Vancouver, BC: In Stephen Greenblatt's introduction to Richard lll in the Norton Shakespeare, he relates a story about Shakespeare and the play, said to have been recorded in 1602 in the diary of a London law student. The gist of it was that a woman was so impressed with Richard Burbage in the title role that she invited him to visit her that very night as Richard lll. Shakespeare contrived to arrive before Burbage. When the announcement came that Richard lll was at the door, WS sent a return message that William the conqueror was before Richard lll.  True or not, as Greenblatt points out, the story illustrates that despite Richard's physical deformities and anti-heroic villainy, this protagonist has exerted a compelling attraction on generations of playgoers.

Vancouver, BC: Not so very long ago, playing strategy games on my computer was my favoured form of procrastination, and SimTower kept me distracted for hours at a time. The game objective was to build a towering skyscraper, with hotel rooms, condominiums, offices and restaurants, increase the resident population and keep the Sim people happy. Still today I keep calm in interminable lineups by remembering the Sims turning pink with frustration and then red with rage, as they waited for elevators to carry them down to their offices or up to their homes. As the hours progressed through days and nights, lights in the building units would switch on and off when the Sims woke or went to bed.  I was reminded of this, watching Tim Matheson's video projection of lights flicking on and off in the high rise buildings behind the new PAL Theatre.

Vancouver, BC: In 1997 I spent a week in war-torn Beirut. It was a mere 7 years after the official end of the civil war between Christians and Muslims that ravaged the city.  Syria was effectively in control of Lebanon and in the south, fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces was ongoing.  I was invited to Beirut to lecture and give workshops at a medical conference. When an ex-student of mine, suggested I combine the trip to Lebanon with a visit to Egypt to meet her family, against the advice of family and colleagues I decided to go. I saw the news of Princess Diana's death in a Cairo travel Agency as I was booking a tour to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.  Less than 10 weeks after I had wandered enthralled among the temple ruins, news headlines told of tourists gunned down on that very site. A random conjunction of time, place and terror - and 62 lives lost.

Vancouver, BC:  It is fitting that Meta.for Theatre opened its production of Sherman's play, BENT, on Halloween night. Though first produced in 1978, and set in pre-world war II Germany, this powerful play evokes the ghosts of the millions who were killed because they were Jewish, homosexual, disabled, or otherwise "different" as well the millions more who died in action on land, or in sea or sky. In Vancouver on Halloween night the dead walked among us again with their plea to "never forget". And although the events of this play and The Holocaust that followed, happened years before most of the cast and crew were born, and even before I was born, indeed we must never forget.