NS reviews

Reviews of theatre and art in Nova Scotia and beyond

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Bluebirds brings WW I women’s history fully alive

The Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro brings three of Canada’s First World War nursing sisters back to life in a powerful, touching and enlightening 75-minute drama Bluebirds, by Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen. This production is excellent in casting and design as Thiessen gives voice to long-lost heroines based on real people and real events in 1918 in Étaples, France. There is even archival film footage within a brilliant projection design […]

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A bargain bin full of fun at Frenchy’s: The Thrift Musical

Frenchy’s: The Thrift Musical is a fun and fun-loving family drama set in one of Nova Scotia’s beloved second-hand clothing stores. The musical comedy by playwright David S. Craig and composer John Roby got an immediate standing ovation at a recent, sold-out matinee at the Ship’s Company Theatre, Parrsboro. Tickets are in high demand for this world premiere, running to July 26. The surefire hit, a co-production with Eastern Front […]

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Passion, Pain and Excitement on the North Mountain for Two Planks’ 35th anniversary season

Two Planks and a Passion Theatre’s gala opening for its 35th season was marked by joy and high drama amid the glorious fields and skies of the North Mountain near Canning. The weather was dramatic; the fact there was a season at all was dramatic; and the two plays, to August 15, are rich and rewarding outdoor theatre that sticks in the mind and the heart. It was a blistering […]

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Don’t Be Afraid! Go to this stratospheric production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Edward Albee’s 1962 hit, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, glitters in all of its comedy and savagery in a riveting production at Neptune Theatre just to March 15. Albee’s suspenseful psychological drama about a devastated marriage — and so much more — is a cat-and-mouse game between two couples who take the gloves off as soon as they connect on a night of alcohol, revelations and personal attacks. It shocked […]

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Mischief: powerful, comic, Mi’kmaw drama about the Edward Cornwallis statue and so much more

The only way to truly walk in another person’s shoes is through art. Lisa Nasson’s Mischief, premiering in the Neptune studio theatre to Oct. 12, draws us into the heart and soul of a contemporary Mi’kmaw woman who has lost her passion and her path. Set during the protest in Halifax over the statue of city founder Edward Cornwallis, this powerful, emotional and comic play is a wonderful mix of […]

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Coal Bowl Queen is a hilarious, must-see heartbreaker of a comedy set in New Waterford

Coal Bowl Queen is an epic story of love, loss and identity and a love letter to New Waterford. This funny, powerful and emotional drama simply must travel to Cape Breton; in the meantime go see it at Alderney Landing Theatre, Dartmouth, through Sept. 21 in a glorious co-production by Eastern Front Theatre, HEIST and Ship’s Company Theatre, where it premiered in August. New Waterford-born writer Richie Wilcox, who is […]

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For the Love of Italian Gardens: Karen Kulyk at Secord Gallery to Sept. 26

Trapped at home by the pandemic, Karen Kulyk missed her beloved Italy so much that she decided to travel there through paint. Physically, she was at her easel in her Dartmouth home; imaginatively, she was in Italy where she had spent close to 10 years hiking in the country’s northern and central areas in both spring and fall. Painting “brought me back to a kind of peace,” says the cheerful, […]

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The Huns: hilarious, true-to-life, office comedy and one of 56 fringe shows

If you’ve ever been on Zoom or a conference call, you’ll laugh out loud at all the technical glitches in The Huns. The hilarious, black comedy by Toronto writer Michael Ross Albert, so aptly set in a Neptune boardroom, is about the chaos of today’s office technology, interpersonal relationships and, on the more serious side, the insanity of life in a cubicle. The playwright beautifully unravels and reveals what’s going […]

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Icarus, Falling of Birds: theatre that opens up the heart and the mind

“Welcome to our nest,” the young, white-clad actor says to me as I approach the York Redoubt staging area for Icarus, Falling of Birds. He whimsically offers me a paper feather from the nest that I pin to my sweater. I have unwittingly become a bird and tied my heart and soul to a true and a sad story. Icarus, Falling of Birds is an amazing and deeply moving experience […]

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Metu’na’q’: Intriguing Indigenous spin on The Tempest in Point Pleasant Park.

It’s a brilliant idea to tell the story of the Tempest through Caliban’s eyes and what better location than a tree-encircled grassy stage in the mostly-shuttered Point Pleasant Park? The Sipu Tricksters of Sipekne’katik First Nation, in association with Zuppa Theatre, collectively created the one-hour Metu’na’q (Caliban’s Version) running through Sunday, 7:30 p.m.. (now sold out) in the woods where Cambridge Drive and the Arm Road meet. (They, like the […]

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