Category Archives: Reviews

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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An evening in the park with Sondheim and up-and-comers at MacEwan, and more

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Last night in a packed theatre I got a chance to see the only musical in the repertoire where the rhyme of “rapturous” and “capture us” floats through the air. Both apply to the experience of … Continue reading →

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Building a robot and making friends: fresh and funny Robot Girls premieres at Shadow Theatre, a review

Posted on March 16, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s fresh. It’s funny. Its sharp-eyed insights into the fraught high-stress lives of junior high teenage girls are blended into fast-acting chemistry in Trevor Schmidt’s winsome, hilarious, often touching, new comedy Robot Girls. It’s a tricky … Continue reading →

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A glorious score that’s already in your brain: The Sound of Music at the Citadel, a review

Posted on March 14, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The Sound of Music, now delighting audiences at the Citadel, is at the top of a tiny list of resistance-is-futile musicals whose mere titles dig into the tune retention part of the brain and won’t let … Continue reading →

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Life lived precariously, on land and sea: some thoughts on Mermaid Legs at this year’s SkirtsAfire Fest

Posted on March 11, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca At the very last moment on the weekend I finally got the chance to see Mermaid Legs, the theatrical centrepiece of this year’s SkirtsAfire Festival. And there was magic to it. Not only was Sunday the … Continue reading →

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Revelling in the make-believe of theatre: Pith! at Teatro Live, a review

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The pith helmet has returned to Edmonton. And with it, playwright Stewart Lemoine’s invitation, in a well-travelled 1997 comedy both charming and riotous, to have an exotic, liberating adventure in the theatre, along with its three … Continue reading →

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Negotiating the darkness of the world: thoughts about This Is The Story Of The Child Ruled By Fear

Posted on February 1, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca We are, none of us, dread-resistant, times being what they are. That sense of being alone and untethered in a universe that’s a chaos of crises and emergencies is a feeling lots of us know. It’s … Continue reading →

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Stories and who gets to tell them: The Drawer Boy, funny and moving at Shadow Theatre, a review

Posted on January 28, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca With The Drawer Boy, Shadow Theatre revives a play that both in itself and its inspiration proved a defining moment for a truly Canadian theatre — and does it proud. In Michael Healey’s heartwarming and tough-minded … Continue reading →

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Up against a dark and maddening universe: Donna Orbits The Moon, a review

Posted on January 28, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca If you’ve ever found yourself furious (and really who hasn’t?) for no reason you can pinpoint, you’ll take to Donna. The middle-aged woman we meet in Donna Orbits The Moon is used to being cheerful and … Continue reading →

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The ‘bad bitches who bought the palace’: The Spinsters, a little review

Posted on January 27, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca I’m late to the ball, but in the nick of time — it ends today — I caught The Spinsters. And I want to tell you about this highly unusual dark off-centre comedy (for the +14 … Continue reading →

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