Category Archives: Previews

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Our big fat myth,” declares Colleen Murphy (whose declarations tend to have a combustible edge to them) “is that we’re a classless society.” “The tremendous gap between the wealthy and the working poor, and the rage … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Three actors, 300 prop gags!” “It’s either the highest of the lowbrow or the lowest of the highbrow. One or the other!” declares playwright Jessy Arden cheerily of The Fall of the House of Atreus, the … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There never would have been a sequel if the unthinkable hadn’t happened. When last we met Ponce de Ponce de Panache, 12 months ago,  it was at a pep rally for the self-glorifying blusterer and king … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca For poetic impulses and vivid characters, and a certain raucous soulfulness and way with words, you can’t beat the Irish. And Serca (the Gaelic word for “love story) is the festival that celebrates that multi-faceted contribution. … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca One of the most delicious true-life stories ever to come out of the Edmonton Fringe, a great natural repository of theatrical absurdities, can be traced, in a direct line of descent, to the One World Theatre … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Greg Dowler-Coltman sent me a Leonard Bernstein quote this week. “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” “How did he know?” jokes Victoria School’s theatre department maestro. He’s … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Nice work if you can get it/ And you can get it if you try….” In Crazy For You, the deluxe ‘30s musical comedy that was actually, amazingly, written in the 1990s, a stagestruck Manhattan rich … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Everybody you know has one, alive or pushing up daisies, possibly on the phone asking why you don’t call or wear yellow more often. I refer of course to moms.  And the sheer cosmic strangeness of … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The people of The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s first great masterpiece, are chafing with confusion, disappointment, unrequited desire, time, ego. The people of Stupid Fucking Bird, an irreverent modern remix by American playwright Aaron Posner, are like that … Continue reading →

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca For 16 of its 27 years Concrete Theatre has been inviting people of every ethnic and cultural stripe, every calling, career or colour, to plant a Sprout. All they need, these playwrights or poets or painters, … Continue reading →