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iPhoto caption: Photo of Katie Yoner and Dayna Lea Hoffmann by Marc Chalifoux.
Every August, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival transforms the popular historic neighbourhood of Old Strathcona into an 11-day street party. Multiple blocks become pedestrian-only. Food trucks whip up greasy food. A kids’ stage hosts family-friendly theatre. Beer tents flourish. World-class street performers attract crowds of passersby.
iPhoto caption: Photo of Jordan Laffrenier by Sandro Pehar.
Preparing to direct Slave Play: A travel guide to Richmond, Virginia
Since reading Slave Play, I’ve asked every romantic partner whether or not they experience a racial dynamic between us in the bedroom. No one has given the same answer. What is it that I am asking them to acknowledge in these scenarios? Who is it that I am asking them to hold? What does it mean to hold someone’s history?
iPhoto caption: Photo of Katie Yoner and Dayna Lea Hoffmann by Marc Chalifoux.
Every August, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival transforms the popular historic neighbourhood of Old Strathcona into an 11-day street party. Multiple blocks become pedestrian-only. Food trucks whip up greasy food. A kids’ stage hosts family-friendly theatre. Beer tents flourish. World-class street performers attract crowds of passersby.
iPhoto caption: Photo of Jordan Laffrenier by Sandro Pehar.
Preparing to direct Slave Play: A travel guide to Richmond, Virginia
Since reading Slave Play, I’ve asked every romantic partner whether or not they experience a racial dynamic between us in the bedroom. No one has given the same answer. What is it that I am asking them to acknowledge in these scenarios? Who is it that I am asking them to hold? What does it mean to hold someone’s history?
iPhoto caption: A stock image of Lighthouse Festival Theatre in Port Dover.
Lighthouse Festival reveals 2026 summer lineup
“Our 2026 season is bursting with stories we can’t wait to share with you,” wrote artistic director Jane Spence in a press release.
Announcing ON Criticism: The 2025/26 Theatre Critics Lab
Four southern Ontario theatres are collaborating with Intermission Magazine to continue advancing the field of theatre criticism in the province. Applications are now open for this paid, six-month program.
Reviews
iPhoto caption: Photo of Katie Yoner and Dayna Lea Hoffmann by Marc Chalifoux.
Every August, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival transforms the popular historic neighbourhood of Old Strathcona into an 11-day street party. Multiple blocks become pedestrian-only. Food trucks whip up greasy food. A kids’ stage hosts family-friendly theatre. Beer tents flourish. World-class street performers attract crowds of passersby.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company in 'Ransacking Troy.' Photo by David Hou.
REVIEW: At the Stratford Festival, two adventurous new plays reflect on war
Erin Shields’ brilliant Ransacking Troy reimagines one of Western culture’s foundational narratives — the Trojan War — from the perspective of the women implicated in it. And in The Art of War, Yvette Nolan thoughtfully imagines the life of a Canadian soldier-artist in the Second World War, who’s wracked both by what he witnesses and the responsibility of recording it.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Mike McPhaden.
REVIEW: Shakespeare in the Ruff’s Tiff’ny of Athens throws a delightful party in Withrow Park
The text draws on an eclectic mix of sources: other Shakespeare plays, Dolly Parton songs, and automated messages from government service helplines, to name a few.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Robert Torres.
REVIEW: Two hybrid dance pieces close out this year’s SummerWorks Performance Festival
During the festival’s closing weekend, I saw two works that live side by side in my memory even as they differed in style and intention. Both Je ne vais pas inonder la mer (I Will Not Flood the Ocean) and Graveyards and Gardens explored memory, loss, and the body’s way of carrying history — one did so with devastating intimacy, the other with cerebral play.
iPhoto caption: Sanskruti Marathe in 'At the End of Kaliyuga.' Photo by Anaiah Lebreton.
REVIEW: Mississauga Multilingual Fringe Festival 2025
Historically, the Sawitri Theatre Group has aimed to platform South Asian performing arts, and its annual fringe festival inherits this focus.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Bruce Zinger.
REVIEW: Outside the March’s Rainbow on Mars explores the future of embedded accessibility practices
Rainbow on Mars is a multisensory experience that goes beyond visual spectacle to create an all-encompassing narrative world from the moment your ticket is scanned.
Spotlight
iPhoto caption: Marie Farsi for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
“I’ve learned how truth is revealed in translation, and I feel like that’s my job as a director,” says Farsi. “I have to translate the piece from the page to the stage, and all the meanings that can be derived from that process of translation.”
iPhoto caption: Photo by Blaire Russell.
The 40-year career of Alanis King began much the same way that so many careers in theatre do: in front of very small audiences. “The show must go on if you have the same amount of audience members as in the cast,” was King’s motto in the early days. But today, the multihyphenate Odawa artist has no difficulty finding people interested in her work.
iPhoto caption: Steven Gallagher for Intermission. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
A love of theatre runs so deeply through Gallagher’s bones that you’d think it was a path he began to follow as soon as he could walk and talk. But for a boy who came of age on a rustic farm in Quebec and favoured sports venues over stages in high school, an eventual career in theatre was hardly a given.
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Artist Perspectives
iPhoto caption: Photo of Jordan Laffrenier by Sandro Pehar.
Preparing to direct Slave Play: A travel guide to Richmond, Virginia
Since reading Slave Play, I’ve asked every romantic partner whether or not they experience a racial dynamic between us in the bedroom. No one has given the same answer. What is it that I am asking them to acknowledge in these scenarios? Who is it that I am asking them to hold? What does it mean to hold someone’s history?
iPhoto caption: 'Delirious Night' at the Festival d'Avignon. Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage.
At the 2025 Festival d’Avignon, politics were never far off
I’d performed and directed for festivals in Canada and elsewhere, but it wasn’t at all the same as being on the bum-in-seat side. There I was, in Avignon, rubbing shoulders with the umpteen visitors hungry for a good show. I came away feeling that here, theatre mattered. A lot. In the stony fields of Toronto, that can be easy to forget.
iPhoto caption: Set design by Camellia Koo,
Costume design by Judith Bowden,
Lighting design by Leigh Ann Vardy,
and photo by Dahlia Katz. Features Samantha Hill and Amaka Umeh.
A story with no expiry date: Adapting Fall On Your Knees
At this critical political juncture, as so many forces in the world try to mute and silence women, our Canadian stories merit our advocacy and fervent attention.
Armchairs, tattoos, and an online theatre magazine
When I started at Intermission, my world was limited to the confines of an armchair. Arts journalism was a high it felt dangerously fruitless to chase. The life stretched ahead of me was amorphous and frightening, a chasm filled with hand sanitizer and immigration concerns. It was worth crying over a spilled kombucha and scrubbing at the stain.
iPhoto caption: Production still from The Nutcracker courtesy of the National Ballet of Canada.
Why should you go to the ballet?
My childhood memories of learning to dance were front and centre for me when I attended opening night of The Nutcracker, performed by the National Ballet of Canada at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Grace Mysak.
Want to see a magic show about race? Wait, what?
You’d be forgiven for the double-take. It’s a fairly common reaction when I tell folks about my work as a magician.