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Reviews of theatre and art in Nova Scotia and beyond

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Elsa is coming to Neptune for Christmas!

Disney’s Frozen will be Neptune Theatre’s holiday musical from Nov. 7 to Jan. 5, 2025, while the season-closing musical is the sci-fi, musical hit Little Shop of Horrors. Neptune’s artistic director Jeremy Webb announced the theatre’s 62nd season today. Its 330 performances include 11 productions, four musicals/musical events, four comedies, four dramas, six Canadian plays and one world premiere. “The season delivers everything that we seek from live theatre – […]

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True or False? The Gift leaves you mesmerized by magic and mystery

Robert Lamar asks if life is determined by chance or destiny in a powerful, mind-bending, theatrical experience like no other. The Gift, playing in the cozy St. Andrew’s United Church basement through March 9, is the product of a theatrical dream team: former Neptune Theatre artistic director Ron Ulrich as director and writer, Halifax creator and performer Robert Lamar and veteran producer Brookes Diamond. This is not pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat magic. Lamar […]

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A Fantastic Connectivity of Colour, Movement and Soul in reView

Artist websites: marybarnardfitzgeraldart.com Shown in reView, clockwise from top left, Along Mill Road, Christiane Poulin; The Universe Within, acrylic on canvas, Monika Wright; Glimpse of Aqua/Teal Stairs Between Paintings, oil and acrylic on board, Mary Barnard Fitzgerald; Jawbone, bone, plaster, dyes, Genny Killin; Waves, wool on linen, Carla Middelburg. Colour, pattern and content weave in and out with startling connectivity in reView, a five-woman exhibit at the Chase Gallery, Nova […]

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All the World’s a Vision for 1 artist and 3 sets of 2

Clockwise top, left, Sunrise, September 26, oil on canvas, Sara MacCulloch; Fog Pusher, wool and silk on burlap, Laura Kenney; Semi Rural Landscape, reclaimed pine, acrylic paint, Ian Gilson, inspired by the houses in F. Scott MacLeod’s paintings; Ghost Net; Celestia, giclee print, Declan O’Dowd; Crazy Quilt, reclaimed bait bags, nylon twine, Carley Mullally. (Contributed) the places I miss and Newfoundland Sara MacCulloch has a sumptuous show of Nova Scotia […]

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Every Brilliant Thing: intimate, participatory play about everyday joy tours Annapolis Valley

Watching people’s mental health fracture during the pandemic gave Caravan Theatre’s artistic director Kathy France the desire to stage Every Brilliant Thing, opening tonight in Wolfville before an Annapolis Valley tour. In Duncan Macmillan’s one-person, hit play a daughter is inspired by her mother’s chronic depression to create a list of every brilliant thing she can think of to remind her mother that life is worth living. As the child […]

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Alter Egos bursts with colour and textile imagery

Alter Egos, at the Chase Gallery, Public Archives, through October, is an intriguing, colourful two-person exhibit about costuming, textiles as fine art and the characters who artists create as portals for their visions. The artists, Maria Valverde and Anna-Lisa Shandro, give a talk Wednesday, Oct. 25, 6 to 8 p.m., at the gallery. Valverde specifically deals with alter egos; textile artist Shandro is both a fashion designer working in recycled […]

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The Calm of Realism at Secord Gallery

3 Painters, 3 Visions, at Secord Gallery, 6301 Quinpool Rd., Halifax, through Oct. 27, is a tranquil journey in classic realism during a time of international stress. In valuing everyday objects from flowers to power poles, painters Susan Paterson, Kim Milan and Greg Coldwell point to order, the thoughtful distillation of experience and feeling and the importance of taking time to look and appreciate the world immediately around you. Both […]

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A mother’s love and the night sky

Geneviève Steele as Albertine forgets she is grabbing the hair of her child Leó (Rooks Field-Green) in A Beginner’s Guide to the Night Sky, at Ferry Terminal Park to Oct. 8. (Contributed) A Beginner’s Guide to the Night Sky is a magical story about love, loss and the star system. The premiere of this hour-long play by Colleen MacIsaac, produced by The Villains Theatre and presented by Eastern Front Theatre, […]

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Holy Cow!: Three Fringe Fest mini-reviews

Knight of the Bat 2: Act of the Assemblers is writer/director Dan Bray’s hilarious sequel featuring playwright/playboy Will Shakepeare as the Knight of the Bat with his sidekick Dick. (And if you think that name is up for lots of comedy, you’re absolutely right.) Bray writes with a manic pace, delicious word-jam and comic brilliance sending up Shakespeare and the Marvel superhero universe. In this version Shakespeare and Dick – […]

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A Woman’s Story: Brown Wasp Goes Where Few Shows Have Gone Before

Brown Wasp, a charming, intimate and insightful one-woman show at the Halifax Fringe Festival, is unusual as it delves into the icky, largely unspoken world of female body experience. In Meah Martin’s award-winning, 50-minute play, Sarah St. John is an older woman at a spa hoping for a cure in the sacred, healing waters of Little Manitou Lake, Saskatchewan. The character’s self-deprecating story of many surgeries for “female problems” and […]

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