Tag Archives: barbara mah

Fall 2025 Quick Takes

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What I’ve been watching, and haven’t made time to post about:

Nicole Moeller’s WILDCAT at Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre. The best thing about this play is the performers – Michelle Flieger and Maralyn Ryan as women a bit older than me, remembering their labour-activist past and frustrated in an increasingly-constrained present, Melissa Thingelstad as a lawyer daughter who works hard on taking care of her mum and not quite so much on figuring out what her mum wants, and Graham Mothersill as … well, as I said to a friend afterwards, Graham Mothersill pretty much has a lock on playing “nasty. ” Interesting and disturbing timely premise, with some points tweaked for the 2025 Alberta situation. I found the soundscape a bit intrusive, but that might be better for audience sitting further from the booth/back speakers. Heather Inglis directs. After a delayed start, WILDCAT‘s short run has two more shows, today (Saturday) matinee and evening, and tomorrow (Sunday Nov 9) matinee. Workshop West tickets and subscriptions continue to be 100% Pay what you will, online and in person.

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, part of the MacEwan University Music Theatre season and directed by Ellen Chorley. Like all the MacEwan shows, this one had a short run last weekend, and it sold out the Tim Ryan Theatre Lab space every night. It’s a good choice for a student show, with most of the young-adult performers playing children and a few playing adults (parents and competition staff). The set design was playful and functional, with an evocative representation of an American school gym, worn basketball-marked hardwood floor to wooden climbing frame, swinging doors full of photocopied notices, and old-school wall phone with the longest most mangled cord ever. Choreography was fun and energetic. Jack Hunting (Olive Ostrosky) and Kohen Foley (Leaf Coneybear) were particularly memorable as characters. In 2013 I saw a production of this musical by local company ELOPE. I’m a little embarrassed that I wrote in this blog at the time that I didn’t recognize the actor names, because now they’re all performers whose names would make me choose to go see something they’re in. MacEwan’s next show is Carrie: The Musical. It’s in the bigger Triffo Theatre space so some seats are still available, for Nov 26-30.

According to the Chorus was Walterdale Theatre’s October show. The Arlene Hutton script was directed by Barbara Mah, and set in the crowded female-chorus quick-change room of a Broadway theatre in the 1980s. Costumes – both the over-the-top concepts the dancers wear to perform, and the flamboyant neon warmup gear they arrive in – were splendid and funny and appropriately period, thanks to costume designer Karin Lauderdale. Walterdale’s next show is Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, directed by John Anderson, December 3-13. The talented cast includes Randy Brososky, the multi-talented actor/creator/improviser/director, along with 10 other performers, some new to Walterdale and some familiar. Advance tickets are here.

Die-Nasty is Edmonton’s long-running very-long-form improvised soap opera, this year tackling The Bible. Or rather, stories from those settings which didn’t make it into the versions we know, either the Torah or the New Testament. Die-Nasty’s company and guest performers create characters and the director (Jake Tkaczyk) gives them bare-bones scene descriptions to fill in on a moment’s notice. And somehow this turns into fascinating character development, plot points which could be excessive or nuanced or both, and moments of hilarity that are hard to describe afterwards. Last year they built a gold-rush town, complete with saloons and schoolmistress, doctor and explorers and a matriarch of many sons … Company members this year include Little Guitar Boy brothers Jason Hardwick and Lindsay Walker, who bear some resemblance to musical collaborators John&Paul as well as to various disciple origin stories, the aforementioned Randy Brososky who seems particularly suspicious, journalist Myrrh Incense (Kirsten Throndson), and others, and recent special guests have included Matt Baram and Naomi Sniecus (creator-performers of Big Stuff at the Citadel). Paul Morgan Donald provides live music and sometimes the characters sing! You don’t need to follow from the beginning, as they give recaps and character intros at the start of each show. Tickets for Die-Nasty are also 100% Pay What You Will now, at the theatre or online. Varscona Theatre, Monday nights at 7:30.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to fit in everything I want to see in November, but the list includes

Tough Guy, by Hayley Moorhouse, at the Arts Barns, two last shows today Saturday Nov 8th, advance tickets here.

Castle Spectre, an adaptation by Lauren Tamke who directed this production for her Paper Crown Theatre, at Gateway Theatre, Nov 21-30, tickets here.

Beehive the 1960s musical, at St Albert Dinner Theatre, directed by Caitlyn Tywoniuk and music direction by Dalton Terhorst, tickets here.

