It’s cold out there. Why not head into a theatre? The Star’s theatre critics recently convened to talk about the upcoming projects between now and summer that have them excited.

Karen Fricker: One thing I’ll say off the bat is how quickly and thoroughly Streetcar Crowsnest, the new home of Crow’s Theatre, has become part of our theatre landscape. Crow’s is kicking off the new year with the return of its hit show The Wedding Party, and it will be interesting to see how it plays with Jane Spidell in the role created by its writer, Kristen Thomson.

Carly Maga: The Crowsnest has definitely been a game changer for east-end entertainment (of course, the fact that I live down the street means I’m totally unbiased) and I’m heartened The Wedding Party is back, as will be Torquil Campbell’s enigmatic True Crime for a short engagement, both in January. But the production that I’m most excited to see at Crow’s is their presentation of What a Young Wife Ought to Know by Halifax’s 2b Theatre, written by Hannah Moscovitch and directed by her husband, Christian Barry. Coming off her Siminovitch Prize nomination last year, I’m happy to have a new play of hers premiere in Toronto.

Fricker: Yes, it’ll be great to see 2b’s work here in Toronto given their huge success in Edinburgh and beyond with the klezmer-folk musical Old Stock (by Moscovitch, Barry and Ben Caplan). And of course, one of our favourite shows from 2016, Moscovitch’s Bunny, is coming to Tarragon in February-March in its Stratford Festival production, featuring a stunning performance by Maev Beaty. Interesting also to see that Bunny’s featuring in the new PlayME podcast series of Canadian plays, along with Kat Sandler’s BANG BANG.

Maga: Sandler’s also having a big winter. BANG BANG is the first time she’ll be writing and directing her own work at one of the major theatres (Factory) and, practically at the same time (January-February), her hit for Tarragon Theatre, Mustard, is being remounted there.

Fricker: So force-of-nature women is already a big theme for us this season! Doubling back to Crow’s, another headline event there this February is the Company Theatre/Outside the March co-production of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem. It’s an epic piece, and very much about English identity, in contrast to British identity: a crucial distinction and one I hope can be made to resonate here in Canada.

Maga: What do you mean by that? You lived there for years; I’m unfamiliar with the distinction.

Fricker: Well, Great Britain is four separate countries: Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. While national identity is, to put it mildly, a subject of considerable focus in the other three (along with the Republic of Ireland), and the subject of lots of arts and culture, we don’t hear as much about English identity. To me that was like a big elephant in the room which Butterworth named and brought to life so brilliantly in the original London production, featuring a once-in-a-lifetime performance by Mark Rylance. The Toronto director, Mitchell Cushman, says that he and co-producer Philip Riccio weren’t going to do it unless they found the right person to play Johnny Byron and feel they’ve got him in Kim Coates.

Maga: Well, another buzzworthy show coming up in February is Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III, produced by Studio 180 and presented by Mirvish, which imagines a future with Prince Charles as King (and perhaps there will even be a cameo from Meghan Markle now). It has an impressive cast, but is it an interesting counterpoint to Jerusalem?

Fricker: I think for most people around the world, when they think Britain, they think the royals and, with the second season of The Crown out on Netflix and that certain engagement making headlines, those connections are top of mind. Jerusalem presents, to put it mildly, a counterpoint to the image we have of china cups and cut-glass accents: it’s about the rural, the pagan, the untamed.

Maga: They’re not quite the royals, but Mirvish is presenting another snapshot of a family this season with the Musical Stage Company’s production of Fun Home, the Tony Award-winning musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir about so many things: growing up in a funeral home, accepting her lesbian identity and recovering from her father’s death, which stemmed from his own struggles with his sexuality and depression. I’ve been waiting rather impatiently for a production to come to Toronto.

Fricker: I totally agree. I didn’t see it in its original New York production but read so much about it, and I’m also a longtime fan of book writer and lyricist Lisa Kron and composer Jeanine Tesori (female forces of nature again!). And the cast here features some great Canadian performers who we’ve seen lately at Stratford: Evan Buliung, Sara Farb and Laura Condlln among them.

