We Don’t Even Know What We Don’t Know
Prophecy Fog is only a solo performance if you don’t consider the rocks to be performers. Jani Lauzon does.
theatre
Wyrd: A Musical UnFairytale
The idea for Wyrd first came about after playwrights Katherine McCallum and Angela Drainville met for the first time in 2017.
The Wolves At The Guild
The play itself is written for female-identifying characters which was a huge draw for Pritchard, Clark and Sinclair…
The Phoenix Burns Brightly In Fort Nelson
John Roper, general manager of the Phoenix Theatre Management Society, greets me with friendly enthusiasm. His love for the theatre and his love for his audience shine warmly in all of his stories.
Welcome back… to the Round Back
With an improved ‘Round Back venue in place, the Guild Hall unveils a new series of performances. Music, theatre, comedy and more.
Alone Together at Wood Street Centre
With COVID consuming a year of everyone’s lives, it seems almost for creatives to produce work that reflects the strangeness of these times
Dreary and Izzy at the Guild
This May, Whitehorse’s Guild Hall is presenting Dreary and Izzy, a play by Tara Beagan which centres on a pair of sisters who have lost their parents in a car accident.
Every Brilliant Thing
Every Brilliant Thing is a delightfully funny play about depression, but it’s not depressing. It’s also no surprise that the Guild theatre’s first indoor play of the season is about connection.
Bringing live performance back to the Yukon
The Guild Hall is getting creative. Of course, that’s pretty standard for the Whitehorse theatre, but COVID-19 is forcing a different kind of creativity.
The shows must go on!
Yukon theatre companies are finding creative ways to present work. Adapting shows and developing unique formats to fit with our new reality.
Isolation, underwear fights and hanging around the house
How Isolation, underwear fights and hanging around the house inspiration for Theatre in the Bush. ‘That would make a great spot for a show.’”
An appetite for stories
The story you tell in a restaurant is going to be different than the story one tells on a bus. It is nice to get unconventional storytellers into the Pivot Festival and into unusual venues for performances.
Shakespeare in hiding
Sir Tom Stoppard is one of Britain’s best-loved playwrights and screenwriters, known for rapid-fire dialogue that also carries deep philosophical truths. Apart from his screenplay for Shakespeare in Love, he is perhaps best-known for his Tony Award-winning play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a philosophical comedy that brings two minor characters in Hamlet into the limelight. A quarter century ago, Whitehorse …
Another opening, et cetera
Ken is back producing a performance on the stage of big dreams Six hours after I email this column to Danny Macdonald, and long before you read it in What’s Up Yukon, these words by Cole Porter from the 1948 Broadway smash, Kiss Me, Kate, will be part of my remembered experience: The overture is about to …
It may be ugly, but someday I might call it home
I recently wrote about my new vocation as a DIY coffin maker. OK, strictly speaking it’s not a coffin. It’s a casket. On a draped bier. Thanks to the braintrust at Google, I now understand that a casket is rectangle-shaped, whereas a coffin is tapered at the head and foot. (The sort of vessel from …
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Read all about it
Disney’s Newsies, put on by Yukon Theatre for Young People (YTYP), will premiere on June 14 at the Yukon Arts Centre. The cast for the Tony-winning Broadway play consists of more than 30 youth performers, ranging from nine to 19-years-old, as well as another eight professional Yukon actors. Brian Fidler is the director, Allyn Walton is …
A solo show
If you’ve never heard of Paul Chartier, it’s with good reason. History doesn’t usually remember what might have been. “If he had succeeded in what he set out to do, his name would be taught in every classroom in the nation,” said Doug Rutherford, local playwright. “But he failed, which has made him a very …
Spirit of the times
The German term zeitgeist is generally rendered in English as the spirit of a given time, as shown in prevailing thought or customs. (Think, perhaps, how Carnaby Street reflected the social values of mid-1960s Britain.) In 2019, are Yukon audiences ready for an evening of music and comedy that offers a glimpse at the zeitgeist of contemporary …
All work and a play
On a Thursday afternoon at Takhini Elementary School, a class played dodgeball in the gym, seemingly unaware that, on the other side of the heavy blue curtain pulled across the school’s stage, was Paris. It was obvious as soon as you stepped behind the curtain. There was a tree-lined street with tall, black gas lamps …
The anarchy element
At the age of nine, Tomáš Kubínek gave his first performance before a group of experienced magicians. Four years later, he had an agent. He would soon make his circus debut with a duo of Brazilian clowns.
At least I’m not a giraffe’s backside this time
The time-honoured English tradition of the Christmas pantomime (known affectionately as just “panto”) was not part of my childhood. For the benefit of those of us who weren’t weaned on this particular theatrical fare, it’s important to bear in mind various traditions, tropes, and stereotypes of an English-style panto.
Searching for a way out
Genevieve Fleming is counting on Whitehorse audiences to take in the upcoming Guild Theatre production, even if just to indulge in some cold-weather Schadenfreude. In one sense, the Vancouver-based director suggested in an interview, staging French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play, No Exit, is like holding a mirror up to our own society. “We, the …
Be afraid … be very afraid!
As the days grow dark and the cool air settles in, Yukoners begin to turn their attention from campfires to pumpkins, embracing the spirit of Halloween. The City of Whitehorse bristles with spooky events for all ages. One of the largest and most-sought-after Halloween fixtures is the annual MAD Haunted House, presented by the Music, …
What would you do?
