Welcome to Staged in Toronto, a place for me to share my reviews and thoughts about the theatre.
I see a lot of theatre, well over 100 shows a year. It is like water to me, and people often ask me what I think of the shows I see. (Sometimes of shows they are in). Back in 2010, I decided to start a blog of show reviews, both as a personal journal and way to say to people, "if you really want to know what I thought, you can read what I wrote."
Since the move to a dedicated domain, I've had a couple false starts, but let's see what I can do about getting things up more regularly.
I try to be critical, and constructive, and avoid being cruel.
As for standards, I don't really make much of a differentiation between "community", "independant" and "professional." In honesty, the lines are so blurred in my experience as to be almost meaningless. This is all to say, I don't generally review on a curve, though I would tend to expect a certain amount more production polish to an established festival or broadway tour.
About my rating system:
I try to keep to three levels of recommendation:
Highly Recommended: Rearrange your weekend plans and get a ticket. This is my superlative rating.
Recommended: This play is worth seeing. I would tell my friends to see it if they were looking for something to see.
Neutral: This play has strengths and weaknesses. If you have a ticket great! If you're thinking of seeing it for whatever reason, I won't steer you away. If you're a friend, let's talk about it after over dinner.
Not-recommended: If you were thinking of seeing this play because you want to support a friend, then sure, you can still do it, but if you were asking me what I thought, I'd probably steer you to something else. Then again, maybe you'll have a better time that I did.
Stay away: It is rare I will give this rating, but it does happen.
