By Heart: PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
At Performance Works
January 20 and 21
Posted January 20, 2017
Portuguese playwright and actor Tiago Rodrigues evokes disparate writers – Shakespeare, George Steiner, Ray Bradbury, Joseph Brodsky, Boris Pasternak and others – while teaching Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30 to ten volunteers.
At The Cultch until January 21, 2017
604-251-1363/thecultch.com
Posted January 13, 2017
There’s no good season for war; broken bodies, broken hearts and broken minds are shipped back to their loved ones in spring, summer, fall and winter.
January 2016 kicked off with the effervescent Blackbird Theatre production of The Rivals. Everyone’s favourite character in this 18th century comedy is Mrs. Malaprop and, almost bursting out of her bodice, actor Gabrielle Rose showed once again her spectacular dramatic versatility.
At The Stanley. Held over until January 8, 2017
If your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews have all grown up, take the child-you-used-to-be to Mary Poppins: The Broadway Musical directed by the Arts Club’s artistic managing director Bill Millerd.
Kayla James as Mary Poppins. Credit: David Cooper
At Jericho Arts Centre until December 18, 2016
“Jacob Marley was dead.” In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol we know that Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner is “most sincerely dead” but we don’t know why he comes back on Christmas Eve to haunt Scrooge’s bedchamber. What’s in it for Jacob Marley?
Linden Banks as Jacob Marley in Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol
Troilus and Cressida
Under the intelligent and creative direction of Kevin Bennett (whose King Lear in the tiny Havana Theatre in 2012 remains unforgettable), almost twenty Studio 58 students wade right in with swords cutting the air.
Raylene Harewood as Cressida and Teo Saefkow as Troilus. Credit: Emily Cooper
At The York Theatre until December 31, 2016
In the huge hole left in the Christmas season when Leaky Heaven Circus quit doing their much-loved show, Theatre Replacement, in association with The Cultch, jumped in and are we grateful? “Oh, yes, we are”. “Oh, no, you aren’t.” “Oh, yes, we are.”
Andrew McNee as The Wolf in the East Van Panto: Little Red Riding Hood. Credit: Emily Cooper Photography
At The Cultch until November 27, 2016
It’s appalling to consider that in 2016 a young girl from a good middle-class family can still be sold into the Calcutta (now Kolkata) sex trade by her brother-in-law.
Laara Sadiq as Jamuna and Adele Noronha as Rekha in Brothel #9. Credit: Emily Cooper Photography
At the Jericho Arts Centre until November 27, 2016
Fresh is not a word often applied to a production of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. But directed by Michael Fera for United Players, that’s exactly what this production is.
Francis Winter as Oswald, Tanja Dixon-Warren (Mrs. Alving) and Elizabeth Willow (Regina) in Ghosts. Credit: Nancy Caldwell
At The Shop Theatre until November 19, 2016
The Renegade Arts Co., under the artistic direction of Jim Buckshon, gives you a rare chance to see the seldom-produced rock musical The Who’s Tommy.
Jeremiah Vezina as Young Tommy in The Who’s Tommy. Credit: Gloria Vezina