PLAYBILL: John Ware comes to life
Not much is known about the life of John Ware – which of course means it’s open season for curious biographical playwrights. As long as their poetic license is up to date with not too many demerits. The record of Calgarian playwright Cheryl Foggo appears to be clean, and her celebrated play John Ware Reimagined […]
PLAYBILL: Get out – while you can!
That’s “get out,” as in “get out and see some live theatre, ya lazy bums!” And that’s “lazy bums” with present company excepted. Didn’t mean to scare you. It being Halloweeny season and all, it’s worth checking out a spooky tale being spun by Catch the Keys Productions at Fort Edmonton Park – verily one […]
THEATRE: Ubuntu a haunting fusion of cultures
The story of how Ubuntu (The Cape Town Project) came to be could make something of a play in itself. Back in 2004, current Citadel Theatre Artistic Director Daryl Cloran became fascinated by the ancient Bantu word “Ubuntu” meaning, “I am because you are.” The concept, and Cloran’s perception that theatre would be one of […]
PLAYBILL: I Am Because You Are
Never let it be said that the Citadel Theatre is an ivory tower that never takes chances. Those two “nevers” just cancel each other right out in the hands of their bold new artistic director Daryl Cloran. In the second play of his first Citadel season in Edmonton, he has wrangled an ambitious new play […]
PLAYBILL: Fortuitous Endings just the beginning
You know that point near the end of a relationship when you start lying to your friends? Ha, ha! Yeah, we always yell at each other like that. Everything is JUST FINE. It can get a bit awkward. The title of the season opener for the provocatively-named local “Toy Guns Dance Theatre” is too long […]
PLAYBILL: Shockers Delight! revives, renews
When you’ve written dozens of plays over 35 years like Stewart Lemoine, you’re entitled to a few reruns – but, like Star Trek, occasionally you want to get some fresh faces into the story. Shocker’s Delight! was a hit when it was first produced in 1993, and will now enjoy its third remounting at the […]
Shakespeare in Love a hit! A most palpable hit!
Despite its origins as an Oscar-winning movie, the stage version of Shakespeare in Love is a smart love story as well as a witty love letter to the collaborative nature of theatre. At the Citadel Theatre through Oct. 8, it’s set in the dynamic, productive theatre scene of Elizabethan London. Even the Queen is a […]
PLAYBILL: The Hills are ALIVE! Aieeee!
If you didn’t know what comes after “The hills are alive …,” you might get the wrong idea and think you’re at a horror movie. What aforementioned sentient buttes are alive with is of course the title of one of the most famous musicals of all time, The Sound of Music – the Broadway Across […]
PLAYBILL: From tragedy comes comedy
It turns out that Taylor Swift isn’t the first person in the history of the world to create art inspired by heartbreak. About 500-something years ago, a British playwright named Will Shakespeare had a torrid love affair with someone else’s fiancé – and as one might expect, it ended badly. But then he finished Romeo […]
PLAYBILL: Respect for Soul Sistas
One of the things the Mayfield Dinner Theatre has going for it is its artistic director Van Wilmott – whose gifts are brought to full fettle in the season opener Soul Sistas, depicting the lives and music of Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner. No word if they’re going to touch on their reported feud. And […]
PLAYBILL: Shakespeare rocks
Some people say that maybe William Shakespeare wasn’t such a big deal after all, and therefore maybe his work shouldn’t be taught in schools at the expense of other worthy or more modern playwrights – or remounted again and again to promote 500-year-old sexual and racial morals in one Shakespeare festival after another. To those […]
PLAYBILL: No rewrites at Improvaganza
We’re all just making it up as we go along. Every moment of life is an act of spontaneous creativity, and every creative action starts with a decision made in the moment, which leads to another decision, and then an action and so on and so forth, until voila! Congratulations, you’ve written Les Miserables. Improv […]
