LIT: Thiessen nominated for GG award
One of Edmonton’s favourite playwright sons has been nominated for Canada’s top literary award for a third time. Vern Thiessen previously won the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2003 and was also nominated in 2007. Thiessen, a U of A drama grad and former instructor who splits time between Edmonton and New York, is best […]
Kathy Griffin cancels Canadian tour
Bad news for area Kathy Griffin fans – her Oct. 12 show at the Jubilee Auditorium has been cancelled. “Scheduling issues” is the official reason given for the decision, which includes all four Canadian dates, also including Saskatoon (Oct. 13), Calgary (Oct. 14) and Vancouver (Oct. 15). Ticket refunds are available at the point of […]
EIFF picks 24/One winner, Chillerama makes a comeback
A hilarious short film about two roommates trying to survive a day without internet has won the EIFF 2011 24/One competition. Fourth Wall Productions, comprised of six NAIT Radio TV Arts students received the most votes from the audience at Empire City Centre 9 and a $500 prize. The short will be posted on Fourth […]
REVIEW: Tom Wood stunning as tragic hero in Death of a Salesman
Even non-theatre people are familiar with Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s bleak tale of Willy Loman and his family that ends in Loman’s death and dissatisfaction all around. It’s part of the high school canon of literature, and with good reason: life hasn’t really changed much since the show’s premiere in 1949. The Citadel […]
EIFF screens tribute to late filmmaker Barr
Kenneth Barr’s friends will tell you that if anyone embodied the spirit of indie filmmaking it was the Vancouver director. When he passed away this past summer at age 37, western Canada lost someone in the mold of Roger Corman and Tobe Hooper, a proponent of action films who used shoe string budgets to entertain. […]
EIFF: A Generation of Whine
Entries are being now taken to come up with a name for the new generation that recently came of age and hates Generation X as much as Generation X hates the Baby Boomers. They’re here … and even that reference is out of date (Poltergeist, 1982). Any ideas? Generation Y is lame, Next Generation is […]
THEATRE: Comely wenches cross swords, egos in Heroine
Ahoy, mateys: Thar be something mighty fishy about Heroine – a ripping yarn about a pair of comely wenches what pillaged the high seas in the misty days of yore, got scurf’d to the brig and marked with the black spot for a date with the hempen halter. The play about female pirates opens Friday […]
THEATRE: New season ahoy!
From Fringe summer to subscription winter, the rhythms of live theatre in Edmonton are as predictable as a horse on a high fibre diet. No, that’s not the best image to go with some of the finest thespianism in Canada, but it just came out. Remember one of the cardinal rules of improv: what is […]
Edmonton Comedy Festival to ‘keep it clean’
It has been said that it’s easier to clean up a dirty joke than it is to dirty up a clean one. Or is it the other way around? Never mind. The point we’re trying to make here is that the Edmonton Comedy Festival, happening Oct. 19-23 in venues across the greater metropolitan area, is […]
Metro Cinema returns with a week of camp
If the offerings in a film series are, for the most part, of material available on most decent cable packages, is it really a worthy film series? Or is it another excuse for like-minded folk to get together in this thing we call “community”? “Camp” would seem to be a theme in Metro Cinema’s grand […]