Wren Brian was just 10 years old when the first X-Men movie came out in 2000. The film’s opening scene, set in the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, triggered a fascination with the Nazi Holocaust that remains with her today. Until a single one-hour history lesson in Grade 12, however, the Whitehorse-born playwright had …
Overloaded by motherhood
It’s a comedy about the darkness of parenthood. That’s how Emelia Symington Fedy describes Motherload, the collectively-created play she and three castmates are bringing to the Yukon Arts Centre’s mainstage on October 13. Fedy traces the play’s conception to a specific outing with her infant son, at a time when she was grieving her own …
Downfall of a Salesman
The Guild Theatre will launch its 2018–19 season this week with Lawrence and Holloman, a darkly hilarious two-hander by award-winning Canadian playwright Morris Panych. First produced at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in 1998, it later inspired a film by the same name, starring Ben Cotton and Daniel Arnold, which drew mixed critical and box office response. …
Busting up in the communities
Open Pit Theatre is excited to be taking their play, Busted Up: A Yukon Story, on the road. They’ll be coming to Dawson City on September 29, Carcross on October 2 and will be back in Whitehorse for a show on October 3. The play already premiered in 2017, as part of Canada 150, playing …
Play-fighting for fun
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 …
Can wisdom save the world?
The post-apocalyptic, not-so-distant-future world of The Unplugging, an award-winning play by Canadian playwright Yvette Nolan, is the latest production on offer from the Yukon-based Gwaandak Theatre.
In the spirit of re-emergence
The Yukon Playwrights Conference will feature information sessions presented by guest playwrights from outside of the territory and Yukon playwrights. They include, from top left Jacob Zimmer, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Kevin Loring, Monique Renaud, Wren Brian, Roy Ness, Patti Flather, Doug Rutherford, Brian Fidler, Reneltta Arluk, Leonard Linklater and Kevin Kennedy. PHOTO: courtesy of the …
Spelling it out
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.
Life 40-seconds at a time
Yukon storyteller Ivan Coyote and songwriter Sarah MacDougall are excited to premier their latest collaboration in Whitehorse.
Ten days to celebrate Pivot Festival’s 10th year
The Pivot Festival runs Jan. 24 to Feb. 3 with local and national acts Since Nakai Theatre launched the Pivot Festival in 2008, there have been some big names and unforgettable performances that have graced stages and pop-up theatre settings in Whitehorse. The festival has boasted bringing unconventional and award-winning shows from across Canada and …
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Hand to God
Lust, grief, denial and repression (not to mention demonic possession) in the bible-belt town of Cypress, Texas. Oh, yes. Don’t forget the puppets. These are all elements of the Guild Theatre’s upcoming production of Hand to God, a dark comedy by Robert Askins, who actually grew up in the Houston-area community in which he set …
Chance or choice?
Is it character, circumstance, or the choices we make that determines our lot in life?
This is the conundrum that lies at the heart of Good People.
All the world’s a stage
Morris, an improv teacher and artistic director of The Paper Street Theatre company in Victoria, B.C. was giving a talk at a TedX event in 2012 about “The way of Improv,” much to the audience’s delight. In the crowd that evening was Shahin Mohammadi.
Stonecliff brings together a remarkable team of artists (Part 2 of 2)
The new musical drama Stonecliff tells the story of Michael J. Heney, the son of poor Irish immigrants in the Ottawa Valley who went on to build one of the world’s most spectacular railways – the White Pass and Yukon Route – to serve the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898.
One woman – 24 characters
Katherine McCallum performs The Syringa Tree, Nov 8 to 26 at the Courts Theatre
Making it last
Cathy Stubington doesn’t mind being in the shadows when she does a show. In fact, she prefers it.
Good Night, Good Morning
Ann-Marie MacDonald’s award-winning comedy Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) has been around for almost 30 years, but Brian Fidler and Clare Preuss are convinced it will still play well to contemporary Whitehorse audiences. “I think it appeals to the core audience of the Guild that likes a good Canadian classic show, and that loves Shakespeare,” …
Very Old, Very New
Not many art forms can trace their origins back to a single year. But according to Toshi Aoyagi, program officer for the Japan Foundation, Toronto, the popular theatre genre known as Kabuki started in exactly 1603. And it’s still going strong. Aoyagi will be in Whitehorse this week to introduce Yukon Arts Centre audiences to …
Hidden Memories Revealed at Fringe Festival
Five years ago Hidden Memories started as a one-act play Lillian Nakamura Maguire drafted to improve her dialogue skills for a creative writing class. Now the full-length version will be featured in the Vancouver Fringe Festival’s Advance Theatre: New Works by Diverse Women on September 13. “It’s the first time Hidden Memories will be read …
Real Stories from Real People
Three years of collaborating, interviewing and gathering has culminated in one powerful play that shares both beautiful, heartfelt reflections and the harsh realities of northern living. Busted Up: A Yukon Story presents the colourful and eclectic real-life voices of the Yukon – politicians, mothers, fathers and children – 33 voices, to be exact. The play, …
From stage to page
When Yukon playwright Patti Flather launched the book of her highly acclaimed play, Paradise, on a warm June evening at Baked Café in Whitehorse, Mac’s Fireweed Books sold out all their copies. “The thing about a play, is after it’s produced it’s done. A book lasts,” says Flather. Flather is a co-founder of Gwaandak Theatre, …
A Year of Firsts at the Yukon Arts Centre
There’s a lot to look forward to at the Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) this coming season. “We want all Yukoners to enjoy the arts and not have to go down to Toronto,” says YAC Marketing and Development Director Sarah Frey. This season the centre is celebrating its 25th anniversary year. “It’s a big year for …
Stories Come to Life
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 …
Experiencing Theatre in Namibia
It’s 15 minutes before our performance starts and one of my actors has a meltdown. “No, I am not gonna play,” he says avoiding eye contact. Philo is 12 years old and usually confident. I would never have expected that from him. It’s Valentine’s Day and we rehearsed for our little performance the whole week. …
Telling the untold stories of the Yukon
The first days in the creation of the play Map of the Land, Map of the Stars took place in the summer of 2015 along the banks of the Yukon River. A group of artists gathered with stories, images, objects, and songs – items that they were drawn to and that were rooted in the …
Identity Crisis
What does it take to make a puppet show that is also a stage show and a live-action video all in one? A script, a bunch of performers, some music. Lights, cameras, action. And cardboard. Miles of cardboard, according to Edward Westerhuis. “We go to different stores, to the dump behind their stores. The stuff …
Butterflies, Ravens and Tlingit Princesses – Oh My!
