THEATRE: Evil rises again in Bright Room
Back in 1985, American playwright Tony Kushner launched a new work called A Bright Room Called Day. He went on to write the two-part Angels in America that became one of the most highly regarded pieces of theatre of the 20th Century. You can certainly see elements of the genius that Kushner was later to […]
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 […]
REVIEW: Lemoine remount a dark delight
Stewart Lemoine has long been a champion of new talent. Not one to write throwaway material at developing performers, the local playwright-director always brings his full canon of talent to bear on his embryo performers, whether writing for the Citadel, Grant MacEwan or local stage-struck lawyers looking for a new play in which to perform. […]
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 […]
REVIEW: The Sound of Music fresh like alpine stream
Rogers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music may not be a sound that’s been sung for a thousand years, but it certainly has been around for a long time. It debuted on Broadway almost 60 years ago and, overcoming charges of saccharine sweetness. For years Christopher Plummer referred to the 1965 movie he starred in […]
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 […]
REVIEW: Super Soul Sistas
In their unending forensic probing of pop music for discerning dinner theatre patrons, the Mayfield Theatre is trying something new – well, not really new, but something a little different. Instead of giving us a musical genre (folk music) or a group (The Beatles) or an individual (Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline), they have combined the […]
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 […]
