PLAYBOT: The Importance of Being Lemoine
In Upside Down World, while all other Edmonton theatre companies have ended their seasons and are resting up for the Fringe, Teatro la Quindicina is just getting started.
It has been said – by PlayBot™ – that Teatro’s permanent resident playwright and artistic director Stewart Lemoine is the Oscar Wilde of Edmonton, so it fits they’re presenting The Importance of Being Earnest in July. Meanwhile, the season opener is a new Lemoine original: The Finest of Strangers, on stage at the Varscona Theatre May 31-June 16.
Starring a familiar Teatro cast – Jeff Haslam, Leona Brausen, Davina Stewart, Julien Arnold, Cathy Derkach and more – the play deals with a TV star who unexpectedly returns to his hometown, after which “havoc” is promised. Havoc is of course one of the high expectations for any Lemoine (as his last name may be a noun, referring to one of his plays; or an adjective indicative of any Lemoinesque piece of theatre), along with witty and urbane dialogue, often set in some bygone age filled with urbane and witty characters, that so often cause this great Canadian playwright to get compared to Oscar Wilde. There are worse fates.
Nextfest
Here we see the promising farm team of Edmonton’s theatre community – one of the most active in the world, per capita. A thing since 1996, Nextfest features all manner of talented young playwrights, actors, other performers, and visual artists who come together to show off their work. Next after NextFest? The Big Leagues, baby. The Show.
May 31 to June 10 at three venues – Roxy on Gateway, the Backstage Theatre, and the Yardbird Suite – there is such a variety of entertainment that it cannot be contained in PlayBot’s 2K memory. Here are some highlights: Pretty Boy, The Musical – a tale of the notorious bank robber “Pretty Boy” Floyd – from a rich American history of celebrating criminals, and it’s a musical. Moonshine is another mainstage feature, songs and narrative about life in Ukraine – while the characters are drinking actual moonshine. Where Do We Begin? deals with displaced youth from different parts of the world. Finally, Gooseberry appears to be a black comedy about marriage, and the end thereof over a disastrous dinner party.
In addition to those fully-formed productions, there are workshops of plays in progress, and readings where scripts are presented to a live audience for the first time. All this in addition to dance, music and visual art – one of the newest artworks of which can now be seen on the side of the Varscona Theatre (not technically a Nextfest venue).
Info on all Nextfest events can be found here.
International Children’s Festival of the Arts
It is time once again to bundle the tots into the minvan and make the pilgrimage up to St. Albert for this annual event. It’s totally worth the trip as it represents the best deal in kids’ entertainment you’ll get all year.
Most shows are around $15 (and some activities are free) and you can choose from among several world-class acts: The local magician Ron Pearson and his Mystery Wonder Show; puppetry from L’Illusion Théâtre; Singing Africa with Jacky Essombe; a live production of The Rainbow Fish; and an entire musical based on the Junie B. Jones book series. If you don’t have a clue who Rainbow Fish is, then maybe you are not the target demographic for this festival – and if you are, you probably haven’t learned to read yet. Ha! Parents: You know what to do. Enroll your kids in theatre classes in preparation for a future Nextfest.
All information on the recently-renamed International Children’s Festival of the Arts can be found on their website.
Grindstone Theatre
Do you wonder what your favourite Edmonton actors get up to during the “off season” – besides scouting Nextfest? Turns out you can find several top local talents working the new Grindstone Theatre comedy cabaret, just off Whyte Avenue in Old Strathcona. It’s a modern vaudeville house!
These guys run shows six nights a week, two per night on the weekend – and a lot of it is based on comedy improv. Every Thursday is “Coyote Comedy,” long-form improv shows with familiar names like Neil Grahn, Leona Brausen, Cathleen Rootsaert, Peter Brown and more. Northern Light Theatre’s artistic director and actor Trevor Schmidt, meanwhile, can be seen every Sunday at 9 pm in the recurring Gertrude and Alice, following the wacky antics of Alice B.Toklas (Davina Stewart) and her partner Gertrude Stein (Leona Brausen, scoring a triple mention here) – one of 20th Century literati’s most notable lesbian couples. Trevor and Darrin Hagen play their upstairs neighbours. It’s like Four’s Company or something! And Saturday nights at 11 pm there’s a show called Telling Secrets, in which professional stand-up comics are invited to tell the audience what they really think – but don’t all good comics do that anyway?
There are tonnes of other shows at the Grindstone every week; all details are on their website.
All Shook Up
One of the things the Mayfield Dinner Theatre does very well is the dependable “jukebox musical.” This is due mainly to artistic director Van Wilmott – a hardcore music and gear geek, songwriter, performer, arranger and producer who’s been active in Edmonton’s music scene for at least 40 years, many of them working hard at the Mayfield, staging one sensational jukebox musical after another.
Van picked a winner this time in All Shook Up, playing until June 10 – because you can’t go wrong with Elvis Presley. FACT.
The story here – written by Joe Dipietro (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; and the Tony-winning musical Memphis) – centres around a small town girl in 1955 who meets a guitar-playing stranger who of course turns out to be Elvis. More than 20 of His iconic songs provide the soundtrack for the show, featuring a large cast and the usual gang of crack area musicians.
