By J. Kelly Nestruck: “I watched a virtual troupe of Stratford Festival actors pluckily perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream online from isolation last week. While the theatre company remains closed until June, at least, some of its company members are collaborating on a project called Stratford Pirate Transmission – broadcasting Shakespeare’s plays on YouTube using a video-conferencing app that places their solitary performances side-by-side in boxes.

If you missed the first broadcast on Friday, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is still watchable on YouTube. Go to 15:15 to skip the preamble and jump right into the play. (Though, if you have the time, it’s nice to watch the actors introduce themselves and shout out to family members who work in health care – or are watching from far-flung places such as Labrador and Guatemala.)

… Atomic Vaudeville, the cabaret creators who, most famously, birthed the hit musical Ride the Cyclone, have posted their first-ever online cabaret on their website.

… The National Arts Centre’s COVID-19 #CanadaPerforms live-streamed programming has focused a lot on music up to this point, but we’re finally going to get to see what some of the country’s theatre artists have come up with in terms of online performances this week.

Source: The Globe and Mail