Powerful, deeply moving and fast-paced, Casey & Diana is a beautiful piece of theatre that shouldn’t be missed. Halifax actor/singer/composer Garry Williams, as AIDS patient Thomas, gives the kind of performance that would make even the shyest person jump up and yell, “Bravo!” Casey & Diana, by Nick Green and at Neptune’s studio stage to May 18, is on its surface about Princess Diana’s historic visit in 1991 to patients […]
I’ve always loved Little Shop of Horrors and Neptune Theatre’s high-energy, sumptuously-lit, sci-fi extravaganza is a great opportunity to see it again and get a pure entertainment timeout from the news. The plant is amazing, the cast excellent and artistic director Jeremy Webb’s direction suitably playful for this campy, horror-comedy musical with its wonderful 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop and Motown music. Fans of the songs “Skid Row (Downtown), “Somewhere […]
Controlled Damage is excellent, complex, passionate theatre about Halifax civil rights activist Viola Desmond. First staged just before the pandemic, the two-hour play by Toronto writer Andrea Scott, returns in a new co-production by Neptune Theatre and the National Arts Centre (NAC), running just to Feb. 2 in Neptune’s intimate studio theatre. While this story is sheathed in a glorious cloak of visual design and music, its power lies in […]
Vanishing Half, earthenware, Andrea Puszkar, winner of best in show. (contributed) Both ceramic royalty and newcomers to the kingdom of clay exhibit in a Nova Scotia Potters Guild showcase at the Ice House Gallery, Tatamagouche, to Dec. 15. Triumphs in Clay is a great chance to see the huge variety of talent, technique and themes in ceramic art in Nova Scotia with work by over 50 artists. Some are some […]
Winter Moons is a mesmerizing, visually-stunning tale of four M’ikmaw fire keepers struggling to survive winter in a large wigwam far away from home due to conflict among their peoples. Three young Mi’kmaq must learn from the older, wiser woman, Nukumi, how to stay warm, how to eat and how to live within their souls over the three moons of winter. Produced by Nestuita’si Storytelling in partnership with the Prismatic […]
Standing in front of Janice Leonard’s landscapes and Mary Reardon’s still life paintings, on view at Secord Gallery to Nov. 22, I feel my shoulders drop and my breath regulate. In these turbulent, worrisome times, their exhibit, A Sense of Time, is a wonderfully relaxing show. These two artists, who are friends, have very different styles and genres but both create contemplative art about memory and time. The two give […]
Fish and Dicks: Case Files from the Digby Neck & Islands Fish-Gutting Service & Detective Agency, by Kathy France, is a wonderful new addition to the canon of Nova Scotia plays celebrating place and people with humour, heart and song. In this case it’s Brier Island at the end of Digby Neck in a brilliantly-twinned tale of a woman’s struggle with loss and the comic capers of two island salts […]
There are two birthday party pictures in wildly different art shows this month: Brandt Eisner’s sad clown and balloon installation Best Wishes in My Name is Yours at The Chase Gallery in Halifax and Heather Sayeau’s hot, floral painting Happy Birthday in The Garden at the Lunenburg School of the Arts. Both shows have a lot of colour but their intentions couldn’t be further apart. My Name Is Yours, produced […]
I’ve never liked Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; he’s often an irritating, high-energy boy flitting about like Peter Pan. Enter Walter Borden, 82, in an elegant, glittering emerald coat and hat, rolling his wonderful, sonorous voice around Shakespeare’s gorgeous language, not rushing it but luxuriating in it, finding the humour, the pace, the perfect articulation. It’s a brilliant piece of casting and just one of director Jeremy Webb’s inspired […]
Anyone who has ever struggled with a family illness will recognize the pain, joy and love in Melissa Mullen’s powerful new play Still Dancing. Premiering at Ship’s Company Theatre to Sept. 1, the two-hour drama opened to a standing ovation last Friday night with – appropriately – a band playing on the deck as folks emerged teary-eyed from the theatre while artistic director Laura Vingoe-Cram encouraged everyone to keep on […]
NS reviews 