WHAT’S GOING ON: Roxy Rises After Seven Years
Time flies, doesn’t it? It doesn’t feel like seven years since the Roxy Theatre burned down one cold January morning in 2015 – leaving its resident company Theatre Network homeless.
But the company survived, and at times thrived, mounting numerous shows on rented stages under the leadership of longtime artistic director Bradley Moss – all while building the brand new Roxy Theatre that just opened. It looks nice. They can seat 200 people in the main Nancy Power Theatre, and 80 in the Lorne Cardinal Theatre. There’s a rehearsal space, an art gallery, and a patio.
The first production is a “radical retelling” of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, starring Cliff Cardinal, and running April 26-May 15. It has been advised to go into this thinking you’re going to see some of your usual Shakespeare – and then wait for the surprise the follows the usual Treaty 6 Land acknowledgement.
Just a notion about all the “why do they always have to teach Shakespeare in schools?” talk: I reckon they teach Shakespeare to kids so ALL kids, and their parents who were also taught Shakespeare, will be able to relate to at least one thing. They could’ve picked anyone.
A story about conjoined twins who get hidden away by their parents because of fear the children will get stoned to death by ignorant villagers doesn’t sound like good grist for a musical, does it? Of course it does. And if anyone can pull it off, it’s Trevor Schmidt. The artistic director of Northern Light Theatre wrote the book for the new musical, Two-Headed/Half-Hearted, making its world premiere April 21–May 7, at the Studio Theatre in the Old Strathcona Fringe building. It stars Kaeley Jade Wiebe (who wrote the music) and Rebecca Sadowski as the twins.
Coincidence or intelligent design? The Citadel Theatre is just finishing a run of a play with a First Nations AND rare twins theme: The Herd, whose premise is the birth of twin white bison on the Saskatchewan prairie, which some believe is a miracle of spiritual life, plays until April 24.
For more, as always, Liz Nicholls offers full coverage of Edmonton Theatre.
