnight has an urgent request

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

Hello theatre friends!  It’s been almost exactly two years since the moment, unimaginable in advance, that the curtain came crashing abruptly down on live theatre — sometimes in the middle of a run, sometimes mid-rehearsal —  and time stopped. After … Continue reading →

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Jane Eyre steps off the page and onto the Citadel stage, in a new Erin Shields adaptation

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” — Jane Eyre In the new play getting its world premiere at the Citadel Thursday … Continue reading →

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What? A land claim comedy? The surprising geniality of Cottagers and Indians at Shadow Theatre. A review

Posted on March 12, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s no accident that the first sound you hear in Cottagers and Indians is laughter (with some accompaniment from amused birds).    The Drew Hayden Taylor play with the cheeky title that’s running in the Shadow … Continue reading →

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Raising funds for Ukraine: theatre steps up. A play, a playwright, Pyretic Productions, and the Blyth Festival

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It started with the discovery of a hand-written diary, the journal in which Lianna Makuch’s grandmother recorded her flight, on foot, from war-ravaged Ukraine in 1944.  That wrenching chronicle, and an anniversary of the full-scale Russian … Continue reading →

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