The event’s honoured figure, Sam Johnston, is a venerated elder within the Teslin Community. He has been a politician, athlete and former chief of the Teslin Tlingit Council, as well as a celebrated community figure. “The goal of this day is to share some stories with (Johnston), make him feel special and thank him for …
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She’s Been Bitten
It was the promise of bannock that first lured Melaina Sheldon into the orbit of Gwaandak Theatre in 2010. The show’s limited budget also allowed Sheldon to use some of the design skills she had developed in a one-year diploma course in fashion design in Vancouver. “I’m a Salvation Army thrift store shopper, for sure, …
Delightful Devilry: The Cancan Invades New York
Although the cancan made its North American debut with Offenbach’s opera Orpheus of the Underworld in 1861, it wasn’t until it appeared in the first American musical that the cancan became a true phenomenon in North America. In 1866 Henry C. Jarrett and Harry Palmer imported a large group of Parisian dancers to perform the …
Life Lines
Faye Ferguson understands the value of documenting one’s life stories, for both the writer and the eventual reader. Ferguson is a personal historian based in Victoria, B.C. who helps people fashion their life stories into print or digital forms, either as full-length memoirs or as scrapbook-type snippets that highlight specific remembered moments or stages of …
Triple Threat
The Pivot Theatre Festival – Nakai Theatre’s annual performance showcase – begins a seven-night run this weekend in multiple Whitehorse venues. In addition to smaller-scale offerings such as a theatrical pub walk, an evening of spoken word material and a “speed-friending” event called Stranger Connections, the festival will feature the three major pieces, including: A …
Burning Questions
“If this show is revealing something about me that’s touching people and moving them, then I have to pursue it,” he decided. The burning personal question Heins originally set out to address came from the fact that he was an only child, and grew up wondering what it would be like to have a brother …
Christmas Eve Preparations in October
Organizers for the Christmas Eve Pageant Photo Shoot were on edge as October 2 dawned. Would there be a lot of snow on the Bonanza Road sites where the pictures were to be taken? Would it be too cold that day? Would there be enough sunlight to get good shots? It was, after all, a …
Hang on, George
Christmas Eve, 1946. Several actors huddle around their microphones, live-broadcasting a radio station’s seasonal drama, complete with commercial intervals and a touch of Yuletide music. The story they are dramatizing concerns a well-meaning chap from a small town, struggling to save his deceased father’s savings and loan company from bankruptcy. His world is collapsing, because …
Old Time Horror
Geneviève Doyon and Jessica Hickman have, once again, combed through silent films, searching for excerpts to play on a screen to an audience. This is the third year they’ve done it. Doyon and Hickman are the co-artistic directors of Open Pit Theatre. Doyon is based in Whitehorse, Hickman in Victoria. The film nights have become …
Exploring Identity
Falen Johnson doesn’t know where the expression “salt baby” came from, but it’s a moniker the First Nations actor-turned-playwright acquired at birth. “I don’t remember being called that when I was a kid, but I remember hearing stories that I was called that as a baby, because I was really white-looking. It may have just …
Roller Coaster
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 …
Capturing a Country’s Memories
When Charles Ketchabauw and Lisa Marie DiLiberto rolled into Whitehorse late last month, they weren’t your typical rubber-tire tourists. Sure, they had two small kids and a teardrop trailer in tow, which made their eight-day journey from Toronto what DiLiberto terms “epic and absurd.” But they weren’t here to drink in the sights and sample …
Who’s Line is it Anyway?
Expect the unexpected. This is good advice for both performers and audience at a typical improv event. Mind you, “typical” is a misnomer for a genre defined by having a unique performance every time. If you’ve ever had a yen to create one-of-a-kind, hilarious scenes, get yourself to the Guild Hall every Tuesday at 8 …
The legacy of the Follies
The Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue is the longest running independent theatre company in North America. Or, at least, that’s Grant Simpson’s speculation. He’s also got an application in to the Guiness World Book of Records to affirm that the it’s the longest running vaudeville show. In the world. Simpson is into longevity. The Whitehorse show …
Spotlight on Kids at Vaudeville Camp
School’s out for the summer, which means that summer camp is IN! An exciting new day camp is taking centre-stage this year in Whitehorse – specifically, it is taking the stage at the Frantic Follies Theatre, home to the Frantic Follies vaudeville revue. For almost 50 years, Frantic Follies has been delighting Whitehorse audiences with …
Community Theatre at its Finest
Friends of the Palace Grand Theatre presenting A Klondike Cabin Companion, a live radio performance, bring community theatre to Dawson City.
Follow Our Trails
Audience members with program “maps” in hand will be guided through the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre for a unique performance adventure from Gwaandak Theatre, showcasing the spectacular riverfront and Yukon stories about who we are and where we come from. Gwaandak Theatre in association with the Yukon Arts Centre and Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre (KDCC) …
I Know What You Did
In Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th century collection of novellas called The Decameron, seven young women and three young men entertain each other with stories for 10 days inside a secluded villa near Florence as they tried to escape the Black Death. More than 650 years later, Toronto playwright and multidisciplinary theatre maker Jordan Tannahill found himself …
It’s Not All Greek
When you think of the Greek philosopher, Plato – if you think of him at all – the expression “party animal” might not come to mind. But Zuppa Theatre Co. would like to change that. The Halifax-based troupe has taken one of Plato’s best-known works, The Symposium, and re-cast it as a modern party – …
Who’s Out There?
