A family-friendly 10.45pm show is always a worry. But worry not The Histories for one reason or another is no more as in “not featured in this year’s fringe festival” unbeknownst to the audience until we took our seats, in its place Will Shakespeare’s Improv Musical.
“When she finds someone in the tide, her universe is forever changed…”
I was very excited to go and see this show as it is in a new venue on Granville Island Alder Bay Bridge. This is the bridge behind the False Creek Community centre on the far side of the children’s playground, I am telling you this so you know where to go when you get your ticket from the box office, there are no signs or indication it is there until you find it, in my case a few minutes after the show had started (and a couple...
Drama, Physical Theatre, New Work http://andtheotherlegtheatre.wordpress.com/
Over here, over there, no over here, now over there. Using plug-in lights on the stage, a few props and their bodies, the cast of Grey Matter flick through the memories of an old woman suffering with Alzheimer’s as experienced by her granddaughter.
While monologuist TJ Dawe has been called a ‘Fringe God’, performance poet Jem Rolls could easily be canonized as the Patron Saint of the Canadian Fringe circuit. His rapid-fire delivery and word play calisthenics have become rituals for his devoted audience and for these loyal attendees, no introduction is necessary. The show itself varies year to year, sometimes a series of unconnected poems and occasionally a long thematic piece.
Heroes, a play about three WWI veterans plotting a getaway from a military retirement home somewhere in France, is a perfect vehicle for three veteran Vancouver actors: John Innes, William Samples and Michael Dobbin. Written in 2003 by Gérald Sibleyras, translated and adapted from French by Tom Stoppard, Le Vent des Peupliers won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy (as Heroes) in 2006.
William Samples, Michael Dobbin & John Innes (photo credit: Ksenia Makagovona)
Two chairs, a music stand and two old timey microphones, Ne Me Quitte Pas is a simple revue of a selection of Edith Piaf and Jaques Brel greatest hits. The two singers, Melanie Gall and Brehmer Duthie, are currently touring separate shows, and have come together in a shared passion for the French chanteur and chanteuse.
Musical Theatre, Cabaret, All Ages http://www.piafandbrel.com/
God is a Scottish Drag Queen. This is something that those of us with Scottish backgrounds have known for secretly for a long time. The title might conjure up images of a young Allan Cummings in knee high boots and flashing eyes lashes.
Seriously, if you are looking for subtlety or sophistication give this one a miss. However, if you want to throw yourself into a world in which many young adults live then you might want to have a look.
Yes, Corrin Raymond ends this piece with a Prologue. It's appropriate, as it does feel like a beginning since Corrin has just taken his audience with him on a magical mystery tour of literature.
“Slumming” is a new work by Barbara Ellison; Ellison also directs. The show introduces us to the complex lives of recently fallen from grace, middle-class Grace, played by Terri Anne Taylor, and a young sex worker Brittany, played by Stevie Jackson. The program notes tell us the play had its genesis in the Downtown East Side (DTES) as Ellison observes a sex worker at work from the rehearsal hall at the Firehall.