Teatro Live doing The 39 Steps, with Geoffrey Simon Brown as Richard Hannay, Nov 13-30.

Northern Light Theatre has a new play by Trevor Schmidt, How Patty and Joanne Won High Gold at the Grand Christmas Cup Winter Dance Competition, with Jenny McKillop and Kendra Connor, Nov 27 – Dec 13. Tickets here.

Vinyl Cafe: The Musical, at the Citadel, Nov 8 – Dec 7, tickets here.

King of the Yees

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Ruth Wong-Miller and Grace Li in Walterdale Theatre’s King of the Yees, haggling as Lauren and Whiskey Seller. Photography by Scott Henderson, Henderson Images. Costumes Karin Lauderdale, Set Leland Stelck, Lighting Rebecca Cave.

I haven’t been involved with working on the latest Walterdale Theatre production, King of the Yees, so I had the fun of seeing it for the first time on opening weekend, along with a delighted audience. Barbara Mah, Walterdale’s current artistic director, directed Chinese-American playwright Lauren Yee’s somewhat-autobiographical play, with a talented cast and team of local artists.

King of the Yees is partly a familiar story about a father and daughter – a father (Stanley Woo of Apocalypse Kow) who is immersed in the clannish culture of San Francisco’s Chinatown and the Yee Family Association that he manages, and a playwright daughter (Ruth Wong-Miller of Foote in the Door and other musical theatre) who has moved on, moved away, and lost connection with her parents and their culture. I found the frustrated banter between them very funny, and also poignantly relatable, and unexpectedly moving.

Mah’s production, and the script, also contain fantastical elements which are fun to watch and listen to, as well as bitingly-sarcastic riffs on assumptions about Asian actors by a couple of performers playing actors who have been hired to read the playwright’s work-in-progress (Kingsley Leung and Helen Massini). This is not quite as confusing as it sounds! Visual/audible spectacles include a lion dance (handlers Massini, Grace Li, Ivy Poon, Rupert Gomez) led by a Buddha Boy (Tsz Him Hymns Chu), an Erhu player (Poon), a troupe of elders doing tai chi, a flamboyant Model Ancestor (stage manager Tim Lo), and a Szechuan face changer (Massini). The beautiful set and costumes were designed by Leland Stelck and Karin Lauderdale and implemented by skilled teams of painters, stitchers, and builders.

Ensemble members Rupert Gomez, Helen Massini, Andrew Kwan, Grace Li, Kingsley Leung, and Ivy Poon form a mysterious wall, in King of the Yees. Photo Scott Henderson, Henderson Images. Set Leland Stelck, costumes Karin Lauderdale, lights Rebecca Cave.

The digital program contains some helpful and interesting contextual information that is worth reading for extra enjoyment. Some performances of King of the Yees are sold out on line, with a few tickets held back for door sales. The run continues until next Saturday, February 15th, and advance tickets are here.

There’s so much else on this weekend, too! Plan ahead!

  • Bea, at Shadow Theatre, closes Sunday
  • Angry Alan, at Northern Light Theatre, closes Saturday (tomorrow!)
  • After the Trojan Women, by Amena Shehab & Joanna Blundell, is at Backstage Theatre
  • The Citadel has Frozen and Does This Taste Funny?
  • U Alberta Studio Theatre has [Blank], by Alice Birch
  • Die-Nasty, the long-running improv soap opera on Monday nights at Varscona, is free on Feb 10th.
  • An Oak Tree, at the Aviary, produced by Theatre Yes
  • Script Salon, Sunday Feb 9th, has a reading of Linda Celentano’s Giorgi of the Jungle.

And next weekend there’s even more, all with short runs!

  • The Effect, by Lucy Prebble, at the Arts Barns Studio,
  • The Spinsters (Bigger and Badder) is in the Westbury
  • MacEwan University’s musical theatre program has Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
  • The first PepperMUNT Cabaret, a production of Jake Tkaczyk’s new company MUNT Performance Association, will be at the Gateway Theatre on Saturday February 15th, at 10:30 pm – giving you enough time to see one of the shows in the above lists first! Trevor Schmidt and Mark Meer are hosting, with an assortment of talented guests, and tickets are here.

I’m not going to be able to see all of these, because I’m also busy working on Walterdale’s next show, Stag and Doe by Mark Crawford (April 23-May 3). See what you can! Maybe I will see you there!

