I’ve been there, watching a play when it happens. A sharp staccato rings out as the actor’s hand makes contact with their partner’s face onstage, and audience members grimace in sympathy, knowing that the fake slap made real contact. Usually the actor fights through the pain and tears to complete the scene before (in my …
Mary Sloan was only vaguely aware of the 2005 smash Broadway musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, when she learned that the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Brian Fidler, had picked it as this year’s season finale.
Falen Johnson doesn’t hold back when it comes to Gwaandak Theatre. “I love Gwaandak,” the Six Nations writer says straight out. “It’s a place where you know you’re immediately welcomed as an Indigenous playwright.” Johnson’s play Two Indians is one of three plays featured in this year’s Indigenous Summer Play Readings by Gwaandak Theatre. The …
When Michael Heney was just 14, he ran away from the family farm in the Ottawa Valley to work for an uncle who was building a portion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) near Georgian Bay. His father quickly dragged him home to finish his education, but four years later he was off again, determined …
The film Hell or High Water is a modern western written by Taylor Sheridan and directed by David Mackenzie. This hour and forty two minute flick stars Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and Ben Foster. Initial impressions… wow, just wow. It is rare these days to see a movie that truly gives characters time to develop …
Suicide Squad is DC Comics’ latest attempt to capture comic book magic on the silver screen. This flick comes in just over two hours and is written and directed by David Ayer. Full disclosure: I am a fan of the Suicide Squad comics and though I have not collected them in some time I am …
From Beirut to Buffalo, then Whitehorse. That’s how Clare Preuss sums up the summer of 2016 from her standpoint as an itinerant stage director. The Toronto-based actor, choreographer and director is currently in the Yukon to steer the Guild Theatre’s season-opener, Myth of the Ostrich. Although the Matt Murray comedy was a standout hit at …
Gwaandak Theatre is known for producing high quality, thought provoking and original productions. A large portion of its mandate is to help cultivate Aboriginal and Northern artists gain professional experience and exposure on stages close and far from home. Now celebrating their 15th year, Gwaandak continues to cultivate new theatre and artists with Its Exploring …
“The play was inspired by the shooting of a young man named Freddy Villaneuva,” Vancouver-based playwright Omari Newton tells me. “A young man that was apparently unarmed, had no previous criminal record. He got into some kind of altercation with the police, and he ended up getting shot. He died.” His play, Sal Capone: The …
In 1918, a young American soldier emerged from the ruins of a military kennel with a frantic, famished German Shepherd and her five newborn pups. Their survival on the battlefield in France was almost miraculous; Lee Duncan, their saviour, kept two of the puppies and named them after dolls worn as lucky talismans – Nanette …
Theatre-goers, is your relationship with plays getting a little humdrum? Are you looking for more spontaneity in your live-performances? Are you tired of rehearsed scripts, structured plot lines and carefully planned story arcs? Then maybe it’s time to open your mind to other, less “vanilla” theatre going experiences at try a little improv. You can …
Craving a dose of good old fashioned Vaudeville fun? Yukoners looking for something new and adult to do this holiday season have the opportunity to find it at Furlesque: A Northern Cabaret. The variety show will feature, among other things, belly dancing, old-style song and dance numbers, burlesque, gymnastics, actors, musicians and comedians. Each evening …
Props, actors, lighting, sound, marketing; these are some of the small but numerous little details which turn a “piece” into a “show.” These things need hands to make them happen and cost money – sometimes a lot of money. Many of the shows put on in the Yukon are created by home-grown production company run …
Whitehorse director and playwright Arlin McFarlane strives to captivate. She has developed a unique, one-actor play about our ability to change our lives around thanks to neuroplasticity. The play is about a young girl who is prone to self-destructive behaviour and seeks the help of a scientist. The scientist uses principles of neuroplasticity to help …
Another comedy that’s not really a comedy – that’s been my reaction to many contemporary films that seem to centre on the sad-clown school of funny, balanced heavily on the side of making me sad, and not in the fun way. So I wasn’t hopeful about Enough Said, a romantic comedy released in 2013 and …
Yes, TV and movies in colour are enjoyable and entertaining, but there is something about black-and-white film that sparks intrigue – especially the genre known as film noir. In my opinion, the acting in these films was perfect. You didn’t have to endure a team of B-list actors, cheesy plots, or special effects gone wrong. …
Walt Disney’s magic touch on celluloid created indelible memories for many moviegoers, but it induced tears of rage in P.L. Travers (born Helen Goff) at the Hollywood premiere of Mary Poppins in 1964. At least that’s what she said. Saving Mr. Banks, released in 2014 and available at the Whitehorse Public Library, revolves around the …
It can’t be easy to find your identity as a chubby performer in Hollywood. In an industry notorious for its worship of physical perfection, overweight actors must sometimes feel adrift. Case in point: Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He didn’t settle on an identity for five years. Of his first 15 television and film appearances he is …
Sonnet 1 The grace of she who moves like silken water, her feet the slaves to wild demanding beats. The master of motion and most pleasant to watch, her dance to leap to fly with sky she meets. A twist, a flick, a painter is painting quick, with red, with black, with orange a colour …
“Like all actors, I enjoy the spotlight. So if there’s an opportunity, I like to break out.” That is how 21-year-old Winluck Wong explains his antics on the karaoke stage at the Boiler Room. Go in there on any given Friday night and you’ll most likely see Wong belting out Usher’s You Got it Bad …
Sometimes people stumble upon their passions accidentally; such is the case with Sophia Marnik. After studying to become a teacher at McGill University, she came North to the Yukon, in 1996, with an open-ended future in front of her. At approximately the same time, a local production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was …
He calls it, “The Lenny Moment.” “I found myself frozen as music played the way I’ve never heard it before,” says Pierre Brault, a veteran Canadian playwright and actor who has performed in operas and Shakespearean and contemporary plays. He is speaking of the first time he “experienced” the music of Lenny Breau. His taste …
