Finster Finds

I have been working on Proof at Walterdale.  We are a hair's width from Opening so that will mean my schedule will open up and I will be able to post in a more timely manner. I did manage to squeeze in a few shows over the last little while... better late than never! A couple of weekends back I managed to get to Two One Way Tickets to Broadway's Forbidden Broadway at La Cite.  It was a fun night of parody of Broadway musicals.  I think it really worked for people who know musicals.  I am not sure how it would play for people who don't know the shows and performers being mocked.  It was pretty quick and the four performers all sang well and went for it.  My favourite moments were an outrageous Carol Channing performed by Kyle Thulien and almost every time Kristin Johnston was onstage. She has an electric stage presence and is a quadruple threat as you can clearly add comedian to the list of singer, dancer and actor. Last weekend I grabbed the last avail...

This week we hit an important milestone in our rehearsals for Proof .  We finished Blocking the whole show.  We now move into putting the whole thing together and getting the feel of the arc of the show through stumbles and runs of larger chunks of it.  Sunday will see our first Stumble Through of the whole show and we will see where we are at for lines.  Since we did so much text work off the top I am not worried about that.  Already my actors are taking sizable chunks off-book and trusting themselves.  With a cast of four that means that everyone has a lot to get into their brain and body but they are all hard workers and seem to be really trusting the process.  Already I am seeing them trusting the emotional response and on Tuesday night we had a few moments of us tearing up at the table as we watched their work.  Truly lovely moments coming through.  Makes me happy as a director!  Now to put it all together! We are also blessed with ...

The other night I took in Pig Girl at Theatre Network.  I am not one to shy away from shows with difficult and challenging topics, as I like theatre that leaves me with a pang in my heart and thinking for days.  The topic is the abduction and murder of marginalized women in the Vancouver area by Robert Pickton and the impact on their families. Although Pickton's name is never mentioned, it's pretty clear that he is the model for the Killer (Randy Hughson).  It's a tough piece to watch for many reasons. The topic itself is not very palatable.  In real time we watch the Killer assault and prepare to kill Dying Woman (Nadien Chu), this is itself is very hard to watch as it is graphic and unrelenting and ever present.  Side by side with that we watch the frustrated Dying Woman's Sister (Elinor Holt) plead for help from the Police Officer (Brian Dooley) over the many years of her sister's disappearance.   It challenges everyone sitting in the aud...

The trouble with having so much great stuff on your plate is that when you don't have much time to actually blog about it! My incredibly busy spree started last Thursday with the Invited Dress for the Edmonton Opera's Salome .  It was a gorgeous and lush show and I loved Salome's ( Maida Hundeling) soaring high notes, although she was difficult to hear in the lower sections.  They told us that because it was dress the performers might be marking their voices, so I imagine that this did not happen during actual shows. I just wanted to hear! Compared to the last two operas I saw, this one took me a little longer to get into as I felt the opening half was a bit slow and I was a bit distracted by the disembodied voice of John the Baptist (Jakonen).  Once we met all the characters I was much more invested.  I really loved what they did with the Dance of the Seven Veils and Salome's final aria as she cradled the head of John the Baptist was quite lovely....