A Little Night Music

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The other night, before the wildfire smoke blew in to town, I was walking in my neighbourhood in the evening about how lucky I am to be living at this latitude, with the magical long twilights as we approach the summer solstice.  The long light warm evenings feel rich with extra opportunity.  And I wondered how to share that feeling.

Last night I watched Foote in the Door’s production of A Little Night Music, a Sondheim musical based on an Ingmar Bergen movie directed by Mary-Ellen Perley.  It’s set in Sweden around 1900.  The second act takes place at a country estate, much of it outdoors.  And there are songs about that magical extended twilight, songs that describe the feelings better than I ever could, with lighting (Sarah Karpyshin) and abstract set pieces (Leland Stelck) to support them.

A Little Night Music has a cast of 18.  At first I kept referring to my program to figure out who was who and how they were connected.  But later on, it just made more delightful threads of plot arcs to follow, to wonder how the cat’s-cradle of romances and affairs would untangle itself.   Commenting on the liaisons and prospects of the others, and on the nature of love in general, are a grandmother (Pauline Farmer) and granddaughter  Fredrika (Rebecca Erin Curtis, a MacEwan grad I will watch for again).

I loved the detail, consistent through the show, that star actress Desiree (Glynis Price) was surrounded by clutter and chaos – stockings and scarves draped over her furniture, enough male visitors that they cross paths in her apartment – her current lover Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm (Russ Farmer) and her former lover Fredrik Egerman (Morgan Smith), both sporting mustaches of importance.  Count Malcolm’s indignant wife Charlotte (Monica Roberts), a likeably sarcastic character, comes up with a unlikely scheme to defend both herself and Egerman’s young wife Anne (Ruth Wong-Miller) from Desiree’s designs on their husbands.   Anne is an astonishingly naive 18 year old.  She claims to love married life but seems oblivious to being more passionate about teasing her stepson (Allan Cabral) than about her much-older husband.   It was “amusing” (as the character often says) to watch Wong-Miller in this role, since she usually plays characters with more agency but was completely believable as the protected and petted young wife.   Desiree’s daughter Fredrika, canonically about 13, seemed to be wiser with more understanding of the world and relationships, just from listening to her grandmother’s stories of liaisons and from having toured with her mother’s acting troupes.

Monica Morgan night music

Monica Roberts, as Charlotte, and Morgan Smith, as Fredrik, in A Little Night Music. Photo by Nanc Price Photography.

There were a lot of bits in this production that had me laughing out loud – some of them were funnier to me than to other members of the audience.  The part where Fredrika’s grandmother says that she brought Fredrika home to do a better job raising her because “ Stage managers are not nannies, dear; they don’t have the talent.”  The bit where Fredrika takes Anne to watch Desiree on stage in a French comedy, the play-within-a-play a more exaggerated version of the grandmother’s liaison stories and the contemporary affairs and intrigues, and Brian Ault playing a footman or herald in a truly bizarre wig.

One of the common features of Sondheim musicals is complex music.  Daniel Belland is musical director, with an ensemble of eight other musicians.   As well as the characters named above, there are several servants, some with their own romantic plotlines, and a chorus of six, singing clever harmonies and hinting at further layers of complication (“Remember”) that we don’t get to see.

A Little Night Music is a musical for people who like musicals, a change from this company’s last production, the stage-musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  It’s long but it moves along at a good pace and I was surprised when it was already time for intermission.  It’s playing at La Cité Francophone, until June 8th, with tickets through Tix on the Square.

 

 

 

Spooky October performances 2018

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I’m not managing to see everything on Edmonton stages these days, but I wish I could.  I wish I’d seen Lenin’s Embalmers at U of A Studio Theatre, or the Maggie Tree production Blood: A Scientific Romance.  From what I’ve read about them, it looks like the creepy or paranormal themes could have fit into this Hallowe’en-week blog roundup, too.

At the Walterdale Theatre, I helped work on The Triangle Factory Fire Project, a script prepared by Christopher Piehler in collaboration with Scott Alan Evans using various primary source materials, and directed here by Barbara Mah.   It was thought-provoking and disturbing, because the horrible fates of real people were depicted graphically, because the resulting legal case portrayed did not result in justice, and because the hazards of the garment industry juxtaposed with fashion advertising are not so different from their contemporary equivalents.   Watching this story play out every night as one of the booth operators, I kept cheering for some of the determined young women who lived to tell their own stories, particularly Rose Freedman (Danielle Yu), and Ethel Monick, (Stephanie Swensrude), and kept getting angry at the factory owners and their lawyer (Eric Rice, Kent Sutherland, and Matthew Bearsto).  It was a relief to close that show and watch some scary shows for fun.  

