Category Archives: Reviews

‘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 comedy of adjusted vision: The Oculist’s Holiday at Teatro Live, a review

Posted on June 1, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The title will make you smile. In its way The Oculist’s Holiday, the 2009 Stewart Lemoine comedy with the whimsically archaic handle, is all about optics — vision, perspective, focus, correction. And in the play, set … Continue reading →

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The hunger for omens gets … ominous for an obsessive sleuth. Dead Letter at Workshop West, a review

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The woman we meet in Dead Letter, Conni Massing’s dark and funny, mysterious and moving, new play — premiering at Workshop West Playwrights Theatre with an all-star cast in Heather Inglis’s production — is on a … Continue reading →

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Embrace the kooky: Trout Stanley at L’UniThéâtre, a review

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There is a kind of kooky mania — or is it frazzled euphoria? — about the captivatingly weird play that’s currently running, for the first time ever in French, at L’UniThéâtre. You couldn’t go wrong calling … Continue reading →

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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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