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iPhoto caption: Kayla Morgan, Jordan Gurbin, Fern Wallenberg, Elliot Metcalf, Arabella Ho,
John Beer Principe, Alicia Goncalvez, and Cameron Kuwayti in 'Camp!'
Double trouble: Meet the artists taking on multiple shows at this year’s Toronto Fringe
The Toronto Fringe Festival returns for its 38th edition this summer, bringing a total of 123 shows to 27 venues across the city over 13 days. As always, the festival’s lottery-selected lineup is packed with artists exploring different forms, stories, and styles — and some are even taking on multiple projects.
iPhoto caption: Karl Ang, Ivy Charles, Daniel Maslany, Mariya Khomutova, and Alon Nashman in 'The Division.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Productions at Crow’s and Theatre Passe Muraille win top honours at the 2026 Dora Awards
This evening at Meridian Hall, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) announced the recipients of the 46th annual Dora Awards, celebrating local theatre, dance, and opera.
iPhoto caption: Kayla Morgan, Jordan Gurbin, Fern Wallenberg, Elliot Metcalf, Arabella Ho,
John Beer Principe, Alicia Goncalvez, and Cameron Kuwayti in 'Camp!'
Double trouble: Meet the artists taking on multiple shows at this year’s Toronto Fringe
The Toronto Fringe Festival returns for its 38th edition this summer, bringing a total of 123 shows to 27 venues across the city over 13 days. As always, the festival’s lottery-selected lineup is packed with artists exploring different forms, stories, and styles — and some are even taking on multiple projects.
iPhoto caption: Karl Ang, Ivy Charles, Daniel Maslany, Mariya Khomutova, and Alon Nashman in 'The Division.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Productions at Crow’s and Theatre Passe Muraille win top honours at the 2026 Dora Awards
This evening at Meridian Hall, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) announced the recipients of the 46th annual Dora Awards, celebrating local theatre, dance, and opera.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'Medusa.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Soulpepper’s Medusa creates a mess it refuses to tidy
Speaking in sibilant murmurs via headsets wired into each seat of the Baillie Theatre, a chorus of intimate voices infiltrates the audience experience, drowning out dialogue and weaving an overstimulating soundscape.
iPhoto caption: Shannon Taylor, Jasmine Case, and Zara Jestadt in 'Love Us Most.' Photo by Ann Baggley.
Q&A: Sara Farb takes a piercing look behind the curtain in her new play Love Us Most
"It's a fictional theatre company — and it's also very obviously a familiar rep theater company," says Farb. "I think it's audacious for Here For Now. I'm very grateful that they understand that it's a satirical and skewering look at something that so many of us have experienced or witnessed."
Reviews
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'Medusa.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Soulpepper’s Medusa creates a mess it refuses to tidy
Speaking in sibilant murmurs via headsets wired into each seat of the Baillie Theatre, a chorus of intimate voices infiltrates the audience experience, drowning out dialogue and weaving an overstimulating soundscape.
iPhoto caption: An Ottawa Fringe event. Photo by Erik Stolpmann.
REVIEW: Ottawa Fringe delivers geese, gloves, potholes, and more
The opening weekend of the 2026 Ottawa Fringe Festival was a grey and rainy one, but the festival's energy wasn’t dampened.
iPhoto caption: Sara Farb and Qasim Khan in 'Funny Girl.' Photo by David Cooper.
REVIEW: Sara Farb shines in Funny Girl at the Shaw Festival
One theme of Funny Girl is acceptance of the self despite its flaws and inconsistencies. The musical, likewise, is full of flaws and inconsistencies, but compelling all the same. Luckily, Sara Farb as Fanny Brice in all her boastful vulnerability gives us that central figure who delights — an umbrella to ward off the rain.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Jack Woolfe.
REVIEW: In Síofra at the Red Sandcastle, fairy lore curdles into communal dread
Spindle Collective’s unnerving Síofra takes us to 19th-century Ireland, where folklore gives a watchful community a language for the uncanny.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Drew Berry.
REVIEW: An homage to Richard Foreman commands us to change our lives — and our theatre
Richard Foreman's plays usually drew on his personal journals and clocked in around 70 minutes; when he passed away last year at the age of 87, he left behind an invitation for directors to create royalty-free work from those journals. With the recently closed You Must Change Your Life at Toronto’s Alumnae Theatre, creator-director Ilana Khanin took up that offer to ludic, collage-like effect.
iPhoto caption: Uma and Selma Gahd at Les Prix Frankies. Photo by Cindy Lopez.
Hot off covering Festival TransAmériques, Intermission is back reviewing Montreal theatre at this year’s FringeMTL, featuring 105 shows in more than 25 venues.
Spotlight
iPhoto caption: Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Spotlight: Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu
“I always question: ‘How am I going to do it?’ But the moment I get in the room with actors, it becomes clear," says Tindyebwa Otu. "We need to tell stories; we need to be in community. Every show I do, I feel like, ‘This could be the last one.’ I’ve felt like this since I became a mom. And yet, 10 years later, I’ve produced more artistic work than ever.”
iPhoto caption: Nora McLellan for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz. Styled by Sonia Lewis and Dahlia Katz. Hair by Anne May. Makeup by Katelyn O'Neil.
“It’s still always that same technicolour feeling for me," says McLellan. "That little girl and this much older person are pretty much the same. I really do all of my living on stage.”
iPhoto caption: Ma-Anne Dionisio for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Tim Nguyen.
“Art has a very significant healing aspect to it,” says Ma-Anne Dionisio. “The performance aspect, for me, always comes secondary.”
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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.