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.,...
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).
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...
Awkward Stage Productions has established a solid reputation of presenting consistently strong musical productions with young casts and Cannibal is no exception. I applaud Awkward Stage for taking a risk by producing a show that pushes boundaries. For a company that I consider family friendly, this is no small thing. Do not take the kids to this one or anyone easily offended. Do take everyone else though.
This is the second stage version of Trey Parker’s Cannibal that I have seen. Trey Parker’s original script was written before South Park while he was still in University and it reads as...
Tthis “Feisty Old Jew” is forcing me to question my preconceptions. “She gets too hungry to wait for dinner at eight / She loves the theatre, but never comes late / She'd never bother with people she'd hate / That's why the lady is a tramp…” This is the classic Tony Bennett tune playing as I walked into the Performance Works Venue on a sunny weekday afternoon.
The bar doesn’t open for two hours and the crowd is sparse and the lights are up.
The Fringe schedule can be a challenging mad dash to find the right show in the right place at the right time, and sometimes leave one screaming “I’m late! I’m late! and I don’t even have a date!” I was in the Cultch and still trying to get a “Lovelash” out of my eye, when I realized that Ramshackle Theatre’s “We’re All Mad Here” was only 15 minutes later in time yet some unknown city blocks off in space. It’s a BYOV (Bring Your Venue).
Luckily, my east-side elder sister, who knows where madness lives, graciously offered to drive me to...
Fringe Description: Weird · In Your Face · Shocking
You enter the venue to the sounds of musician Michel Vles playing a variety of instruments to entertain your pre-show. This is a fitting beginning to a story about music in our lives and three young men’s quest to find a rare Japanese flute called a shakuhachi in Vancouver.
Jim Sands is a talented storyteller that weaves his tale of this quest with the help of the music and performance of Michel Vles. Although a few times Sands’ words got away from him, he recovered quickly and took the audience on a journey reminiscent of one...
