23 people from interdisciplinary arts studies have collaborated to create this interesting site-specific performance. Capilano University, Douglas College, St Claire (Ont) and Studio 58 (including alumni from California) infiltrate the Backstage Lounge at the Arts Club and give us an opportunity to think about interpersonal connections made, lost and too often intermediated by technology and others.
Our MC Rachel has all the moxy and sassiness required to yank in the audience, some of whom had no idea they would become ‘the audience’. We move through some amazing tricks of time travel (signified by Big Ben bells and slow...
The promo says it’s a sci-fi version of the fairytale Puss ‘n’ Boots. In both stories, a son inherits a cat from his father. Disappointed at first, it turns out, in both cases to be a smart cat and a good deal after all. As a love story, Puss: Reboot is summarized as: Boy meets cyborg. Boy loses memory. Cyborg wakes up and leaves.
Father, patriarch of cyborg manufacturing company, has disappeared after struggle with Puss, one of the original cyborg prototypes. Jed, the evil brother, wants to keep all cyborgs including Puss as, well, cyborgs – tools to be used...
Get your tickets now; these guys have played to sold out Fringe houses for years. This is the first time I’ve ever been able to get a ticket to see them and the wait was well worth it. I eagerly await all future works.
Peter and Chris are wonderfully playful, inventive, and very funny. Their physicality, humour, and creativity is boundless in crafting multiple characters (including some that they both play) and a wild west world all their own. They give a master class in sketch, improv, and comedy. It's a joy to watch two performers that work so well...
By wishing to give the audience more (i.e. longer plays and movies), producers, almost inevitably, give their audiences less. Most every show in the world could be shorter and it would be stronger. At 75 minutes, Whackjob is no exception.
The script could benefit from dramaturgy, focus, and further development. The characters could be further realized with more depth, nuanced relationships, and arc. It feels like a short sketch drawn out to feature length without enough content to sustain it. If you’re looking for a professional and polished production, I’d suggest something created by Monster Theatre (Tara Travis, Gladstone Bros.,...
Devon Moore is a talented actor/singer/songwriter who had returned to Canada after years of traveling the world as an Ex-Pat. She returned home to settle down and get on with her life. She enrolled in college and hated it in every way. She then obtained a job using the only skill that she has, bartending. Moore points out that a bartender is just a high functioning alcoholic and apparently she was good at it. She struggles to find a direction in her life but instead finds a gorgeous young man to hang out with, even though he was...
Mindy Dillard is a very talented singer with a Broadway-calibre voice. She is also an eating disorder survivor. This is the story of her eating disorder and how it impacted her and those around her.
Mindy starts the show by picking up the book “You are a beautiful Princess – Instruction #1 Making yourself Perfect”. This is the start of the instructions on the how’s and why’s of having an eating disorder in order to satisfy the world and the voices in her head. This is a very personal story that Dillard said that she had to share with...
Fringe regular Ryan Gladstone has returned with a remount of his one man show No Tweed Too Tight: A Grant Canyon Mystery. The year is 1976 and Grant Canyon, (Gladstone), a perpetually inebriated insurance investigator, weaves a tale of dead bodies, satisfied ladies, and many empty bottles.
Directed by Bruce Horak, Gladstone nimbly navigates the twisting and turning 60 minute script (written by himself and Horak), slipping between characters, locations, weapons and fight scenes. While Gladstone is alone on stage, special mention needs to be given to the score by Drew Jurecka and Robbie Grunwald, which brings another...
Fringe regular Ryan Gladstone has returned with a remount of his one man show No Tweed Too Tight: A Grant Canyon Mystery. The year is 1976 and Grant Canyon, (Gladstone), a perpetually inebriated insurance investigator, weaves a tale of dead bodies, satisfied ladies, and many empty bottles.
Directed by Bruce Horak, Gladstone nimbly navigates the twisting and turning 60 minute script (written by himself and Horak), slipping between characters, locations, weapons and fight scenes. While Gladstone is alone on stage, special mention needs to be given to the score by Drew Jurecka and Robbie Grunwald, which brings another...
I know Edward Albee has written much more than "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", but that is the play that seems to get staged the most. So I was quite pleased to see another Albee work being staged. The set, onstage at the Cultch Culture Lab, is as simple as can be -- just a park bench. But with the use of sound and light and conversation, you quickly start to see and feel it as a secluded corner of New York City's Central Park near 5th Avenue and 74th Street.
Like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", this play...
Legends performing legends. There’s no surprise that Best Picture was sold out the day that I saw it, and I’m sure it has been again and again since then – deservedly so.
Fringe legends Tara Travis and Jon Paterson join Fringe cult-star Kurt Fitzpatrick to play a cast of thousands as they jump from film to film to film to film performing bits (or even just titles) from every Oscar Best Picture film ever. That’s 86 films in 60 minutes (with a few non-Oscar winning favourites sneaking their way in as well).
