FRINGE 2019: 2 Hilarious Dick Comedies
Crazy For Dick Tricks: A Dirk Darrow Investigation Stage 18 (Sugar Swing Ballroom) A quick look at Dirk Darrow’s show titles will give you a good idea of what to expect from this sunny Australian entertainer: 6 Quick Dick Tricks, 2 Ruby Knockers, 1 Jaded Dick and now his latest, Crazy For Dick Tricks. […]
FRINGE 2019: Good at Cults an insane story with an Edmonton connection
Good at Cults Stage 27 (The Buckingham) This is about a different kind of history – how in our personal histories we can learn the wrong ways to relate to others, and how we can get ourselves into trouble later in life when we aren’t even aware of it. It also left a real head-scratcher […]
FRINGE 2019: Black Albertan ponders his past in worthy, yet flawed play
Balance Board Stage 13 (Old Strathcona Public Library) This local piece by Bashir Mohamed tells the story of an Alberta youth motivated to discover his identity as a black person after being embarrassed in class during a racially and culturally insensitive exchange with a teacher. He ends up tasking himself to discover what exactly it […]
FRINGE 2019: 3 HISTORICAL plays
THE WALK IN THE SNOW: The True Story Of Lise Meitner Stage 3 (Walterdale Theatre) Jem Rolls is a great storyteller – that’s the most obvious conclusion one can draw from his 2019 Fringe production. It might boggle the minds of some, given the relative inaccessibility of the subject matter – but Rolls can make […]
FRINGE 2019: Foote in the Door tackles the ’50s with fun, soul and heart
The Marvelous Wonderettes ’58 Stage 27 (Hi-Edmonton Hostel) Oh horrors! It’s a disaster. It’s 1958 at the Springfield High School prom (Go Chipmunks) and the entertainment for the evening was to be the hot guy quartet called the Crooning Crab Cakes. But the group can’t make it because the leader was caught smoking behind the […]
FRINGE 2019: Tymisha Harris gives life, passion to remarkable musical biography
Josephine Stage 1 (ATB Westbury Theatre) Josephine Baker lived so full and adventurous a life that it challenges belief. Born into poverty and stark racism in Missouri, she ran off to France, took off her clothes (except for a few well-placed bananas), causing a sensation and becoming one of the most celebrated performers ever to […]
FRINGE 2019: Melanie Gall soars in Golden Age Hollywood Musical
Ingenue: Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland and the Golden Age Of Hollywood Stage 7 (Chianti Yardbird Suite) There is a Hollywood legend that the mighty Louis B. Meyer, head of MGM, once demanded his minion to fire “the fat one.” So the flunky jettisoned Deanna Durbin (Winnipeg’s Sweetheart), she of the crystalline legit soprano voice and […]
FRINGE 2019: Four of Colin MacLean’s Favourite Musicals
Coat of Many Colours Stage 41 (CKUA Performance Space) Andrea House is one of our best singers. She gives each song she sings a specific life of its own. Like Streisand and Lady Gaga you feel that the song has been wrung out of every subtlety, lyric intelligence and musical significance it can possibly offer. […]
FRINGE 2019: Saga of World War I nurses comes off like a work in progress
Bluebirds Stage 40 (The Al & Trish Huehn Theatre, Concordia College) A large troop ship is caught in a mighty gale while carrying Canadian troops and a contingent of 19 Bluebirds to Europe at the beginning of World War I. “Bluebirds” is the affectionate name Canadian nurses earned first in the 1899 South African campaign […]
HORROR AT FRINGE 2019: St. Kilda a terrifying tale
St. Kilda Stage 11 (Nordic Studio Theatre) New York’s Jody Christopherson is a quintuple threat – playwright, actor, master of dialects, singer, and most distractingly impressive: An operator of the dreaded “looper.” You know, that thing where you record a segment of sound, hit a switch and it repeats over and over again? Ed Sheeran […]
FRINGE 2019: 2 scary HORROR SHOWS
It’s been a years-long quest to find a good horror at the Fringe that isn’t a comedy. Pickin’s are slim, lemme tell ya. Are artists SCARED they won’t be able to really scare people without having to yuk it up at every turn? Must they laugh in the face of DEATH? Short answer: Maybe. However, […]
MASTER OF FRINGE 2019: Underneath the Lintel a triumphant tale
Underneath the Lintel Stage 14 (Holy Trinity Anglican Church) A rumpled man shuffles through a dusty Dutch library. His job is to track down those “miscreants” who are late returning borrowed books. One night, a tattered tome falls through the overnight slot. The book is 113 years overdue. The librarian is thunderstruck, then intrigued, and […]
