Frontmezzjunkies

09/03/2026

is at and reviews: ’s
directed by
w/
Shaw Festival


“Amadeus” Has the Music, but Salieri Never Quite Finds the Fire

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/09/03/amadeus-has-the-music-but-salieri-never-quite-finds-the-fire/

The Shaw Festival Review: Tim Carroll’s “Amadeus” lets Mozart’s music soar while Salieri’s great confession struggles to ignite

“Pardon your assassin,” the aging Salieri cries, pleading with a God he believes has betrayed him as whispers of scandal fill the air around us. The two Venticelli, Julia Course and Sochi Fried, pose deliciously on the edges of the Shaw Festival’s Amadeus, gathering and delivering gossip with sharp, stylized precision, their tight Whispering choreography giving the opening an almost conspiratorial energy. What exactly is Salieri confessing to? What terrible thing has this old man carried with him all these years? “Did he do it after all?” becomes the question infiltrating the air in the room as Salieri, old and reclined in his armchair, releases his servants into the night and begs for the ghosts of the past to become visible. Peter Shaffer (Equus) expertly gives us a confession built around envy, faith, genius, and revenge from the first note, and director Tim Carroll’s production begins by promising that we are about to enter the darkest corners of a man's guilt, shame, and anger, believing he has waged a war against God himself…

Michael Therriault in Amadeus at the Shaw Festival. Photo by David Cooper. The Shaw Festival Review: Tim Carroll’s “Amadeus” lets Mozart’s music soar while Salieri’s great confession struggles to i…

09/02/2026

Tickets Are Bought, So Let the Madness Begin

reports: Part two of my planning adventure, where the tickets are purchased, the press screenings are scheduled, and there are still far too many films I want to see
TIFF

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/08/29/tiff-tickets-are-bought-so-let-the-madness-begin/

Thursday, when tickets went on sale, I sat down with my carefully constructed festival calendar and started turning intentions into actual seats. It was a feverish exercise, as numerous films were sold out before I even had the chance to look at the seating chart. I shuffled my hopefuls around the time slots and kept my spirits high, or at least I tried to, as the whole thing was a complex time map, with every film potentially fitting into numerous places, and one had to be a few steps ahead of the game to win. By the time I was finished with this equivalent of a 403-piece puzzle of a cloudy sky, I had purchased tickets for far more films than I care to admit, and scheduled a whole bunch more for press screenings. I still have one more opportunity next Sunday to press-pass purchase five more films, assuming the ones I want are still available. But I’m not holding my breath. What does all this mean? It means the schedule is already beginning to resemble the kind of September I was anxiously hoping for when I started plotting all of this out…

09/02/2026

Has a Whole Festival Happening Outside the Theatres

The 51st is bringing the party to , and my friend from New York is about to discover what happens when spills out of the theatres
TIFF

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/09/02/tiff-has-a-whole-festival-happening-outside-the-theatres/

I have spent an entirely unreasonable amount of time planning what my friend from New York is going to see at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (and admittedly not much else). Films have been circled, tickets have been purchased or arranged, restaurant reservations made, and everything mapped out around the complicated mathematics of getting from one thing to the next. But one part of TIFF doesn't require a ticket, a reservation, or a carefully constructed spreadsheet. It is waiting right there, outside the theatres…

Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/Shutterstock (9870944b)A view of a festival sign appears on day 1 of the Toronto International Film Festival, in Toronto2018 TIFF, Toronto, Canada – 06 Sep…

09/01/2026

is at and reviews: ’s
directed by
w/ Barclay
Shaw Festival


Shaw’s “Heartbreak House" Leaves Me Standing at the Door Wanting My Heart Broken

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/09/01/heartbreak-house-leaves-me-standing-at-the-door-wanting-my-heart-broken/

The Shaw Festival Review: Tim Carroll’s “Heartbreak House” gives Shaw’s enormous ideas plenty of room to talk, but not always somewhere to land

“Let’s begin,” is the simple invitation that starts the descent that is Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House. Directed by Tim Carroll (ShawFest’s Gnit) on the Shaw Festival’s Jackie Maxwell Studio Stage, two engaging actors, Kristi Frank and Michael Therriault, playing the maid and butler of this particular house, step up to the edges of the sparse rectangular playing space, but remain just outside of it, as if they aren’t allowed to place one foot beyond it. The two, as if reading from the play, begin introducing the people who will populate Shaw’s strange, funny, and deeply cynical country estate. They announce the descriptives directly to us, unwrapping each character as they enter, forcing the actors to physically respond to those descriptions, and adjusting themselves in posture to the people we are about to spend time with, whether we like them or not…