Maga: And Hannah Levinson as Small Alison is so cute, coming off of Matilda.

Fricker: Another musical some readers may have heard of is coming back to the Royal Alex in February . . .

Maga: That would be Come From Away! This time with a new all-Canadian cast, but it’s the same production that impressed New York audiences and won a Tony for Best Direction in 2017. Speaking of Tonys, we’re getting an acclaimed show from the play category as well. Stephen Karam’s The Humans is coming to Canadian Stage, directed by Jackie Maxwell. If she handles Karam’s humanism (ha, get it?) as she did the verbatim musical London Road at the same company, I’m completely on board.

Fricker: My differing views on London Road (the material itself, not necessarily Maxwell’s production) are for another conversation. . . . But yes, I don’t know a lot about The Humans other than its great reviews and awards so am looking forward to discovering it at the Bluma in February. Maxwell’s busy this winter! She’ll then be directing at Soulpepper in May, a new play by Beverley Cooper called Innocence Lost, about the Steven Truscott case.

Maga: I’m also really interested in that play, since the Truscott case is also the basis of one of my favourite books, The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald. Cooper’s play isn’t connected to that book, but the case still feels close to me in a way. And messing with a literary classic can yield some unpredictable results, as it will in Audrey Dwyer’s Calpurnia, which is set during a wealthy dinner party that goes off the rails, attended by a screenwriter who’s working on an adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird from the perspective of Calpurnia, the maid. It’s getting its world premiere in a Nightwood/Sulong Theatre co-production this month.

Fricker: I too love it (but am aware of the risks) when we see a beloved work of literature reinvented by a contemporary writer. I’m excited to get the chance to see Bloom, Guillermo Verdecchia’s play set in wartime, based on T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, in a Modern Times production at Buddies in Bad Times (where Calpurnia is also playing) this March-April. Verdecchia is an important Canadian writer and his director, Soheil Parsa, is one of the undersung greats of Toronto theatre. This is a new version of a show created about 12 years ago. I’m intrigued. . . .

Maga: I definitely have time for anything Modern Times does. . . . Speaking of Buddies, I’m thankful they’re doing a remount of the three-hander by Stephen Jackman-Torkoff, Tawiah Ben M’Carthy and Thomas Olajide, Black Boys. It’s poetic, moving, vulnerable, and a powerful piece of performance physically and emotionally. I loved their investigation into Black queer masculinity when it premiered in 2016 — and I know the response wasn’t unanimous — but I’m thrilled for that team to get it in front of audiences again. It has been a crucial two years in terms of Black and queer identities in North America since then.

Fricker: Yes, Buddies’ series of autobiographical pieces about queer identities — from The Gay Heritage Project to Black Boys to this autumn’s wonderful Kiinalik — is important and unique. Kiinalik was a co-production with Theatre Passe Muraille and another Buddies/TPM collaboration is coming up soon: Acha Bacha, a solo piece about queer Pakistani identity by Bilal Baig, directed by Brendan Healy, being staged at Passe Muraille in January-February. How about a couple final short blasts about other shows coming up that we’re keen on?

Maga: One for me is definitely Declarations, written and directed by Jordan Tannahill for Canadian Stage. Tannahill is now based in London, so it’s great to have him back with this personal piece he wrote out of his mother’s illness.

Fricker: Agreed, a new Tannahill is a big deal! For me, following on from the exquisite Mr. Shi and His Lover, I’m excited to see more from the composer Njo Kong Kie with Picnic in the Cemetery, a hybrid musical performance at Canadian Stage from his Macau-based Folga Gaang Project. And for its sheer rock-out potential, I’m putting on my macramé poncho and heading to Coal Mine Theatre for their live staging of the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album in February.

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Maga: Let me tell you, that’s not second-hand news.

Fricker: We must stop before you quip again. But we’ll be back in May-June with a summer preview!

Karen Fricker and Carly Maga are Star theatre critics. They usually alternate the Wednesday Matinée column.