Shakey Graves returns to headline Winspear Centre
With a name like Shakey Graves, it’s no wonder he went into show business. OK, so it’s not his real name, but the story of one Alejandro Rose-Garcia is still remarkable: Just another dude from Austin, Texas with a guitar and some cool country-like songs becomes the darling of the folk fest circuit, and a […]
FALLEN ANGELS: Varscona Farceurs Scandalize Citizenry with Lascivious Hijinks
Back in the Spring of 1925, that young theatrical turk Noel Coward was at it again. He wrote four plays that year – but the one that had the bluestocking brigade most up in arms was Fallen Angels. It featured two young wives, typical Coward creations, pampered, pretty and flighty, admitting to premarital sex – […]
REVIEW: Austen powers heart-warming Christmas romance
This is the time of Jane Austen. We are told that the early 19th Century author sells more books now than she ever did. Just look at the number of stage productions and seemingly unending movies based on her slender output that continue to grace stage and screen. They’ve even turned unfinished novels into movies […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Stars to shine on Edmonton
Stars is just one of the bands associated with Broken Social Scene – but it’s one of the biggest. Playing the Myer Horowitz Theatre Monday night, Stars will be featuring music from their 2017 album, There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light. The group is led by Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan, both of whom […]
PLAYBOT: Fallen Angels high class comedy
It’s becoming clear in hindsight that women had a raw deal in the 1920s. Expected to be obedient housewives and mothers, they were assailed by prejudice and hobbled by double standards, and that wasn’t the worst of it. On the plus side, women just won the right to vote, so everything was about to change […]
What happened to VUE Weekly?
Stop the presses – for good. That may or may not be part of the last rites for VUE Weekly, the city’s venerable alternative newsweekly that lasted nearly a quarter-century. It drops its final issue on Nov. 29. In a city that used to support at least two rival publications until seven years ago, the […]
Hannah Moscovitch birth control drama a wrenching reality show
The title of What a Young Wife Ought to Know may read like one of those bogus pseudo-righteous early 20th Century self-help pamphlets given to prospective brides. In the hands of playwright Hannah Moscovitch, the latest Theatre Network play is anything but a tract against “unnatural means” (read: birth control) to prevent having babies. It […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: USS growing on us
From humble origins as a two clever dudes from Toronto who were hated for daring to mix alternative rock with electronic dance music, USS is starting to grow on us. The signs are all there: Cool hits in high rotation on the radio, on Sonic 102.9 at any rate, and a show at the Ranch […]
Captain Tractor sails into classic rock waters
The lingering question of why on Earth an Edmonton band would channel sea-faring hootenannies 700 miles from the nearest ocean has a simple answer. “I’m probably mostly to blame for a lot of it,” admits Scott Peters, a charter member of Captain Tractor who was “born and raised” in Nova Scotia. He came to Edmonton […]
PLAYBOT: Theatre Network tackles birth control in edgy new play
It’s hard to believe that with the continuing struggles for women’s rights, there are still politicians who preach abstinence as the best form of birth control. Also Popes. Would they have us go back to the Stone Age? Or the 1920s, say, when women would have many unwanted babies; some mothers and their babies would […]