by Colin Thomas | Jun 18, 2022 | Review
Star power, baby! Stewart Adam McKensy, who plays Lola, the drag queen at the centre of the Arts Club’s mounting of Kinky Boots, has so much of it he’s like a constellation. And McKensy isn’t alone: there are many, many bright lights in director Barbara Tomasic’s...
by Colin Thomas | Apr 22, 2022 | Review
There are reviews I’ve been more eager to write. ‘Da Kink in my Hair is almost entirely about the experience of Black Canadian women. I’m a white guy — and I don’t think this musical is well constructed. So boo hoo me; or shut up me: I get the legitimacy of both...
by Colin Thomas | Feb 1, 2022 | Review
Written by married couple Omari Newton and Amy Lee Lavoie, Redbone Coonhound isn’t always subtle or precisely focused, but it’s got force! It’s about Michael, who’s married to Marissa. As in the Newton/Lavoie marriage, he’s Black, she’s white, and they live in...
by Colin Thomas | Jul 30, 2021 | Review
I cried with other people and laughed with them. We shared the space with a skilled and responsive performer. Together, we all slipped into the land of deliberate artifice and came out the other side with our hearts bigger and, in my case at least, more relaxed. Last...
by Colin Thomas | Mar 24, 2021 | Review
Well-intentioned and over two-hours long, the audio play Night Passing is, unfortunately, boring. Set in Ottawa in 1958, playwright Scott Button’s script explores the entrapment of gay men and lesbians by the RCMP. Fueled by anti-communist hysteria south of the...
