Category Archives: Reviews

Horseplay, an irresistible new play about a bond beyond the traces, at Workshop West. A review

Posted on May 17, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There’s a bright buoyant sparkle to Horseplay, the funny, dreamy, heart-breaker of a season-ender at Workshop West. It’s a new play, about things like friendship and ambition, success and sacrifice, by a young theatre artist whose … Continue reading →

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The self in a bind: the RISER New Works Festival opens with Calla Wright’s Binding

Posted on May 16, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca New this year the RISER New Works Festival began its weekend of performances and workshops last night with a work-in-progress production of a challenging and playful one-human many-puppet show. Destined for Azimuth Theatre’s Expanse Festival in … Continue reading →

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A theatrical index to a beloved novel: Little Women at the Citadel, a review

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The March siblings, growing up in genteel poverty in Civil War America, might well be literature’s most famous sister act since Jane Austen’s Bennets. And ever since they stepped out from the pages of Louisa May … Continue reading →

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Family secrets and country air: Where You Are at Shadow, a review

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There’s no shortage of funny one-liners in Where You Are. And a lot of them happen in the opening scenes of the carefully constructed 2019 comedy by the Canadian playwright Kristen Da Silva. We meet two … Continue reading →

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“Is anyone out there?” En route to love, the long way round: Alphabet Line at Fringe Theatre. A review

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “My name is Duncan J Hayes. I live in Yonker on the Alphabet Line. Is anyone out there?” The recurring refrain in Alphabet Line is a call out into the wild blue yonder of the Saskatchewan … Continue reading →

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We’re all good people, right? Up the property ladder in Radiant Vermin, a review

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca In a week when “housing crisis” and “starter home” got batted around like pingpong balls (in both our official languages) at the leaders’ debates, here’s a Faustian comedy that’s eerily in sync. It’s dark and smiley, … Continue reading →

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Four guys under a streetlamp: Jersey Boys at the Mayfield, a review

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca All jukebox musicals are not created equal. And there’s a notable example, currently running at the Mayfield, that rises above the others the way Frankie Valli’s legendary falsetto levitates off the stage and into your brain.  … Continue reading →

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Workin’ his way back to us: Danny Austin comes home to direct Jersey Boys at the Mayfield

Posted on April 9, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Life, like theatre, has its dramatic arcs. Here’s one: I’m sitting across the table with an artist who has heard the close harmonies of Big Girls Don’t Cry (-yi-yi) delivered from stages and in rehearsal halls … Continue reading →

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A family haunting: Jupiter, Colleen Murphy’s new Canadian epic at Theatre Network. A review

Posted on April 4, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “The future doesn’t happen ahead of time,” says a character in Jupiter, clinging to shards of hope for change. But the baleful grandeur, and dark vivid theatricality, of this new multi-generational family epic from the dauntless … Continue reading →

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High-level thievery in an elaborate plot: Heist at the Citadel, a review

Posted on March 28, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There’s complicated high-level thievery going on at the Citadel. Just for fun, a genre has been lifted, improbably, right from under the nose of the cinema, its natural owner. Heist is a theft on behalf of … Continue reading →

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