Finster Finds

I had a great time for a great cause on Saturday Night.  JTMF West held it's 3rd Annual Artists for Life event at the Catalyst Theatre.  The theme was divas and the entertainment was fabulous.  We were treated to musical sets from Lindsay Walker , Lesley Pelletier and The Fab Tiff Hall ; Send in the Girls showed us pretty much everything with their sizzling burlesque routines; Three lovely ladies from Rapid Fire Theatre made it on the spot with some improv; and we ended the evening with a whole lotta dancing to the Bridget Ryan Hare Band Experience.  Best of all, the charity raised a lot of money for HIV Edmonton and Camp Fyrefly.  So great to have such a fun evening helping people! * This marks #23 in my 2012 theatrical goal - I count it because of the kinds of things I saw and I was in a theatre!

Last Wednesday Walterdale held it's season launch.  You can check out the new season here at my Walterdale Blog.  I was happy to participate, but little did I know that I was being recorded.  Here is the link to the clip of me singing the title song from next year's musical Anything Goes as posted on Sound and Noise.  It's not a bad recording considering I was not mic'd.  I feel okay about it to post it here!

Every second summer Theatre Alberta puts on Dramaworks in Edmonton.  The workshops offered are in different areas of dramatic discipline and cater to people at a variety of levels in their theatre career.  There are workshops targeted to the beginner, the enthusiast, the teacher, the intermediate and the professional.  I will be participating in Dramaworks this summer - taking a course from Vern Thiessen in Playwriting - and I encourage you to take one as well.  I believe there are some sessions that are already full, but there are others that have space.  Check it out. For those of you who are musical theatre performers, this is one I highly recommend: Kim Mattice Wanat's Unleashing the Expressive Voice .   I was fortunate enough to take a workshop with Kim a few years ago and as a singer/performer I found it very valuable.  The instruction had some general components, but it also addressed specific issues of each of the participants....

In a previous post I said that the Citadel should really do a sing-a-long night for their production of The Sound of Music and lo and behold THEY ARE ! I am very excited about this!  It's this Sunday evening (May 27th) at 7:30 p.m.  and they close out the run with it.  What a fabulous idea and what a great way to end the season!  I hope to see you there singing your heart out!

This past Saturday and Sunday I checked out the work being presented at Walterdale Theatre for their annual new One Act Festival, From Cradle to Stage .  It is the first year in a while that I have not been involved in the Festival as I had hoped to submit and then didn't and then with Nine on my plate on one end and my University work on my plate on the other end I didn't have time to contribute in another way.  The Festival holds a special place in my heart, as it is one of the few ways that 'late emerging' playwrights can get their work produced.  The formalized system in place to work with dramaturges (Tracy Carroll and Brian Dooley) has also meant that those playwrights selected for production can get real, concrete help with developing their work. It's a fabulous experience (I went through it a few years ago when I submitted Pieces in 2007) and for someone over 30 who doesn't qualify for Nextfest or who might not be ready to self-produce at Fringe , it fi...

This weekend I travelled to Jasper with AM for a lovely weekend of rest and wine and lots of talking about the stuff of life.  It was delightful.  AM had won a wonderful prize at last year's JTMF Artist's For Life fundraiser for 2 nights at the Jasper Park Lodge (along with some other perks - it was a really great prize and is available for winning this year!). I was fortunate to be able to join her on the adventure.  We had enough discussions on the ride and at the Lodge about Finally Sauces to make our plans for the company for the next year. We saw Elk and Deer and Sheep and Coyotes and Canada Geese galore.  We took lots of pictures of the beautiful mountains. We sang along to the piano during dinner and were applauded by a table of Australians that we did not know were listening.  We drank wine and ate fabulous food.  We walked and shopped and napped and read. I got my hair cut and love it.  I drove there and back and we talked... lots....

I spend more time than I would like driving in the city.  With our store being in the McKernan area and us living in the North end and with the kids going to French Immersion school and with me rehearsing all over the place, I am in the car a lot.  I don't love it.  I have never loved driving.  It is one of those necessary things in my life. I am also an obsessive rule follower.  In certain areas I think the rules help keep us all safe.  Certainly on the roads of Edmonton this is true.  So, it is particularly frustrating and scary for me when I find I am sharing the road with all sorts of rule-breakers.  Yesterday, I might have killed someone because they weren't following the rules of the road.  They were in the outside-right hand lane in the traffic circle North of Westmount.  I was in the inside-left hand lane.  The only option for them was to go straight - it's very clearly posted.  I had the option of going straight or pul...

I caught Opening Night of In On It at Theatre Network on Thursday night.  I am a true MacIvor fan so this is written with prejudice.  I really, really, really, really liked this play and production.  A deftly written and well-performed two hander, directed by Bradley Moss and starring Frank Zotter and Nathan Cuckow, it was full on laughs and little magic moments and sadness.  As a playwright, I came away with so many ideas about how to put together a narrative which features many more than two characters but is performed by only two.  As a director, I saw possibility for shifting staging out of realism using lighting and sound and only 2 chairs in a simple black box. I was impressed by it's fluidity and it's humour and the way these two guys switched from character to character, from now to 'the play', to the past, to the present.  It wasn't easy to follow all the time.  I don't think it's supposed to be.  You get the information in non-sequenti...