Don’t bother asking Damien Atkins whether or not he believes in UFOs. He won’t tell you. What the Toronto-based playwright and actor will do instead is talk about his one-person play, We Are Not Alone, which he’s bringing to Whitehorse next month as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. “When I do interviews about …
New Artistic Director used to couch surf at The Guild Hall
One of Brian Fidler’s first memories of the Yukon is sleeping on the couch at The Guild Hall. He had just arrived in town and – without a car – would hitchhike to rehearsals of El Crocodor, his first Yukon theatre experience. From those early years, Fidler spent a lot of time at The Guild. …
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Life, Love and Trevor
Dogtown: the Musical, a story based on the life and fate of a local dog named Trevor, will be one of the many productions featured during the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, taking place June 9 to 18 Nakai Theatre and the Yukon Circus Society are the co-presenters of Dogtown: the Musical, which will be playing …
Gearing Up for Yukomicon 2017
A comic-con is an annual event where sci-fi lovers congregate to pay homage to super heroes/villains/authors/actors/producers who help bring this genre to life on the big screen/small screen and comic pages. Cities in North America and around the world host comic-cons, with San Diego being the most popular on this continent. There is typically something …
The Next Act
Longtime Yukon teacher Mary Sloan and rapper Eminem have something in common. They both got their careers started in Detroit’s notorious 8-Mile district. However, Sloan’s teaching environment from the beginning to the end could not have been more different. Growing up in Michigan, Sloan was just 20 years old when she began her first teaching …
National Theatre Festival Comes to Whitehorse
“It’s the only national theatre festival in Canada,” Selene Vakharia tells me. She, along with a handful of other local creatives, are working on the Yukon end of the traveling theatre festival: Magnetic North, based in Ottawa, which moves to a different Canadian town every second year. “This year they picked Whitehorse,” Vakharia says. With …
Exploring Justice with Gwaandak Theatre
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 …
Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of
“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 …
It’s Not Off Script If There Isn’t A Script
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 …
A New Theatre Company in Town
As winter carries on, theatre lovers will have the opportunity to warm their cold bodies with laughter in a brand new black box theatre when long time Yukon Arts mainstay Katherine McCallum unveils her new production company Larrikin Entertainment with the black comedy Often I find Myself Naked by Australian playwright Fiona Sprott. McCallum, a …
The Must-See Guide to the Pivot Theatre Festival
By La Compagnie L’Immédiat/Camille Boitel Jan. 27-29, 8 p.m., Yukon Arts Centre Co-presented with the Yukon Arts Centre, this European classic comes all the way from Paris, France. Perhaps more exciting than the distance travelled, or the point of origin, is that its Yukon debut will also be its North American premiere. Yukon audiences will be …
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Holiday Gift Guide
As we enter the holiday season where advertising, social media, and storefronts are shouting at us about all the things there are to buy, one might wonder whether all this shopping will lead to anyone’s happiness. Researchers out of Cornell University had a similar thought. Thomas Gilovich and Amit Kumar published their research in the …
We Can Change
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 …
Murderously Funny
This Halloween season The Yukon Arts Centre (YAC) will present Butt Kapinksi at The Old Fire Hall, an interactive comedic murder mystery set in the style of a classic film noir movie. The show’s creator and star, Deanna Fleysher, slips into the gritty shoes of private eye Butt Kapinski as he endeavors to solve a …
Party like it’s 1955
Dig out your poodle skirt and put on your saddle shoes. The Open Pit Theatre is hosting a 1950s Sock Hop Film Night in Whitehorse on Saturday. The evening features five films with an on-the-spot, improvised soundtrack by live actors and musicians. “The movies are the main entertainment,” says Geneviève Doyon, co-artistic director of Open …
Ramble in T.O.
My dance practice is rooted in uncultivated, wild, outdoor spaces. I often perform site-specific dances outdoors for audiences and/or camera. However, my latest collaborative project, Ramble (45 min), was performed last month inside a black box theatre in a busy city (Toronto), within a busy theatre and dance festival (the 25th edition of SummerWorks). …
Dramaturgy
Last Friday I met with David Skelton, the artistic director of Nakai Theatre, and DD Kugler, a renowned Canadian dramaturge. A dramaturge, which is an unpleasant word, functions as an advisor to a playwright. Such a person raises concerns, make suggestions, and sometimes draws thick red lines through vast swaths of dialogue. Both the above-mentioned …
Leapin’ Lizards! It’s Annie
Curious Fact #1: stories about plucky orphan kids make wildly popular musical theatre fare. Witness Oliver!, Anne of Green Gables, and Annie. Curious Fact #2: two out of three musicals about plucky orphans involve adorable, authoritydefying redheads who find love in less-than-conventional families. “I don’t happen to be a tiny, adorable redhead, but I am …
Puppets, Comedy, and Gore
Whitehorse has an awesome art scene. This month, The Guild will try to make it more awesome when its production of Cannibal! The Musical hits the stage. The play, which is based on the film of the same name, has been circulating North America for over 15 years, to rave reviews. The story is centered …
Start at the Beginning
Have you ever had big dreams of creating a piece of theatre but weren’t sure how to start? Have you ever had a great idea for a play but had no idea how to get it on the stage? Are you looking for the chance to try out a script you have written in front …
Gearing up for Cannibal
Am I excited. In April I’ll be acting in the Guild Society’s newest play, Cannibal the Musical written by Trey Parker of South Park fame. The show is based on the true story of American prospector, Alferd Packer and his ill-fated expedition into the Colorado mountains in 1873. I recommend it to anyone who wants …
Behind the scenes Of Canada’s bilingual heritage
In mid-January, I was given the opportunity to coordinate Je parle français And I Love in English, 2015, a theatrical performance written by and for Francophone women that will be presented this weekend, March 6 and 7, at the Old Fire Hall. As a newcomer to the Yukon, I did not see the sold-out début …
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Blind Date with a Clown
Having a blind date can be very stressful — from thinking about what to wear and say, to awkward silences and thoughts of escape. Now imagine having a blind date every night. For actress Renée Amber this is reality: in the improv theatre show Blind Date, Amber plays Mimi, a partisan clown with a red …
The Play’s the Thing
Any parent knows that watching offspring leave the nest unleashes a jumble of emotions: pride, relief, disbelief, grief, envy, nostalgia, apprehension. Sometimes abject terror. You give them a hug, or a slap on the back, and remind them to keep in touch, eat properly, use condoms, call if they need anything. You try not to …
Talking to Strangers
It’s been done before, and Moving Parts Theatre is doing it again — transforming Well Read Books into a theatre. Around the corner from the till, in the back, is the stage, wedged between the “Biography” and “Literature” sections on one side, and “Hobby & Craft/Trains, Boats & Planes” on the other. “People are Strange” …
The Web of Family
Two distinctly different takes on the theme of family are among the highlights of this year’s Nakai Pivot Festival, which kicks off on Saturday, January 17 . Ralph + Lina is a two-handed “acrobatic comedy” performed by the husband and wife team of Dan Watson and Christina Serra, who first conceived the project while they …
Turn Your Conversations Into Art
“ Anyone – no matter what their background is – can take a tape recorder and go out and ask some questions,” says Saskatoon-based artist Joel Bernbaum, who will be in the Yukon this weekend holding verbatim theatre workshops with Whitehorse’s Open Pit Theatre. “ Verbatim is a fancy term but it actually just means …
The Guild presents Dedication
Terrence McNally’s Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams, playing at the Guild Hall until December 6, is a love letter to theatre in an era when it needs all the love it can get. Set in the dilapidated remains of a once-grand playhouse — the kind with balconies — Dedication focuses on the aspirations of …
Do I look Enlightened to You?
