Karen Fricker

Nov 1, 2024 | thestar.com | Karen Fricker

It was a short sentence that spoke volumes and caused a global ruckus: Irish film star Saoirse Ronan struggling to get a word in as a bunch of very famous men poked fun at self-defence techniques, then shutting them down with “That’s what girls have to think about all the time.”It’s still much more difficult than it should be for women and female-identifying folks to make their voices heard in culture.

Oct 19, 2024 | thestar.com | Karen Fricker

“I feel like women are like, ‘I’m going to try and get at the truth of this, all the hard parts of it, so that we can normalize them and heal and be honest, and not decide that we ourselves individually are flawed and bad at it’,” she said. She’s talking about women and female-identified people publicly navigating aspects of our lives that have previously been taboo: menstruation, childbirth, postpartum depression, abortion, aging, perimenopause, menopause.

Jun 26, 2024 | thestar.com | Karen Fricker

Peter Fernandes makes it happen. One of Canadian theatre’s busiest actors, he’s starring in two major shows for which he put himself forward as the leading man. Even as he prepared to take the stage in these parts, he was expanding his resumé by training as a director and stage magic expert. Already a Subscriber? Sign in You are logged in  Switch accounts “I feel exhausted and energized,” said Fernandes of his chock-full dance card these days.

Jun 18, 2024 | thestar.com | Karen Fricker

Nobody puts Wendy in the corner. Already a Subscriber? Sign in You are logged in  Switch accounts As its title signals, Ella Hickson’s feminist adaptation of “Peter Pan,” “Wendy and Peter,” makes the adolescent Wendy Darling its central character, among many other updates to J.M. Barrie’s beloved childhood classic.

Jun 1, 2024 | thestar.com | Karen Fricker

It was the early summer of 2022, and Ireland’s best-known drag queen was off her game. Less than 10 years earlier, activist and artist Panti Bliss — the drag persona of Rory O’Neill — had been a pivotal figure in a historic campaign for gender and sexual freedoms, which lead to Ireland becoming, in 2015, the first country to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. Already a Subscriber?