Tom Rooney and the cast of Heartbreak House at the Shaw Festival. Photo by David Cooper. The Shaw Festival Review: Tim Carroll’s “Heartbreak House” gives Shaw’s enormous ideas plenty of room to tal…

08/31/2026

's Plays Are Playing With My Senses

reports: From to 's , the season is bringing together stars, classics, new work, and plenty of reasons to get excited
Paranormal Activity Broadway
Manhattan Theatre Club
Roundabout Theatre Company
Other Desert Cities Play
Billy Crystal's 860
Lincoln Center Theater
The Jamie Lloyd Company
Inter Alia
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Three Days of Rain

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/08/31/broadways-plays-are-pulling-on-my-senses/

What exactly is one supposed to do when one show arrives, leads to a second, becomes three and then four, and suddenly I am looking at a week chock full of theatrical invitations too good to scroll past? All those plays arriving on Broadway this fall and winter, and I suspect I will be drawn in more than I can even imagine. And honestly, I am mostly content knowing it.…

Frontmezzjunkies reports: From Paranormal Activity to Much Ado About Nothing, the Broadway play season is filling up with stars, classics, new work, and plenty of reasons to celebrate By Ross What …

08/31/2026

Rossfitness is at and reviews: ’s
translated and adapted by Cimolino and DonatoSanteramo
directed by
w/ GrahamAbbey RosaPriore SeanaMcKenna GordonSMiller MichelleGiroux EmilioVieira MaherSinno KatarinaFiallos RodBeattie GeraintWynDavies JosueLaBoucane JennaLeeHyde LiamTobin CeliaAloma JakobEhman
StratFest2026 Stratford Festival
CanadianTheatre

"Saturday, Sunday, Monday” Serves Up a Feast of Love, Jealousy and Avoidance

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/08/30/saturday-sunday-monday-serves-up-a-feast-of-love-jealousy-and-avoidance/

The Stratford Festival Review: Antoni Cimolino brings the love, jealousy and buried hurt of Eduardo De Filippo’s Neapolitan family drama to the table

Watching a family argue when everyone in the room can see what the problem is except the people actually having the argument is high-stakes drama. It is fascinating to watch, but complicated for me to simply sit back and take in. My psychotherapy brain does not always know when it is supposed to remain turned off, so while I was watching Antoni Cimolino’s production of Saturday, Sunday, Monday by Eduardo De Filippo at the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre, I found myself leaning in, trying to understand the familial dynamics unfolding in front of me from an interpersonal psychodynamic perspective. I could almost hear my Italian bestie Antonio whispering in my ear that this was what it was like in his household growing up, but it is far removed from where and how I grew up. In a way, I wish my Canadian family were a bit more Italian, where love, jealousy, and pride were engaged with so openly and passionately. But what I did recognize was the avoidance. Beneath all the food, noise, affection, and argument is a family that has become so deeply accustomed to not saying what it means that simply speaking the truth seems to require a continuous series of strong pokes to the gut delivered by many over an entire long weekend…

08/30/2026

is at and reviews: ’s
translated and adapted by Cimolino and
directed by
w/
Stratford Festival


"Saturday, Sunday, Monday" Serves Up a Feast of Love, Jealousy and Avoidance

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/08/30/saturday-sunday-monday-serves-up-a-feast-of-love-jealousy-and-avoidance/

The Stratford Festival Review: Antoni Cimolino brings the love, jealousy, and buried hurt of Eduardo De Filippo’s Neapolitan family drama to the table

Watching a family argue when everyone in the room can see what the problem is except the people actually having the argument is high-stakes drama. It is fascinating to watch, but complicated for me to simply sit back and take in. My psychotherapy brain does not always know when it is supposed to remain turned off, so while I was watching Antoni Cimolino’s production of Saturday, Sunday, Monday by Eduardo De Filippo at the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre, I found myself leaning in, trying to understand the familial dynamics unfolding in front of me from an interpersonal psychodynamic perspective. I could almost hear my Italian bestie Antonio whispering in my ear that this was what it was like in his household growing up, but it is far removed from where and how I grew up. In a way, I wish my Canadian family were a bit more Italian, where love, jealousy, and pride were engaged with so openly and passionately. But what I did recognize was the avoidance. Beneath all the food, noise, affection, and argument is a family that has become so deeply accustomed to not saying what it means that simply speaking the truth seems to require a continuous series of strong pokes to the gut delivered by many over an entire long weekend…