I recently heard the term “supermarket spiritualism” to describe folks walking down the proverbial aisle picking and choosing bits and pieces from every spiritual practice imaginable. And then paying for it all at the checkout. Emelia Symington Fedy, a Vancouver-based theatre artist, performer, writer and yoga teacher uses the term, “spiritual capitalism” in her lovingly …
David Skelton Nakai Theatre’s artistic director
A high-school excursion to a Toronto production of Peter Shaffer’s play, Equus, is what triggered David Skelton’s fascination with theatrical design. “The set and the costumes were just so evocative, so simple, so full of meaning, and just so functional. Scene starts, scene ends, move, move, move, quickly, quickly,” Nakai Theatre’s artistic director recalls. “I …
Taxicab Theatre
Gab in a cab, do time in the hole, or ponder what lies behind schoolyard shootings. These are just some of the options available to audience members as Nakai Theatre presents version six of its Homegrown Theatre Festival next week at the Guild Hall. The lineup of 12 local shows runs the gamut from a …
A Testament to the Disappearances of Aboriginal Women
International Women’s Day is Saturday, March 8, it’s a day to pause and consider women’s health, dreams, and safety — worldwide, and in Canada. It’s a perfect time to see The Hours that Remain, a play by Ontario Métis artist Keith Barker. The play explores the love, loss, and grief for families and communities surrounding …
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Family, Change, and Acceptance
Torontonian Clinton Walker has flown into the Yukon to direct another play at The Guild Hall. The new production The Book of Esther, by Leanna Brodie, is his fifth directorial project in five years up here. And this one hits pretty close to home for Walker. Set in the early 1980s, The Book of Esther …
An Invitation to Experience the Thrill and the Grit
The mix of open-flowing creativity, with a dash of fear, makes for a high that’s addictive for theatre performers — and especially for playwrights who perform their own plays. Usually the audience goes home with ideas swimming around, but we’re not buzzing the same way. Next week we can come close. The Pivot Theatre Festival, …
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Dancing the fine line between reverence and irreverence
The Yukon Arts Centre will become a church Feb. 27 to 29. This may appear to blasphemous to some when you consider the name of the play—Bigger Than Jesus—and the “priest” will be gifted comedian and voice impersonator Rick Miller (the same guy who brought MacHomer here some years ago). However, if you measure religious …
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A lightbulb, a chair and a bowl
It must be a magic trick, because Andy Massingham is going to hold the attention of a Yukon Arts Centre audience for one hour with just a lightbulb, a chair and a bowl. “… and incredible shadows,” says Massingham over the phone discussing his play, Rough House, which shows at the Yukon Arts Centre April …
No folly to come up to the Yukon
Five guys are sitting, standing or dressing in this small makeshift room. I’m on the floor, my legs on steps leading back down to my corner, where I store every costume I’ll need for the Frantic Follies, the Yukon vaudeville show. Lyall Murdoch sits on a chair next to the mirror and make-up table wearing …
Audiences get the story they ask for
Did you just say, “storysmithing”? “Yeah,” says Aaron Janke, his arms still stretched out in the telling of his upcoming introactive theatre project. But he wants to keep explaining the plans of his troupe and he was on a roll … and I was interrupting. Throwing out the possibility that “storysmithing” might be hyphenated, he …
Laughing at the unlaughable
Bruce Horak no longer needs the catharsis that his play, This is Cancer?, has been for him. But other people do and, so, he will continue accepting invitations to travel with the play he wrote and stars in. Indeed, having only just been here for one show this past winter for the Pivot Festival, Nakai …
Timber Rabbits has a big heart and flat feet
I push the potatoes around in my cup of Timber Rabbit Stew and find no timber rabbit meat. Oh, I get it. I’m supposed to ask where the meat is and will be told, “You’re as naïve as Ben Mueller!” Ben Mueller is the character in Timber Rabbits – A Northern Mystery of Men, Madness, …
We get the theatre we deserve
When you think of plays, you think of The Guild and Nakai Theatre. More and more people are thinking of Music Arts and Drama at the Wood Street Centre as the high-schoolers in the experiential program put on beloved plays for the general public. However, not enough people are thinking of Moving Parts Theatre. This …
The very human story of Frankenstein
Just as the movie Twilight surprised the film industry, the success of Catalyst Theatre’s Frankenstein is surprising theatre watchers. Both are a hit with teenagers. “Teenagers really respond to stories of the outsider,” says Jonathan Christenson, the play’s writer, director and composer. “It’s that fear of being a social pariah.” And Frankenstein’s monster is the …
Memories, though invisible, are very real
“Go easy on the references to the Holocaust,” Jonathon Young says to me over the phone. “People will go into the theatre expecting it. “This play is much more about memory and how our actions affect our descendants.” The Invisible Life of Joseph Finch is, indeed, about re-creating one man’s life for the benefit of …
Taylor Mac wants to shake you up
Taylor Mac would like you to know that he doesn’t want to offend you. If his fantastical makeup and clothes surprise you, then that’s OK because if you are surprised, then you are being shaken up a little. And shaking things up is what this drag queen considers his job to be. If audiences are …
The comfort and joy of Fred Penner
Adults of all ages will be thrilled to hear that Nakai Theatre is bringing Fred Penner to Whitehorse. Sadly, many children today haven’t had the thrill of waiting for that magical moment when Penner would crawl through the hollow log and into a clearing in the bush … an extension of their living rooms. Fred …
Julius Caesar: A very Shakespearean Shakespeare
“Et tu, Brute?” A famous line uttered by even those who don’t know it is Shakespeare. It is spoken when one friend betrays another. Does this make Marcus Junius Brutus a bad guy? Anton Solomon is not sure. He plays Brutus in Moving Parts Theatre’s Julius Caesar Feb. 18 to 21 and Feb. 24 at …
Brian Fidler did it!
