WHAT’S GOING ON: Who the Hell Knows?
If everyone and everything gets cancelled, at this rate, can we all get a Get Out Of Jail Free card and start over from square one?
Cancellations are a literal reality in the live entertainment business lately. But while it’s true several major events have been postponed due to the ongoing pandemic – this weekend’s Glorious Sons concert has been moved to June 23 at the Edmonton Expo Centre, and The Offspring at Rogers Place on Feb. 23 has been CANCELLED outright, to name two – there are select pockets of live entertainment shining through the cracks of Edmonton.
Kenney Wins Another Term
Jason Kenney’s Hot Boy Summer has become such a big hit, held over and remounted so many times you start to wonder if he’s getting another term. The satirical musical written by Byron Martin and Simon Abbott, and starring Donovan Workun (above) as You-Know-Who, is playing until Jan. 30 at the Orange Hub (site of the old Grant MacEwan College building on 156 Street).
Elsewhere in theatre, the Citadel has postponed two of its plays, The Filharmonic and The Royale, which will both be rescheduled for future dates “when it is safe to do so.” The comedy Peter Pan Goes Wrong appears to still be in the Citadel queue, opening Feb. 26.
The Mayfield Dinner Theatre is getting set for its next production: Nashville Outlaws, featuring the music and stories of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash – the outlaws, they were called. The show opens Feb. 1.
Hard to believe even in normaltimes, but Rapid Fire Theatre is planning to run up to 300 improv comedy shows this year, in their new location at 8529 Gateway Blvd – site of what used to be called the Roxy on Gateway (until the Roxy/Theatre Network opens its new building on 124 Street), next to the Yardbird Suite.
Speaking of the Yardbird, which is running live shows once again, the Juno-winning jazz singer Laila Biali performs there on Jan. 28.
Meanwhile, starlite, star bright, every star I see tonight, Starlite Room is bravely running live shows almost every weekend. Coming up is one of my favourite Edmonton bands called Revenge, a band so underground that they have a European publicist who politely says the band refuses all interviews. This rather heavy band does shows all over the world; their logo appears to be made of razor wire – and their music will blow your scalp off, in a sub-sub-sub genre known as “war metal.” Fittingly, the event on Saturday, Feb. 19 is called “War on Alberta.” Several other bands whose scary logos I can’t read will also be on the bill.
Covid, covid, covid, masks, protocols, blah blah blah.
(Want to read more about heavy metal band logos? Read an exclusive interview with calligrapher Christophe Szpajdel, “Lord of the Logos”).
Top photo by Darla Woodley
