PLAYBILL: Metis Mutt matures
“I am Metis – which means that I’m both native and white. Half of me wants to assimilate you into my culture – and the other half is just too lazy to do it.” Does that joke make you cringe? Yes? Does it make it any better coming from an actual Metis man? No? Well, […]
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 […]
PLAYBILL: All about the women
Anyone complaining that women don’t get a voice in theatre ought to get a load of what’s going on in Edmonton this week. Opening this week are two plays on opposite ends of the theatrical spectrum – one from a mainstream commercial landmark; the other by a beloved amateur institution – and all the main […]
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 […]
PLAYBILL: Ever been to sea?
If it weren’t for a certain Victorian-era creative team’s fascination with all things nautical, musical theatre as we know it today might be far different. Imagine if H.M.S. Pinafore had been set in the Canadian prairies: Ranch boss’s daughter falls in love with a lowly ranchhand, cue “Come away with me on my tractor, Buttercup.” […]
PLAYBILL: Whose Worst Year Ever?
One wonders how much of himself – or current politics – Trevor Schmidt will bring to his role of a grumpy 12-year-old girl in Worst Year Ever. The Northern Light Theatre artistic director will play “Charlotte” in what we must presume is an autobiographical tale by playwright Charlotte Miller (who’s given Schmidt “permission” to do […]
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 […]
PLAYBILL: Onegin, twogin, threegin
It’s nice to imagine that the great classical composers could jump into a time machine to see their work made into “rock operas” hundreds of years later – and that they’d like it. Hey, if there’d been rock ‘n’ roll back then, they would’ve rocked – or so rockers like to think. Moot point, as […]