There is a moment in Becky Mode’s Fully Committed when Brian Fidler’s character, Sam, gives his father some disappointing news over the telephone. The entire audience tenses up. It was only one of many wonderful dialogues, so it cannot be considered a “magical moment”, but it was certainly a moment when the magic of this …
A case of questionable identity
It is in the fall, off-season for a ski chalet, yet there is still excitement. A woman has disappeared. She returns, but it is not the same woman according to her husband. The police get involved and they are convinced she is who she says she is. “Oh boy,” is all that Pierre Gauthier will …
Stories of the scientific nude
Yes, they know it is cold in the Yukon. The cast of Studies in Motion has been checking out the temperatures here daily. Yet they will all be nude sometime during the play when it shows at the Yukon Arts Centre March 24 to 27. “I was already nude on that stage a couple of …
Something new to brighten Dark Days
It is all original art and none of it existed before last December. So, the creative process took place during the darkest days of a Yukon winter. And that, says Tara McCarthy, is the whole idea behind Dark Days. It is a visual art/performance show taking place at the Old Fire Hall until Saturday, Feb. …
Where sex meets the ice
There are four corners of a net that hockey players shoot for to score a goal. The ‘Five Hole’ is that other spot that could lead to a score: between the goaltender’s legs. That is where Five Hole: Tales of Erotica spends its time … and in the locker room and hotel rooms and bars …
Bold, dark theatre returns
After a decade of collecting dust in the Guild Society office, the script for Cabaret is finally being used and will be presented at the Guild Hall, April 2 to 18. The rights were purchased in the ’90s, but the Guild Society’s artistic director, Eric Epstein, was unable to find a suitable male lead. It …
On this stage, everyone is ‘Ynkluded’
It was like walking onto the set of High School Musical … there are people milling about, laughing and joking around, spinning playfully in wheelchairs and then, boom, cohesion breaks out into a delightful musical number on a plywood stage. Then Brian Fidler, the director of Tell Me More…, says, “OK, now get up or …
Cabaret plods between great musical numbers
There are actually two stage shows at the Guild Hall: Cabaret, the variety show and Cabaret, the play. The variety show is a blast with fantastic music and great dance performances that are raunchy and fun. The play itself, however, only briefly rises to the level of a story that the audience can care about. …
Cam & Legs are ready for their closeup
Cam, that breakdancing Brownie Hawkeye camera; and Legs, the glove that struts and dances like a DJ, have returned to Whitehorse. Cam & Legs creator and puppeteer, Brian Fidler, has scheduled the shows for Thursday to Sunday at The Old Fire Hall. Then he is on his way to Victoria’s Uno Festival for performances May …
The Intimacy of Live Performance
When you talk about “The Theatre”, these days, it is inevitable that certain eyes will glaze and certain minds will wander. It’s old and out of date, the YouTube crowd might complain. But perhaps the qualities that prevent live theatre from being trendy are the exact same qualities that ensure it will always remain consistently …
Act like they do in New York
Posters around town advertise the Actors Intensive Weekend Workshop as “From New York to the Yukon”. Why is “New York” in the headline? “Classically, we think of New York as a method,” says “New York-trained” actor/instructor/director Anastasia Bandey. “We think of Meisner and the Actors Studio. “In the ’60s and ’70s, there was a revolution …
Acting Out Her Passion
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 …
Stop … and listen to Mike Daisey
Mike Daisey talks. He is a monologist; it’s what he does. In a day when we watch our videos in one- and two-minute clips and read messages from our friends in 140 characters or less, Mike Daisey will talk for two hours. No dancing. No music. No pyrotechnics. Just talk. And audiences are listening. That’s …
The Bob Couchman Yukon Theatre Award
Each and every one of us at What’s Up Yukon finds local theatre to be a fantastic entertainment value. We like to think that covering theatre in our pages shows our support and we are happy to do it. But is there something more we can do? Yes, there is. We have a lot of …
No one can shock with such delight
In 1962, it was shocking and titillating. Though the Pulitzer Prize committee handed it a Pulitzer, it was revoked for language, for sexual situations. When it ran an England tour, Lord Chamberlain made the playwright, Edward Albee, change the swear words, “Jesus Christ” to “Cheese God.” Half sarcastically, Albee asked, “What about saying Mary M. …
Round 1 goes to the Guild, and what a fight
4 out of 5 Stars The Guild pulled no punches with its first production of the season, dragging Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? out for display. And, judging from opening night, it’s a great fight. The action takes place in George and Martha’s living room between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., after they’ve …
Théâtre en Francais, S’il Vous Plaît
Bonjour! Si t’était pas au courant, je suis le régissuer pour la production de Bonneau et la Bellehumeur pour La Troupe Du Jour, une compagnie de théatre à Saskatoon. I’m pretty sure I spelled all that decently enough. To more or less translate: I’ve recently taken on stage-managing for a Francophone theatre company’s touring show. …
Theatre reviews go interactive
There are two types of people who read play reviews: those who want to see if the reviewer agrees with them and those who want to decide if the play is worth seeing. Reviews are important. As the “Paper of Fun,” we want to encourage our readers to go forth and enjoy good recreation, good …
The return of jazz dance
Kimberley Cooper retraced the rise and descent of North American jazz dance: It is primarily a folk dance mixed by African slaves and the Europeans who enslaved them. But it died out with the Second World War, bebop and the taxation of dance halls. “It was kind of lost in the world, and that’s sad,” …
Romantic Christmas comedy had a long journey
Patti Flather is sitting at a coffee shop talking about how much fun it is to write strong roles for actors over 40. “There’s just not enough of that in theatre or film.” She sometimes wonders who tells their stories. “I love seeing actors who are a bit older grapple with dating in the same …
A play without boundaries
After presenting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, one of the most well-known plays of the post-modern era, the Guild Theatre follows with the world premiere of Yukon writer Patti Flather’s play, The Soul Menders. This play has no theatre history, no reputation, no guide and, for Chris McGregor, the director, it has no boundaries. And …
From dress rehearsal to final performance
I was lucky enough to be able to see The Soul Menders twice. Because of travel plans, I had to miss opening night and reviewed a dress rehearsal, instead, with all the rules about certain things I couldn’t talk about. One of those taboos was talking, really, about performance. Actors still had at least three …
Queer Coffee is a community saying hello
I don’t know what I was looking for when I walked into Baked Café for the Queer Coffee, advertised on ArtsNet. I knew I was going to interview Matt Koop-Pearce, the guy who created the event, but other than that, I think I was just curious to see who might show up. While many GLBT …
A rollicking story of Cape Breton
Sheldon Currie wrote a short story about a family in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, that echoed his message in the acclaimed Margaret’s Museum. Lauchie, Liza and Rory, too, looks at a Cape Breton Island community that is populated with good people, from all over the world, who are otherwise cogs in the machine. Unlike Margaret’s …
Whose life is it anyway?
