[Title of show]
Music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen
Book by Hunter Bell
Directed by Mike McKenzie
Musical Director - Stewart Yu
Choreography by Sara-Jean Hosie and Shane Snow
A Homeshark Equity Co-op productioins
Granville Island Revue Stage
Feb 15 to 26th, 2011
Vancouver, BC: Calling a show [title of show] is cute but a touch risky for sales I would think. I confess that when I first saw the email notifying me about the opening of the show I suspected it was spam and almost deleted it before curiosity made me open the email. I'm glad I did.
The talented and energetic ensemble staging this musical on the Revue Stage produced an excellent evening of entertainment fun and I thoroughly recommend it.
The Secret in the Wings by Mary Zimmerman
Directed by Mike Stack
Music composition and direction by Kevin McNulty
Studio 58, Langara College
Nov 18 to Dec 5, 2010
This show may not have made it onto your theatre-going radar but I highly recommend that you head on over to Studio 58 at Langara College to see The Secret in the Wings. Everything about this production and especially the perfectly paced direction and the outstanding ensemble work is first class. It's definitely top of my current "do not miss" list of shows.
Playland by Athol Fugard
Directed by Anthony Ingram
Pacific Theatre
Nov 5 - 27, 2010
I grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era and moved to Canada some 15 years before the time in which this play is set. Ironically it was here in Canada rather than in South Africa that I learned about and became an admirer of Athol Fugard 's plays.
Don Quixote
By Colin Heath and Peter Anderson
Directed by Roy Surette
Adapted from the novel by Miguel de Cervantes
A co-production of the Arts Club and Centaur Theatre Companies in association with Axis Theatre.
Granville Island Stage
Sept 23 to Oct 23, 2010
Vancouver, BC: As a life-long compulsive reader whose greatest pleasure from childhood was to journey into the imaginary worlds I discovered in books, how could I not find myself heart and soul in sympathy with the deluded seventeenth-century gentleman, Alonso Quixano, who becomes the "knight errant, Don Quixote de la Mancha" and sets out to right the wrongs of the world. In my more cynical moments, I might even wonder how many of us today, trying to do our bit to make our little piece of the world a "better" place, find that we are but tilting at windmills.
Lobby Hero by Kenneth Lonergan
Directed by Kelly-Ruth Mercier
Dirty Manhattan Equity Co-op
Havana Theatre
Sept 29 to Oct 16, 2010
Vancouver, BC: My only previous exposure to a Kenneth Lonergan play was four years ago and at that time This is My Youth brought forth a rant rather than a rave. So I had prepared myself for more of the same with Lobby Hero. But instead I thoroughly enjoyed this production. I thought the script dealt with some really interesting issues, the set design made excellent use of the black box space, and the actors gave very creditable performances.
Henry V by William Shakespeare
Directed by Meg Roe
Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival,
Studio Stage, Vanier Park.
to September 24th, 2010
Vancouver, BC: Following her 2008 directing debut at Bard on the Beach with a lively production of The Tempest, Meg Roe has again created a visually exciting and engrossing work in this year's production of Henry V. And this year, instead of having Alessandro Juliani produce a complete soundscape to underscore the production as in The Tempest, she places him front and centre as Henry V. A multi-talented artist - he performs both tasks, sound design (for The Tempest) and acting in the lead role (of two plays at the same time!), with equal aplomb. Juliani is quite entrancing to watch onstage, and he played a Hal and a Henry worthy of the crown he ultimately attains.
The Misanthrope - a new adaptation of Moliere's play
by Tony Harrison
Directed by C.W. (Toph) Marshall
United Players
Jericho Arts Centre
June 4 to 27, 2010
Vancouver, BC: British playwright Tony Harrison's version of Moliere's The Misanthrope has an interesting history that culminated in United Players getting to produce the world premiere of this adaptation. Harrison first adapted The Misanthrope for London's National Theatre in 1973. The current version of his script was commissioned for the Old Vic Theatre but the death of the director in 2006 shelved the project, and Marshall was able to get the rights to stage it for the first time, in Vancouver.
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story by Alan Janes and Rob Bettinson
Directed by Bill Millerd
Choreographer Valerie Easton
Musical Director Sasha Niechoda
Vancouver, BC: When your entire audience is on their feet ready to break loose for a rock and roll party you know you have yet another hit on your hands. Bill Millerd and the Arts Club gang must be rockin' and rollin' themselves because that's what happened last night at the opening night of Buddy at the Stanley Theatre.
This Vancouver production of Buddy - a musical that enjoyed a 13 year run after its original 1989 opening in London's West end and has delighted audiences round the world, rocked the joint to the rafters and is a must see for anyone who loves to rock and roll.
Buddy is set in the US, between January 1956, when Buddy Holly was a young singer trying to find his own musical voice in the dominant country music scene, and February 1959 when he died at 22 in a plane crash. The show charts his meteoric rise to the top of the billboards with the release of 3 original albums in that short span of time.
At the Corner of Virtue and Sexmore
by William Maranda
Directed by Elizabeth McLaughlin
William Maranda Productions
Studio 16
April 23 to May 7
Vancouver, BC: The premise behind this play sounded quite promising. A comedy about 7 strangers in a boarding house at the corner where the street Virtue meets Sexmore - and where raging hormones collide with celibacy. The last play I saw by playwright Maranda was The 8th Land which I really enjoyed so I anticipated a sound evening's entertainment.
I was also intrigued by the way in which this work had evolved into the production now being staged. Last September, four groups of Vancouver actors, 6 per group, participated in a a rather unique production process around the staging of this play. Each group was given a "Seven Characters in Need" Production package which contained one quarter of the script for this play, a set design and a list of provided props. They had 48 hours to memorize their parts, develop costumes and to stage their portion of the script. The four groups then performed their sections of the play in sequence. One group was selected to finally perform the entire play, under the direction of McLaughlin, who had directed the winning sections.
The small intimate Studio 16 is well suited for the staging of this play which is billed as a farce. The set design by Craig Alfredson uses the space very well. The audience looks into the two level interior of the V&S Hotel. On either end of the second floor a door opens into a room with a bed. One is inhabited by sex-addicted Bob Bob (J.P. McGlynn). The other, by Mr. Cable (Matt Kennedy) who wanted to research techniques to make him into a sex machine!
The doors were numbered 2, 3, 5, and 604; promising something mysterious. I really loved the set which had great potential for a fast paced farcical use of the various doors. But despite the often frenetic pace of the play, the direction did not make good enough use of this aspect of the set and the 604 mystery was not well enough developed.
The Breath of Life by David Hare
Directed by Adam Henderson
United Players of Vancouver
Jericho Arts Centre
Apr 2 -25, 2010
Vancouver, BC: I finally managed to see the last of the four plays with "great roles for older women" featured in Vancouver within the past 4 months, as alluded to in my Preview of Collected Stories. Starting with the Arts Club's, Mrs. Dexter & her Daily in January, this coincidental "series" of plays includes Queen Lear at Presentation House in March, and Collected Stories at PAL Theatre and Breath of Life, both this month.
[Title of show]
The talented and energetic ensemble staging this musical on the Revue Stage produced an excellent evening of entertainment fun and I thoroughly recommend it.
The Secret in the Wings by Mary Zimmerman
Playland by Athol Fugard
Don Quixote
Lobby Hero by Kenneth Lonergan
Henry V by William Shakespeare
The Misanthrope - a new adaptation of Moliere's play
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story by Alan Janes and Rob Bettinson
At the Corner of Virtue and Sexmore
The Breath of Life by David Hare
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