Motown the Musical: Berry Gordy’s lavish love letter to himself
Motown: The Musical begins with a high decibel blast of pure soul straight from the ’60s. Immediately we are in the midst of a marvelous musical battle – an energetic sing-off between The Tops and The Temps (Temptations), two of the best known male groups from the early years of Motown. From their patent leather […]
FORE! Locals let loose on links in Ladies Foursome
Norm Foster is probably the most produced playwright you’ve never heard of. For the past 35 years, from his home in Fredericton, New Brunswick, the prolific wordsmith has turned out a stream of comic works that have been produced as far away as Canberra, Australia. Although one of his plays was produced off-Broadway, that was […]
HMS Pinafore: A jazz cruise with pizzazz
Shortly after it was written in 1878, Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore (or The Lass That Loved a Sailor), became the most popular musical in the world. Propelled by silliness and mirth, it was a huge hit in London and, crossing the ocean, became an immediate sensation in America. At one time pirated versions were […]
Tears mix with laughter in remarkable one-man show
The one-person stand-up show is a staple of theatre – but you’ve never seen one like this before. Empire of the Son, on stage at the Citadel’s Club theatre until Feb. 18, is the work of the much-hyphenated (writer-comedian-filmmaker-movie-TV star-radio host) Tetsuro Shigematsu. He has co-starred in a sci-fi film with George Takei, was a […]
REVIEW: Brilliant play for short attention spans …
With Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information, MacEwan University’s Theatre Arts program introduces a new stage to Edmonton – the Theatre Lab in the impressive new Allard Hall. The play runs until Feb. 10. The new black box, 150-seat space is just what a theatre school needs – an area flexible enough to accommodate productions of […]
REVIEW: Shakespeare’s R&J gives new life to classic romance
Shakespeare’s R&J, from Edmonton’s adventurous indie-theatre Kill Your Television, is a remount of their successful original, which won a Sterling Award for Outstanding Independent Production. The play is billed as a “re-imagining” of the original by director Kevin Sutley, and has been retooled several times by the playwright Joe Calarco – who is credited in […]
Sweet seedy dreams in Slumberland Motel
C.M. Zuby’s set design for the world premiere of Shadow Theatre’s comedy-drama Slumberland Motel drops us down in every seedy motel room you’ve ever seen – shabby tiles on the floor, plastic lampshades, chintzy clown posters on the wall. You can practically smell the sour stench of cheap beer in the air. Into this bereft […]
Russian opera hacked in superb Onegin
Back in February of 2014, two gleeful Vancouver musical buffs, Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone, presented A Craigslist Cantata in The Club at the Citadel. It was a sprightly song-and-dance look at some of the weird items presented for sale on the internet bazaar. It was a hit here, as it was elsewhere across the […]
REVIEW: The Humans a chilling family affair
American playwright Stephen Karam wanted to write a horror story. Given the unsettling atmosphere of the run-down New York tenement where he sets his new play, The Humans, at the Citadel Theatre until Jan. 27 for the Canadian premiere, and the sudden unexplained noise that rocks the apartment, the lights that suddenly go out and […]
Colin MacLean: Best theatre of 2017
This was the year of Kate Ryan – she probably sprang from her show-biz mother’s loins singing show tunes and grew up as a child of the theatre. She’s the artistic director of the Plain Jane Theatre Company, and this year branched out in a series of outstanding productions. The spring began with Ah, Romance […]
REVIEW: Shatter goes behind Halifax Explosion
Early in the morning of December 6, 1917, the residents of Halifax were awakened by steam whistles hooting loudly in the harbour. The French cargo ship S.S. Mont-Blanc was slowly approaching the Norwegian vessel the S.S. Imo. Neither would give right-of-way. The inevitable collision, as if in slow motion, happened at 8:45 am. The Mont-Blanc […]
Modernized Doll House an artful adaptation
At the end of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 bombshell A Doll’s House, a liberated wife walks out on her husband and slams the door behind her. It became known as “the door slam heard around the world.” The wife, Nora, was unfulfilled in her marriage and her headlong exit at the end of the play set […]