Finders, keepers. Right? Well, adults will likely respond with, “It depends.” OK. This is something that was obviously discarded … but it was seven meticulously cared-for photo albums of a family … but the person who found them put a lot of work into them to create a play … but the person who threw …
A Journey Inspired by Jack London
As a young girl, growing up in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Ruth Armson was an avid reader. She read whatever she could, but the selection was limited by her rural circumstances. “I read all the Jack London books,” says Armson. “I went to a small country school and that’s what they had in the library.” …
A fresh longest night
In an interview, two weeks before Longest Night 2009, director Daniel Janke said the evening was still a mystery to him. “I’ve been writing new material – we are all writing new material – so there is not much that anyone has ever heard before,” he says. “And that’s a nice, fresh energy.” Celebrating the …
The Many Worlds; and Faces; of Charles Ross
He’s a hobbit and an Ewok, Princess Leia and Gandalf — plus about 80 other denizens of deep space and Middle Earth. In a more mundane dimension, he’s a 38-year-old actor from Victoria, B.C. named Charles Ross. For the past dozen years, Ross has travelled through four continents, evoking a multitude of characters from two …
Just a big wacky musical about corruption
”It’s a huge show,” Todd Duckworth the director tells me. Twenty people in the cast, four in the band. “When you see 20 people stretched out in a line on stage singing their hearts out — it’s pretty impressive. “This is a piece of entertainment. It’s also a satire. So with all the fluff, there’s …
Walker’s Laramie Project shows the triumph of community
Clinton Walker, the director brought up from Toronto for The Laramie Project, has made me chili. Little triangles of toasted bread sit next to the bowl. Walker is staying at the Almost Home Bed and Breakfast, a cute B&B in Valleyview. He’s been here for six weeks now. In some ways, Whitehorse has become another …
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He’s a Real Everywhere Man
Dean Eyre sits on a stool in the middle of his newly purchased bike shop on Wood Street. A man as passionate as Eyre deserves to own a place like this: “There’s something nice about going somewhere and knowing that you used your own muscles to get you there. “I think they (bicycles) are the …
The 3rd annual Pivot Festival: Floating, swimming, flying
The Pivot Festival is upon us — and with it comes a huge ton of theatre. You have six shows you can see at multiple times, all wildly different, appealing to both broad and specific audiences. It’s like a carnival of mad, wonderful theatre taking over the town for a week. Feeling a bit like …
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Don Juan has come to save us
“Don Juan? I love Don Juan,” said my fiancée when I asked her if she wanted to see The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan at the Yukon Arts Centre. She loves Don Juan? I don’t get it. Don Juan was a cad who used women and left them . I would have been just as …
Giant Rat finally treated as honoured citizen (psst … go see this musical)
Everyone loves a “lovable rogue”. In the Guild Society’s musical comedy, The Man From the Capital, you get 20 rogues to pick from. The plot is simple: it’s a case of mistaken identity. The townspeople expect a government inspector to come and evaluate their use of federal money. The schmuck who stumbles into town, penniless …
Giant Rat finally treated as honoured citizen (psst … go see this musical) Read More »
Taking the omnichord to the next level
This is a story about the omnichord. It was manufactured by Suzuki as a toy version of an autoharp. It has a touch plate for major, minor and diminished chords. As the advertising tells us, “Anyone can learn to play it!” “Yeah, and it can be incredibly annoying, too,” says Jenny Mitchell (a.k.a. Jenny Omnichord). …
‘Success’ from a culture of isolation
Seeing Melisa Devost perform at The Old Fire Hall Friday, April 16, or at Atlin’s Globe Theatre on the 19th, you will be contributing to her “success”. “I can ride on my skills to travel and see family,” she explains over the phone. And, while she has recently contemplated what she considers “success” for a …
Epstein leaves, stage right
Eric Epstein and I are sitting in the black box — the creative centre of the Guild Theatre — the room that can become anything, which has become everything. He reflects back on his last 10 years with the Guild. As he steps out of the position, he recalls the first show he did in …
The brutal, relentless comedy of The Boys
The Quickie: The Boys is not a feel-good drama, an easy date night play, or a relaxing evening. However, it is outstanding acting and thought-provoking theatre. There are some movies I refuse to see. I will not see Saving Private Ryan — the Second World scenes, I’ve heard, are way too realistic. I will not …
Wicked wits of the west spar in Irish black comedy
There are two prizefighters in this ring. And they’ve been going round and round trading off the mantles of victor and victim for too many years. You have a sense that there is nothing left in their relationship but the fight. The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the award-winning play by Martin McDonagh, challenges an audience …
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Artistic transitions: McCallum enters, stage left
Katherine McCallum is sitting on the couches of the Guild Hall, the place the audience gathers before a show begins, that place of anticipation. She’s talking to me about magic. “Theatre magic. It’s why I wanted to produce in the first place. But producing happened to me. When you’re an actor in a big city, …
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Gay community sees hope in The Laramie
Then I was at the Big Band Dessert and Dance Saturday night, I saw a handsome man across the crowded room. Fat chance that I was going to have courage enough to ask him to dance. Are you kidding? I might be hit. He might yell at me. I could just see all the worst …
