Tag Archives: teatro

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.

Another week of Edmonton fun, mostly theatrical!

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There’s lots going on in Edmonton this week too.  Yesterday, for example, the choices included the Folkfest ticket lottery at Telus Field (popular and well-organized and a sell-out again), the Edmonton Pride Festival parade (Pride events continue throughout the month), Sprouts New Play Festival for Kids (continuing this afternoon) and Nextfest, the emerging artist’s festival continuing until June 14th with music, theatre, dance, comedy, improv, film, visual arts, and more.

Most years I’m out of town for all of July and I spend June getting ready, so I’ve been missing out on lots of the Edmonton June events.  But this year I’m going to be around in July, which also means I get more of the fun of the long days of June.

Thou Art Here, the local troupe doing site-sympathetic versions of Shakespeare’s work, had a remount of last year’s successful Much Ado About Nothing at Rutherford House, the historic site preserving the residence of the first premier of Alberta .  The audience followed the actors around outdoors and indoors, upstairs and down, as the banter, schemes, betrayals and amends of the story took place.  Director Andrew Ritchie said that this play was a great choice for their company because the whole play takes place at Leonato’s house (Kris Joseph, recently seen in Vigilante).  They did some clever things including all the audience members in the story – guests at a masquerade, deputized citizens assisting the officers Dogberry (Amy Shostak) and Verges (David Barnet), wedding guests – and they also had individual audience members standing in for some of the minor roles which they hadn’t cast.  This was fun and not embarrassing.  It was an easy play for me to enjoy, because unlike some of Shakespeare’s comedies this one had the sharp-tongued woman (Beatrice, played by Gianna Vacirca) happily ending up with a man who appreciates her and gives as good as he gets (Benedick, played by Ben Stevens), and because nobody was killed to make a plot point (I’m looking at you, Winter’s Tale …).  Conflict was provided through the machinations of Don Joan (Alyson Dicey) and her henchman Borachio (Mark Vetsch), and eventually there was a happy ending for the other couple Hero (Marlee Yule) and Claudio (Hunter Cardinal).  I thought Neil Kuefler was particularly good as Don Pedro, Don Joan’s good-guy brother, although I was a little confused about why the character was using sitcom tricks to manage his friends.

Teatro La Quindicina has moved into the Arts Barns renovated Backstage space until the Varscona renovations are complete.  Their production of Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth, with Mat Busby and Julien Arnold, directed by Stewart Lemoine, is the start of their 2015 season.  It runs until June 13th.  Blarney Productions’ season is wrapping up with A Steady Rain, by Keith Huff, directed by Wayne Paquette and performed by Jesse Gervais and John Ullyatt.  It closes today (Sunday June 7th) with a 1:30 show.  Tickets for both are available at Tix on the Square.

This week I also attended Let There Be Height, the Firefly Theatre performance of circus/aerials students and teachers.  It was enchanting and impressive, with different turns set to music and strung on a storyline of dreams and a dreamer.

I also attended the Mayfield Dinner Theatre’s production of Cabaret, which I saw on Broadway last year.  This production included some local familiar faces, Cheryl Jameson (Helga), Benjamin Wardle (Bobby), Lucas Meeuse (Hans), Chelsea Preston (Angel), Pamela Gordon (Sally Bowles) and Jeff Haslam as Ernst Ludwig, the ingratiating small-time smuggler whose unveiling as a Nazi serves as unavoidable demonstration of the perilous chasm looming before all the characters in 1930s Berlin.  The viewpoint character Clifford Bradshaw is played with convincing awkwardness and wistfulness by Aiden Desalaiz, and the Emcee is Christian Goutsis.  I thought the shocking ending was particularly well done, in a polished performance.