Category Archives: Reviews

Hockey night in Edmonton: Playing With Fire re-opens the Mayfield. A review.

Posted on September 13, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca With the production that reopened the Mayfield Dinner theatre for real-live audiences this week (for a six-week run), hockey doesn’t just pirouette around theatre. No, there’s a bone-rattling full bodycheck into the boards. And there are … Continue reading →

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And back to the live! a horizon-expanding experiment at the Citadel

Posted on August 31, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca On Friday March 13 I went to the theatre — the Varscona, to see Shadow Theatre’s production of Heisenberg, starring Amber Borotsik and Glenn Nelson. I haven’t stepped into a theatre since. Until Saturday night. Which … Continue reading →

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Live theatre: has it found a footing on a platform instead of a stage in Zoom-laden times?

Posted on July 23, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A lifetime ago (March 25, 2020 to be precise), Malachite Theatre’s resourceful artistic director Benjamin Blyth explained to me that the company had borrowed an interactive online platform from the business world for a new venture. … Continue reading →

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The spirit of mirth, brought to you live: Lodestar Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Posted on July 12, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “I have had a most rare vision,” says Bottom, a stage-struck weaver with boundless enthusiasm for theatrical pursuits, late in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I had one of those, too. Friday night I dreamed I found … Continue reading →

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The fun of real live theatre (socially distanced, of course): Chamber Obscura at the Found Festival

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Special occasion: tonight was the night I got to see real live people in real live theatre. It felt so … radical. So cool. So Zoom-defiant. The play is Chamber Obscura, a 15-minute gothic folk thriller, … Continue reading →

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“Where are you?” Tracks, an online experiment, takes us home with the cast.

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A preamble to Tracks, the online theatre that’s happening this week on your own screen…. Ever since going out to theatre, my way of life for forever, abruptly ended a thousand years ago (or 10 weeks, … Continue reading →

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Heisenberg: the zigzag path to romance, at Shadow Theatre. A review

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s named for a scientific principle that’s all about the unprincipled nature of the particulate world — its randomness and unpredictability. (You can’t measure the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously with any precision, according to … Continue reading →

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The Children: a mystery, and a subtle Wild Side production. A review

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca If there ever was a play that domesticates a big issue, to find a more expansively human one, The Children is it. By the hot young Brit playwright Lucy Kirkwood, the fascinating  2015 “eco-thriller” that Wild … Continue reading →

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The Blue Hour: nobody writes ‘prairie plays’ like it these days. Some thoughts on the SkirtsAfire premiere

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Just in the nick of time I finally got a chance on the weekend to catch The Blue Hour.  Named for the magical moment of ambiguity when light shades into darkness, Michele Vance Hehir’s new play … Continue reading →

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Got To Get You Into My Life: Will and the Fab Four do love love love. As You Like It at the Citadel, a review.

Posted on February 21, 2020 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Party time. True, there are as many ways to century-swap and play dress-up with Shakespeare’s great romantic comedy As You Like It as there are theatre artists, impresarios, and music industry sages to dream them up. … Continue reading →

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