January 2020

Wack the Shack

Patrick Ledwell and Mark Haines at PEI Brewing Company

Right after Christmas, Islanders repeat a common refrain. “Well,” we announce, “that’s it for going out, for a while.” That resolution usua...

Dear Rita

Michelle Bouey will star in tribute to Rita MacNeil

Islander Michelle Bouey will make her Charlottetown Festival debut next year, performing in the musical love-letter to icon, Rita MacNeil, Dear Rita a...

Cavendish Beach Music Festival announces first headliners

Miranda Lambert, Dan + Shay

Cavendish Beach Music Festival presented by Bell has announced 34-time ACM Award, 13-time CMA and 2-time GRAMMY Award-winner and celebrated singer-son...

Charlottetown Festival cast selections

Revealing players for 2020 season

Artistic Director Adam Brazier has revealed select casting for The 2020 Charlottetown Festival, including the leads for Anne of Green Gables—The Mus...

Gracie returns

Gracie Finley in The Trip to Bountiful and The Mousetrap at Watermark Theatre

Watermark Theatre’s Artistic Director Robert Tsonos and General Manager Andrea Surich have announced the 2020 Summer Season, featuring PEI’s Graci...

It’s the holidays

Family-friendly shows in December in Summerside

Harbourfront Theatre’s December line-up features shows for all ages. At the start of the month, Fandango Musical Players present Stephen Sondheim�...

Welcome back

Island Reviews return for Christmas and summer of 2020

At Harmony House Theatre, guests often say that they feel right at home, as soon as they cross through the doors. For Patrick Ledwell and Mark Haines,...

Review: Doubt

Second chances

The best and worst part of live theatre is how fleeting it all is. Every single performance is a one-time-only, one-of-a-kind entity all its own; and ...

Review: At the Dog Leg Turn of the Road

Out of the past

My late, great grandfather Charles MacDonald – family man, checkers champ, covert dog fancier – was a World War II combat veteran. I don’t remem...

Review: Punch Up

Underground Comedy

PEI’s fringe theatre imports often consist primarily of whatever lands in the Island Fringe Festival each summer; but new local company Desert Islan...

Review: The Shame of the Meek

The Shame of the Meek is a deceptively simple show, yet also oddly complex. It’s simple structurally and conceptually – it’s a show about unwed ...

To the Power of Five

Play about PEI’s 1993 Women in Politics now online

The stage performance, To the Power of Five: 1993 PEI Women in Politics, can now be viewed online. The play, through story and song, depicts the one a...

Marti Hopson

Finding a home

Marti Hopson of Wheatley River counts her role as president of the board for ACT (a community theatre), in its 25th anniversary year, as one of her fi...

Ready to celebrate

ACT (a community theatre) will be 25 years old in 2020

The party hasn’t started yet but members of PEI theatre group, ACT (a community theatre), are already looking to 2020—the 25th anniversary. ACT�...

Doubt: A Parable

Sandstone Productions presents play at Watermark in November

Decades of predatory behavior. Traumatized victims. Re-location of suspected abusers to avoid scandal. A society willing to turn a blind eye out of fe...

Fall to spring

Harbourfront Theatre line-up announced for October through April

Harbourfront Theatre has published its fall 2019 to spring 2020 line-up this month with shows announced from October through April. “We have a lot ...

Ready for 2020

Confed Centre announces Charlottetown Festival season

Artistic Director Adam Brazier has revealed the playbill for The 2020 Charlottetown Festival at the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown. “For ma...

Punch Up

Fringe-winning comedy at Watermark and The Guild

The Funniest Man Alive tries to help the Most Pathetic Guy Ever make the Saddest Girl in the World laugh. That sounds like the beginning of a great jo...

Feast Dinner Theatre: Baby It’s Cold Outside

New production written by Feast veteran Aaron Ellis

Feast Dinner Theatre’s latest Christmas production, Baby It’s Cold Outside, written by Feast veteran Aaron Ellis, is about a journalist trying to ...

Realizations

Remount of 2018 Fringe Festival production

The Guild in Charlottetown presents a remount of Realizations, a sold-out production from the 2018 Island Fringe Festival. Written by Kandace Hagen ...

Review: Singalong Jubilee

A Musical Tribute to the Canadian Phenomenon

For more than 10 years in the 1960s and early 1970s Canadians crowded around their television sets faithfully every week to watch Singalong Jubilee. T...

Know Your Audience

Dennis Trainor embarks on Countryside Tour

Interviewer Dennis Trainor: Hello Dennis. I must admit, I didn’t expect to talk with you again so soon. Dennis Trainor: What do you mean? We chat a...

Review: Salt-Water Moon

Moonstruck

One sees certain plays repeatedly in the reviewing racket, especially classics, and the best of these hold up well. It’s partly a matter of pure, en...

Mamma Mia! casting update

Artistic Director Adam Brazier has announced a casting change for the production of Mamma Mia! at The Charlottetown Festival. Sara-Jeanne Hosie will ...

Review: Mamma Mia!

When members of your audience hum the music to your show on their way into the theatre that’s a pretty good indication you may have a hit on your ha...

Review: Island Fringe Festival 2019

Fringe Oddities

Despite his oft-muted mug, your somber scribbler likes a fun time. The Island Fringe Festival’s literally random selection of plays tends to be hit-...

Review: Island Fringe Festival 2019

Fringe Femmes

The Island Fringe Festival’s selection of shows via random drawing tends to produce an eclectic mix, but this year’s slate yielded an interesting ...

Review: Island Fringe Festival 2019

Magic vs. Science

Fringe 2019 features productions that are deep, dark, moving, profound, thought-provoking, stunningly original and/or just plain bizarre. My second-fa...

Review: Real Estate

Playing House

Your reckless reviewer often likes going into a show cold – knowing as little as possible about the play and the players beforehand, so as to make t...

Review: Atlantic Blue

The shortest journey home is always through the heart. For it is there that we store everything of real value in our lives. And it is there we go to f...

Kronborg to tour

David Carver Music acquires touring rights

Confederation Centre of the Arts has announced that David Carver Music has acquired the world-wide touring rights to the acclaimed Kronborg—The Haml...

Spinning Yarns

Q & A with show creator Stephen Guy-McGrath

This summer the Charlottetown Festival presents Spinning Yarns at the Mack. Set in Newfoundland in the early 1980s, this play brings to life a world o...

The experience

Talking with members of the Young Company

The TD Young Company is back for another year at the Charlottetown Festival and its production of Aqsarniit with some new and former company members. ...

Anncademy Awards

Audience reactions to Feast Dinner Theatre in Summerside

There’s an ear-splitting cackle that sends tables erupting in laughter as the character Imogen, a grumpy old woman, hunches over the microphone as t...

Mamma Mia! run

Popular musical returns for August and September at Charlottetown Festival

As the ABBA lyric reads, “Here we go again!” Confederation Centre of the Arts is set to raise the curtain for one of the most popular musicals in ...

Review: Murder Inn

Good Inn Tensions?

Georgetown, sweet Georgetown – the town so gorgeous they named it George-ish (almost certainly not their official motto, though we haven’t looked ...