Heathers take black comedy to new heights
Heathers was a 1989 black comedy starring the then-little known Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. Apparently ’80s audiences weren’t buying the film’s mordant anti-Pretty In Pink ethic and it flopped at the box office. But like many a cult film before, it rose from its cinematic ashes to become a hit on video. Then in […]
Fractured fairy tale comes to life in concert
Into The Woods opened Thursday night at the Winspear Centre – and it’s much more than just a concert based on Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical of cracked fairy tales. The production comes from Edmonton’s enterprising Two ONE-WAY Tickets To Broadway company, a semi-professional troupe (which allows them to mix paid with the unpaid) with a […]
REVIEW: Plain Jane shines up Noel Coward
Sir Noel Coward enjoyed a career that extended over five decades. He penned many plays that are still performed today including Hay Fever and Blithe Spirit. He wrote poetry and was regarded as the wittiest man of his age. His contribution to popular culture was enormous. His Vegas act was a smash. And he traveled […]
REVIEW: Alice a psychedelic, hilarious trip
Alice Through the Looking-Glass explodes onto the Citadel Theatre stage with an all-Edmonton cast – all 15 of them – and the exuberance of an eight-year-old on a sugar high. Director Jillian Keiley and Edmonton designer Bretta Gerecke have dug deeply into their inner urchins and come up with a visually fantastic universe, based on […]
REVIEW: The wonderful Wizard of Oz
There is no way of escaping the infernal ear worm music of The Wizard of Oz. The 1939 MGM Technicolor extravaganza featured words and music from Harold Arlen and “Yip” Harburg and the songs have woven themselves into the fabric of our lives. If things are difficult we Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the […]
NEWS FLASH: Nerd culture now pop culture
It’s not surprising that a local nerd has taken it upon himself to catalogue the myriad of nerdy things in town – comic stores, gaming clubs, fantasy fiction, anime, cosplay, you name it. Some nerd was bound to do it. And it’s no shock that the Edmonton Nerd List has taken off so quickly – […]
The Christmas Carol Project: The UNTOLD story
Spend 20 years with eight other musicians immersed in blithering holiday wholesomeness and you’d come up with some twisted ideas about Christmas, too. The Christmas Carol Project is an Edmonton tradition. Area fans flock every December to see this inventive and heartwarming take on the Charles Dickens classic, in which each character performs their own […]
OPERA: The Merry Widow has legs
A good measure of any opera is to subject it to the grueling “Bugs Bunny Test.” The Merry Widow, which opens Edmonton Opera’s season at the Jubilee Auditorium on Saturday, Oct. 24, might not have an entire Looney Toon devoted to it like Figaro or The Ring Cycle, but there is a rich widow (Granny) […]
HOW RUDE! Tales of Fringe audiences
There are 203 plays at the 2015 Edmonton International Fringe Festival this year – many times more than the number of productions throughout the entire rest of the regular season, and with that comes many more patrons who never see any other kind of theatre but the Fringe, once a year. Sometimes in an inebriated […]
Amber Nash puts a little ‘Pam’ in Fringe play
The name Amber Nash may not mean anything to you, but her voice undeniably will. The American actress voices the curvaceous, openly bi-sexual, hedonistic, human resources director Pam Poovey in FX’s hit adult-animated espionage satire cartoon Archer. Nash is in Edmonton for her one-woman show What’s Wrong With You? during Edmonton’s 34th International Fringe Theatre […]
REVIEW: The Book of Mormon a sacrilegious joy
In a world of the ridiculous, satire is king. The Book of Mormon proves it. There are a million ways to describe this big production musical, playing at the Jubilee Auditorium through March 29. You could call it a lampooning of a religion. You could call it a story on the power of metaphorical belief. You […]
Ask a Mormon about The Book of Mormon
Ask a Mormon about The Book of Mormon and you’ll discover they’re not exactly falling all over themselves to see the satirical musical by the creators of South Park (update: returning to the Jubilee Auditorium Sept. 13-18) They say it makes a mockery of their religion. They say it’s disrespectful. They say it misses the […]
