REVIEW: Playtime offers comedy, drama, risky content and plenty of talent

By Allison M. JonesJun 4, 2026

Theatre Burlington’s third annual short play festival offers eight 10-minute productions that will entertain veteran theatre-goers and newcomers alike, and will leave you and your companions with plenty to talk about.

In its third year, Theatre Burlington’s Playtime festival brings local playwrights, directors, actors and live-theatre lovers together for a slate of eight 10-minute plays. This year, the festival has been arranged so that each of the short plays is staged at every performance, meaning ticket buyers can see everything at once. The short-play experience has similarities to attending a Fringe festival or picking from a box of chocolates: there’s a bit of risk involved. Attend a half-dozen or so shows and you’ll come away raving about some, enjoying others more moderately, and possibly finding one or two not to your liking. Every play will, without a doubt, give you and your companions plenty to discuss afterwards, and all for a very reasonable price. The Playtime festival has its second and final weekend of performances on Friday and Saturday.

There are some familiar faces from other Theatre Burlington and local community theatre productions at this festival, including actors Nectaria Bogdanis, Claire Shingleton-Smith, Bernard Applewhaite, Ray Beauchemin and Braden Worton. However, Playtime provides a valuable platform for emerging talents to test out new material or try on an entirely new role as a playwright, director or actor on Theatre Burlington’s well-appointed stage complete with sound, lighting and stage management as well as a community of existing supporters.

This year’s festival is produced by Val King and Bev Heilbron with stage management by Anne Hogan, lighting by Dan Gallo and Joe La Pena, sound by Kim Boydell and Brian Nettlefold, and backstage assistance by Sri Virinder and Omalara Soyinka. King and Heilbron note in the program that, “each year we are tasked with the daunting undertaking of choosing plays from an array of increasingly talented local playwrights.” They see the festival as providing a “showcase for [the playwrights’] imagination” and, indeed, it was amazing to see how diverse were those imaginations in fashioning such a wide variety of short stories.

The slate of eight starts very strongly with playwright Kate Racheter’s charming and funny tableau titled Cats: Not the Musical about two humans and their frustrated feline overlord (I mean, adorable pet kitty). All cat lovers and cat staff will recognize the quirky behavioural patterns of Watson, a dramatic grey tabby performed with full-on commitment and flair by Shingleton-Smith wearing a furry cat costume.

It’s followed by Seeing Old Friends, written and directed by Greg Flis (a Burlington-based actor and theatre reviewer). This is the “wild card” of the short plays; it has some disturbing content that not all will enjoy, but I was glad to see it because it gives the audience a jolt and introduces some risk and provocative frisson into the proceedings.

Devin France as Ron, left, and Greg Porter as Gord rehearse *Seeing Old Friends*, one of the 10-minute plays featured at Playtime, Theatre Burlington's short play festival. PHOTO: Theatre Burlington

Ella’s Madrigal, written and directed by Julie English-Dixon, will have festival-goers looking up more information (as I did) about the iconic songstress Ella Fitzgerald. A trio of actors bring to life a vignette revealing the hardships of Ella’s youth with the beginning of her rise to stardom. Tika McLean is especially charming as Ella, and has a warmth and ease about her that has me hoping we see more of her on local stages.

Abiodun Olushola as Deena, left, Tika McLean as Ella in *Ella's Madrigal* at Playtime. PHOTO: Theatre Burlington

Playwright/director Julia Kollek’s Bite! feels like a mini-movie or promising TV pilot about the cutthroat world of journalism in the age of social influencers. A harried editor wants results, and gives her long-time food critic an investigative assignment that shows he’s risk-adverse and out of touch. Anthony Deciantis gives a brief but memorable performance as an ex-prisoner who provides a window into a world that is alien to the privileged writer.

Anthony Deciantis as the ex-offender, left, and Dean Rooney as Henry in a rehearse for Playtime's Bite! PHOTO: Theatre Burlington

Act Two begins with playwright/director/actor/festival emcee Tony Corrie’s We Rocked, imagining the scene as two old rockers recall their heyday in the bar where their band had its first big break. There’s a problem, however. One is conscious of the passage of time and has matured as life and society has changed, while the other resists change and is stuck in a destructive mindset. This is a story that could be developed into a longer play.

Playwright/director Layla El Asri’s Anatomy of a Brute is a cerebral piece that excavates ideas surrounding youth, opportunity, motivation and the labels that, once assigned, are difficult to dislodge. At some points the aim of the dialogue feels unclear, and the theme or morale of the story obscured. Still, Beauchemin in particular keeps the audience’s attention as he and Worton parry and riposte.

Don’t Go There is written by Glen Benison and co-directed by the producers of the festival, King and Heilbron. The play is set in 1887, and it’s cowboy country. The intended tone appears to be dramatic, but the dialogue and action come across as a bit slapstick and shrill. There’s certainly a kernel in the story that has promise: the impending shoot-out is very much like the ones we’ve seen in all the old westerns, except Lou is a young woman in men’s garb. The gender-bending is something that could shape this story into something stronger. There’s also fun in the wagon-load of colourful phrases that Maw uses to Lou.

Gnomes, written by Michael Brown and co-directed by Brown and Anastasia Saluk, is an imaginative little idyll about two gnomes – one seasoned and the other new to the outside world – who find themselves relocated without their consent (stolen and abandoned in another strange garden). What follows is a conversation between the two gnomes as they make their way back “home,” feeling very much like the start of a buddy comedy in the spirit of The Lord of the Rings.

This festival is enjoyable for long-time theatre goers and a very accessible vehicle for those new to theatre to experience eight very different short plays in quick succession. If one doesn’t strike your fancy, well, there’s another entirely different play coming up in less than 10 minutes!

Performances are split into the usual two acts for a full-size play with an intermission in the middle, with four plays staged in each act and an overall runtime of about two and a half hours. Tickets are a steal at $15.