Dead Centre of Town XI has four more performances in the Blatchford hangar at Fort Edmonton Park.  This year the macabre true stories researched and written by Megan and Beth Dart of Catch the Keys all relate to air travel.  As usual, the audience members are guided through relevant settings to encounter the characters of various disasters and mysterious happenings, while super-creepy poet/narrator Colin Matty provides extra detail and atmosphere.  “If humans were intended to fly, why are they so Goddamned squishy?”, he muses.  More live-theatre than haunted-house, this annual immersive event does a great job at making the details build up the overall experience – even the ticket distribution (“boarding passes”) and the traffic-management (impersonal masked uniformed airport workers in a crowded “boarding lounge” with staticky announcements) are part of the adventure.

Dark! at Fort Edmonton is new this year, adding on food (with creepy nicknames like Bloody Balls and Skewered Rat), drinks, and adult-level haunted-house attractions.  I went to one of the haunts, and decided that I prefer the Dead Centre of Town style of horrifying imagery enhanced by narrative, to the unexplained jump-scares of Dark!

The Bone House, by Marty Chan, also has performances remaining on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.  It was also very scary in a different style again.  At first it felt like a TV or movie experience, with a forensic-psychology expert presenting an illustrated lecture about serial killers, but it became more unsettling – it was easy to involve myself into the story enough that I could imagine being in danger, but I also began to feel somewhat complicit in choosing to listen to serial-killer narratives in any medium.  Brrr.

This weekend I also managed to fit in a performance of Northern Light Theatre’s Origin of the Species, by Bryony Lavery.  With direction and set/costume design by Trevor Schmidt and performances by Kristin Johnston and Holly Turner, it uses the ridiculous premise of a contemporary archaeologist encountering a live prehistoric woman, to touch on several important themes with a subtle touch.  I particularly enjoyed the very gradual transition of the prehistoric woman Victoria (Johnston) towards modern physicality and communication, and the many ways that both characters subvert assumptions about “traditional” gender roles.

She Loves Me!

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The other night I watched a musical that was new to me.  Not new to other people, She Loves Me (book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock) first hit Broadway in 1964, and is opening again next spring.  The Hungarian play on which it’s based was also the basis for the 1998 romantic comedy movie You’ve Got Mail.

The current production, in the Amphitheatre at Faculte St Jean (across the street from La Cite), by Foote in the Door Productions, is directed by Barb Mah, with music direction by Michael Clark.  The setting, a 1930s perfume shop in Budapest, was simply evoked with shades of pink and green in backdrops, counters, and sales-staff shopcoats.  The shop seemed like the equivalent of something like The Body Shop or Lush – selling a variety of necessities and luxuries, focusing on customer experience, and doing a huge business in presents before Christmas.

As in the usual workplace-set story, there’s a cast of characters that includes a boss (James Toupin) with some unreasonable demands and prejudices, an eager-to-please errand boy (Sam Banigan), and a loyal sidekick (Dustin Berube), and in this case there’s also some sub-plot material in the affair between co-workers (Christina O’Dell and Mitch Caddick).  The story soon focuses on Georg (Russ Farmer), a senior employee mistrusted by the boss, who confides that he’s been writing letters through a lonely-hearts correspondence club to Dear Friend.

On a busy day in the shop, then, in bounces Amalia (Ruth Wong-Miller), costumed in a beautiful peacock shade of blue that stands out dramatically from the rest of the show palette, and she quickly talks herself into sales work with a very funny demonstration.  Amalia is also a member of the Lonely Hearts correspondence club, and you can guess the broad strokes of where the story goes from there.

My favourite bits of the show were some of the ensemble numbers with dancing, the stylized couples in the restaurant with the snooty waiter (Kent Sutherland), and the Twelve Days of Christmas shopping crowds in the store.  Six musicians behind the scenes provided accompaniment, atmosphere, and extra entertainment, and the singing was delightful.  Ruth Wong-Miller has a strong pleasant soprano voice and is particularly well cast in this show.  The part with her jumping on the couch in pajamas is also charming.

The last show of the run is tonight (Saturday 28 November) at 7:30.  If you haven’t seen it yet, they should have tickets available at the door, and it’s a lot of fun!