From left: Graham Abbey as Giuseppe “Peppino” Priore and Rose Napoli as Rosa Priore. Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Stratford Festival 2026. Photo: David Hou. The Stratford Festival Review: …

08/29/2026

Tickets Are Bought, So Let the Madness Begin

reports: Part two of my planning adventure, where the tickets are purchased, the press screenings are scheduled, and there are still far too many films I want to see
TIFF

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/08/29/tiff-tickets-are-bought-so-let-the-madness-begin/

Thursday, when tickets went on sale, I sat down with my carefully constructed festival calendar and started turning intentions into actual seats. It was a feverish exercise, as numerous films were sold out before I even had the chance to look at the seating chart. I shuffled my hopefuls around the time slots and kept my spirits high, or at least I tried to, as the whole thing was a complex time map, with every film potentially fitting into numerous places, and one had to be a few steps ahead of the game to win. By the time I was finished with this equivalent of a 403-piece puzzle of a cloudy sky, I had purchased tickets for far more films than I care to admit, and scheduled a whole bunch more for press screenings. I still have one more opportunity next Sunday to press-pass purchase five more films, assuming the ones I want are still available. But I’m not holding my breath. What does all this mean? It means the schedule is already beginning to resemble the kind of September I was anxiously hoping for when I started plotting all of this out…

I Play Rocky TIFF Frontmezzjunkies reports: Part two of my TIFF planning adventure, where the tickets are purchased, the press screenings are scheduled, and there are still far too many films I wan…

08/29/2026

A Very Personal Return to Ontario’s ShawFestival, With Some Theatrical Temptations I Can’t Resist

Frontmezzjunkies reports: Five Shaw Festival Theatre productions have me returning to familiar stories, revisiting old theatrical obsessions, and looking ahead to something entirely new




ShawANewWork
ShawFest2026 CanadianTheatre

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/08/27/a-very-personal-return-to-ontarios-shaw-festival-with-some-theatrical-temptations-i-cant-resist/

Once again, I find myself boarding an early morning bus to head out of Toronto for a weekend of theatre. This time it’s the Shaw Festival bus that will take me to Niagara-on-the-Lake for a jam-packed weekend of plays that I have already experienced. This is my weakness. Give me a production of Amadeus after I have spent years thinking about Mozart and Salieri ever since streaming it from National Theatre Live, put Ohio State Murders back in front of me after seeing Audra McDonald tear through Adrienne Kennedy’s extraordinary play on Broadway, or offer me another Heartbreak House after I have already seen Bernard Shaw’s ship-shaped world transformed into a gloriously theatrical bunker, and I am immediately curious about what another company might discover. This season, I have been given the particularly wonderful opportunity to make my way back to the Shaw Festival for a collection of productions that combines those familiar titles with a couple that are completely new. And now the Festival has already given me a reason to start thinking about next summer, with an ambitious 2027 season just announced that will bring eleven productions to Niagara-on-the-Lake (more on that later). I am genuinely excited, and more than a little honoured, to be seeing these shows, particularly a new work in progress from a playwright whose work I have been following with enormous interest...

08/29/2026

Broadway Musicals Keep Giving Me New Reasons to Return and Rejoice

Keep Giving Me New Reasons to Return and Rejoice

reports: From to , Rebels to Rhinestones, the next season is becoming wonderfully impossible to resist
Galileo Musical
The Fantasticks
Paddington The Musical
Prince’s Purple Rain on Broadway
Wanted Musical
Warriors Warriors Album
Dreamgirls Broadway
EVITA
DOLLY: A True Original Musical
lctheater roundaboutnyc
NYTheatre

https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2026/08/23/broadway-musicals-keep-giving-me-new-reasons-to-return-and-rejoice/

Just when I finally convince myself that I should probably spend a little less time thinking about NYC (for a few obvious orange reasons), Broadway responds with a tease, hanging another extraordinary season before me like a big juicy NYC apple. Every month delivers another tempting production capable of sending me back to those airline websites to examine prices and schedules, and the increasingly unrealistic belief that I can navigate it all without missing a beat…