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Karen Fricker
Karen Fricker is a theatre critic at the Toronto Star, editorial advisor for Intermission magazine, adjunct professor of Dramatic Arts at Brock University, and a member of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association. She previously worked as a critic in London, UK; Dublin, Ireland; and New York City, and has a PhD in theatre studies from Trinity College, Dublin. Her book The Original Stage Productions of Robert Lepage: Making Theatre Global (Manchester University Press) was the winner of the 2022 Canadian Association for Theatre Research’s Ann Saddlemyer Award for the best book in English on a Canadian topic. Her research interests also include contemporary circus and the changing nature of theatre criticism in the digital age.
LEARN MOREAt Next Stage 2024, two shows complicate the meaning of a night out
Gemini, by Louise Casemore, and Prude, by Lou Campbell, explore the hospitality industry and bar culture from different perspectives.
REVIEW: In Ronnie Burkett’s darkly intelligent Wonderful Joe, gentrification hits like a meteor
When Siminovitch-winning puppet virtuoso Ronnie Burkett chose the focus of his latest play, was he thinking of TO Live’s $421-million plan to redevelop its St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts?
REVIEW: 13 Plays About ADHD All At The Same Time is true to its title
While the play’s structure may occasionally leave you feeling as scattered as its protagonists, its heart, humour, and raw honesty will keep your thoughts churning well into the night.
Speaking in Draft: Byron Laviolette
“Right now, the creation-to-production process for a lot of people is from the Toronto Fringe to — hopefully — some theatre recommender grants, to a workshop production, to maybe an actual production,” says What The Festival co-founder Byron Laviolette. “But the realities of mounting a show at the Fringe don’t translate to a two-week run at the Extraspace at Tarragon. Peoples’ appetites are different. Yet we don’t train or support people to translate their shows into those different contexts."
REVIEW: Goblin:Macbeth might just leave you gobsmacked
While most of the entertainment comes from the goblins’ antics whenever the Shakespearean text is paused or subverted for comic effect, the secret sauce to this whole endeavour is that it really is an honest-to-goodness staging of that text, designed to showcase the performers’ near-virtuosic mastery of the material.
REVIEW: The Thanksgiving Play wriggles in performative wokeness
In 2024, is there a way to produce an engaging, culturally sensitive play about the first American Thanksgiving for elementary schoolers? The Thanksgiving Play, penned by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse and now playing at Mirvish’s CAA Theatre, poses that question in its first five minutes, then throws the query out with the cranberry sauce in its madcap exploration of a devised theatre piece at an unnamed primary school.
Enter Stage Right: The Future of Intermission Magazine
Hello from the new leadership team of Intermission Magazine!
REVIEW: Festival TransAmériques — Weekend Two
Bonjour hi encore – et mon dieu, so many festivals!
Young People’s Theatre Unveils $13.5 Million Renovation
Young People’s Theatre (YPT) is sharing the fruits of it $13.5 million Room for Imagination renovation project.
Bad parents, no. Excellent play, yes.
REVIEW: King Henry Five at Driftwood Theatre
This refreshing take on Shakespearean history is well worth a look.
REVIEW: Detroit at Coal Mine Theatre
I appreciated this production as a chance to engage with a well-wrought piece of contemporary dramaturgy, but was also left wondering if Detroit is a play of a moment that has passed.
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