Does public art improve life for Edmonton’s homeless?
Answering a simple question – what do homeless people think of public art? – was fraught with difficult and humbling emotions. I recently interviewed a number of Edmonton street people who turned out to be so sharp that the question should’ve been: Why in God’s name are you homeless?! The stories vary: Poverty, alcoholism, mental […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Home for a Party!
Here’s the perfect verse for the end of summer: “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best. I’ve been gone for a month, I’ve been drunk since I left. These so-called vacations will soon be my death. I’m so sick from the drink I need home for a rest.” Most music fans of […]
War Horse a masterful display of equine puppetry
The fake horse was so real that even the real horses were fooled. They wouldn’t get near the thing. And these were trained military steeds from the Strathcona Mounted Troop, no less, a bit freaked out during Tuesday’s photo op for “War Horse,” leading to the play’s run through Sept. 22 at the Jubilee Auditorium. […]
TV PERSONALITY: Ryan Jespersen and the Lake of Fire
Talk turns to gay rights within the first two minutes of a recent interview with Ryan Jespersen. Raised Christian in Calgary, the chatty Breakfast Television host got his journalism training at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., a Christian college that required its students to sign abstinence pledges that included a specific clause pertaining to […]
SOAP-A-THON: Inside the Improvisers Studio
When Die-Nasty workshop leader Patti Stiles asked if there was anybody who had never improvised, I was the only one who raised my hand. Everyone else applauded! Some 30 actors, many of them professional, gathered on the Varscona Theatre stage Tuesday night for the first of two preparatory “workshops” leading into this weekend’s 21st annual […]
MUSIC: Alterra sticks to its Guns, Crue
Not every local band gets to work with a pole dancer who once performed with Motley Crue. There’s always a little bit of temporal vertigo that comes from hearing young rock musicians inspired by music that was made before they were born. Edmonton’s Alterra – not to be confused with the power company or a […]
Kaleido balloons into major Edmonton festival
If you were driving down 118th Avenue on Monday afternoon, you might have spotted clowns, mimes and tin foil robots, a Renaissance flautist in full regalia, along with Ukrainian dancers and Cuban dancers and belly dancers and ballet dancers and God knows what else. It could be only one thing, of course: The annual media […]
Garage sale a big story during Country Music Week
What a load of crap. Edmonton is hosting the biggest Canadian country music event of the decade and all the cool kids can talk about is Corb Lund’s garage sale. See, he’s moving to Calgary, so he has a bunch of odds and ends to unload, T-shirts, promotional hockey pucks, custom comic books, you name […]
New Brad Fraser play too fast for its own good
Kill Me Now is a title that speaks to a desire for death in the face of pain and misery. Add an ironic twist and playwright Brad Fraser’s trademark raucous humour and you might have a hit on your hands. With his new play, running through Sept. 22 at La Cite Francophone, he boldly makes […]