Laramie Project delivers stunning ensemble work
I gave Justine Davidson, the theatre reviewer for the Whitehorse Star, a long hug at the end of The Laramie Project, the Guild Society/GALA play. Both of us were near tears. She said over my shoulder, “Does this mean it’s good when the journalists are crying?” We weren’t the only ones moved. But don’t let …
Musical Sorts Out the Craziness of Craigslist
Inheriting her grandmother’s hymn-book — stuffed with press clippings, flowers and a nuclear disarmament card from the 1960s — took Veda Hille on a journey she hadn’t anticipated. “It was a real treasure-trove, this book,” said Hille, a Vancouver-based musician. With no traditional church background, Hille started delving into the hymns, especially those by 18th-century …
Getting the Message
Editor’s Note: Amber Church’s assignment was to gather some impressions of Yukon Educational Theatre’s latest production from a few young audience members who saw it before it travelled to Yukon communities. Dean Eyre’s new play, Wake and Bake, takes an in-depth look at the lives of two sisters and their experiences with drug use. Opening …
Stories you’ve never heard, brilliantly told
I went Saturday night to The River, a Nakai production, with Michael Greyeyes directing a play written by David Skelton, Judith Rudakoff and Joseph Tisiga. To be frank, I wasn’t sure if I was interested in what I thought would be a sermon on homelessness. I just didn’t want the guilt. But local playwright David …
Artrepreneur: Vastly Entertaining
Cruelty makes good comedy. There’s something fascinating and often hilarious about watching one character tear into another. And as the Song of Songs warns us, jealousy is as cruel as the grave. The Guild/Sour Bride co-production of David Mamet’s Boston Marriage brought the opening night audience to helpless laughter. I sat in the first row …
A Little Off the Top: Comedy of Manners
They mean well, and the evening starts on a good footing. But throw in some sumptuous art books and a bottle of rum and, voilà. It’s as if Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf has melded with Lord of the Flies. Reza deftly shows how easily the veneer of civilization can be peeled from any of …
Artrepreneur: Trippy Nordic Odyssey
Peer Gynt tells the life story of an irresponsible young man who grows into an old man adventuring through the world. He returns home and makes an accounting of his life when faced with the prospect of death. We open on a scene with Peer’s mother, where he beguiles her with outrageous lies about his …
A Tale in Two Tellings
Ten years after Louis Riel was convicted of high treason and hanged, a young Cree warrior shot a cow near Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, where the so-called North-West Rebellion had begun. According to some versions of the story, the animal was intended for his wedding feast. That young man, known in English as Almighty Voice, was …
MacHomer Erectus
Somewhere along the line, Rick Miller wandered from Moshe Safdie’s Legoland and the Bauhaus world of Walter Gropius to the raucous playground of William Shakespeare and …wait for it! … Homer Simpson. Miller is an actor, writer, singer, painter, comic and mynah bird capable of mimicking the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Meatloaf, Andrea …
A Comedy of Obsession
When the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Katherine McCallum, was choosing this year’s season, she may not have known playwright Nicky Silver was about to hit the big time. After two decades of writing successfully for off-off-Broadway, then off-Broadway, Silver will finally penetrate the Great White Way this month with his newest work, The Lyons. “I …
From Eden to Legoland
For several years, Amitai Marmorstein has periodically donned a drab brown uniform, complete with long stockings, shorts,vest and tie and Harry Potter glasses. Thus garbed as 13-year-old schoolboy, he joins Celine Stubel, as his similarly-attired 16-year-old sister, to tell the story of Legoland. “These two siblings, Penny and Ezra Lamb, grew up on Elysium, this …
Syphilis Goes South
It sounds nasty. A small group of northerners is scheming to infect a major southern city with Syphilis next month. But there’s no need to alert public health officials. Ramshackle Theatre is merely hoping to spread an infectious dose of laughter to audiences at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival, by means of Whitehorse playwright Peter …
A Little Off the Top: Stereotypes and Beyond
On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper rose in the House of Commons to issue a formal apology for Canada’s century-long Indian residential school policy. That same Wednesday evening, a new play called Where the Blood Mixes burst upon the Canadian theatre scene at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Vancouver, B.C. The two …
Confusion and Betrayal
When siblings embark on a new life together in unfamiliar surroundings, it can often result in confusion, conflict, even betrayal. Especially if one is working hard to keep everything together and the other’s life is a mess. That’s the premise of Wake and Bake, a new play by Whitehorse playwright Dean Eyre, which is currently …
Staging Canada’s Parks
It’s a challenge trying to engage an audience in a meaningful celebration of all of Canada’s national parks, national historic sites, and national marine conservation areas in 40 minutes or less. But the award-winning Mountain WIT Theatre Troupe has proven that it is possible. Mountain WIT is a professional theatre troupe based in Banff National …
Behind The Scenes of Guys & Dolls
It’s an era of lady-like manners and the finest of gentlemen: Guys in suits, hats and shiny shoes, cleanly shaven with slicked hair and moustaches; ladies in skirts and dresses, wrap sweaters, pantyhose and high heel shoes. In the nightclubs, these fine gentlemen leer and cheer at giggly, air-headed and scantily-clad dancers shakin’ their daisies. …
