Category Archives: Reviews

Dear Sugar, what should I do? Tiny Beautiful Things at Shadow Theatre, a review

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca I’m confused. I’m stuck. I’m torn. I’m undecided. I’m disappointed. I’m desperate. I’m stumped…. What should I do? We the people are all up against it — in ways, big and small, expected or not, that … Continue reading →

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Grab your swords, guys, and join the brawl: The Three Musketeers swashbuckles at the Citadel, a review

Posted on April 26, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The irresistible urge to pick up something pointy and dazzle someone with fancy moves, and possibly run them through, is everywhere on display in the big, entertaining production of The Three Musketeers that brings the Citadel … Continue reading →

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Populating a world and reclaiming the past, all on a bare stage: Basic Training, a review

Posted on April 21, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca In Basic Training, the impressively multi-character solo play currently running as part of the Edmonton Fringe Theatre season, Khalil Ashanti tells a fascinating story. It is his own. It’s the story of a childhood terrorized by … Continue reading →

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Back to our alma mater, for a class reunion at Rydell High. Grease at the Mayfield, a review

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca We all went to Rydell High. And none of us ever graduated. That’s the thing about Grease: every production of the 1972 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey is a class reunion, so to speak. … Continue reading →

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On the dark side of the fine art of storytelling: The Pillowman at Theatre Yes, a review

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There’s a hooded figure, head bowed, waiting for us in a grim basement downtown. It’s a mysterious place we’ve never been before, and, ominously, it’s lined with plastic. Uh-oh. With Martin McDonagh’s 2003 The Pillowman, Theatre … Continue reading →

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On the outside looking in: Candy & The Beast, a new Trevor Schmidt thriller at Northern Light Theatre, a review

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s a dark and threatening world, a miasma of secret dangers and fear, in which we find ourselves in Candy & The Beast, a new and multi-faceted mystery thriller by (and directed by) Trevor Schmidt premiering … Continue reading →

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The gift of belief: unmissable Wonderful Joe, The Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes at Theatre Network

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Something wonderful, and wonder-filled, happened last night at Theatre Network. We found ourselves on Eileen Street, in a miniature urban neighbourhood on the wrong side of the tracks. Where the homeless are home, and the misfits … Continue reading →

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Humanizing a hero in a mysterious encounter: The Mountaintop at the Citadel, a review

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A road-weary man with a cough and holes in his socks arrives back in an undistinguished Memphis motel on a stormy night in April 1968, dying for a cigarette and checking for hidden microphones before he … Continue reading →

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The long weekend in a theatre town

Posted on March 29, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca What happens on a long weekend in a theatre town? For starters, a new indie puppet musical and a musical theatre classic, an insightful and captivating comedy about teenage girls, a musical revue, a new play … Continue reading →

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Back-combing the ’60s: Hairspray at the Jube, a review

Posted on March 27, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Something has happened to the light-hold flexible Hairspray we’ve always known. It’s gone Ultra-Clutch. In a world of chronic downsizing — of prospects, budgets, the polar ice cap … — there’s something reassuring, in theory, about … Continue reading →

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