Finster Finds

Last week was kind of a special one for me with regards to Walterdale Theatre. At the AGM I became the President for the 2017/18 Season, a posting I am very excited about especially considering the team that I will have to work with on the Board. It marks a return to the Board after a 5 year absence where I poured myself into production and a new job and work on other Boards. I think that after the experience I have gained on the Theatre Alberta and APN Boards I go back with a lot of skills that will help me serve the organization. I also was surprised with an Award last week. I was selected for the Outstanding Season Contribution Award. Because they knew I was attending as incoming President they didn't tell me, so it was a very nice surprise. I was glad that Mark had decided to come along and since Walterdale has been so much of my theatre family over the years, I did feel like I had a lot of friends there to share the win with. It is always wonderful to be recognized and t...

Saw Testament of Mary at Northern Light Theatre last night. It is a strikingly beautiful play to watch, particularly because of how Trevor Schmidt's Set and Costumes are lit by Adam Tsuyoshi Turnbull's lighting. This is not the cool, mild Mary portrayed in the New Testament but one that simmers beneath the surface so perhaps it is also appropriate that Holly Turner, who plays Mary fiercely and intelligently, is dressed in warm reds instead of the cool blues we often associate with the Virgin Mother. It's a fascinating imagining of Mary's personal, emotional, resistance to what happened to her son (who she refuses to name) and to how she feels used in the narrative that is being constructed around his miracles, death and resurrection. On reflection this morning, it has me thinking about how we receive and consume news in our world. So much of the stories we receive are crafted by media and conflicting details are suppressed and shaped into something palatable and cl...

Where do we come from? Where are we going to?  These questions have been in my head a lot over the last few years, so in some ways Freedom Singer was the perfect show for me to see as it deals very beautifully with both of them. Inspired by a search for his history, creator Khari Wendell McClelland embarks on a journey to find out more about his great-great-great Grandmother Kizzy who fled the U.S. and slavery to Canada via the Underground Railway. Additionally, he was seeking a larger social history in trying to recover the songs and music that Kizzy would have sung. Like the saying goes, it's the journey not the destination, and we are fortunate to go on that journey with him. From the moment it started, the spirit of the room is one of welcome and companionship. We are invited to witness this story and thanked for coming along. There are several touch points along the way where McClelland makes sure that the audience is walking right a long with him. We are as invested a...

I certainly feel that the theatre season is in full swing. Since mid September I have seen 8 shows, 1 concert and I have two more shows coming up this weekend. The menu has been varied, global in scope and both thought-provoking and entertaining. This weekend I will be taking in two shows. The first, Freedom Singer , promises a compelling true story about the Underground Railroad combined with outstanding music from Khari Wendell McClelland, Tanika Charles and Noah Walker.  Here's a sample: Freedom Singer runs at the Citadel until October 29. Click here for tickets. The other show I will be seeing this weekend is The Testament of Mary at Northern Light Theatre. It's going to be a very different show in terms of content and tone. In it, the mother of Jesus tells her story of her son’s crucifixion and questions his death and divinity. It's a one woman show starring Holly Turner and directed by Trevor Schmidt, and a portrait of a very human woman trying t...

Tuesday Night I saw Les Feluettes (Lillies) at  Edmonton Opera . It was such a beautiful production. I'm usually aprehensive with opera, but 10 minutes in I was hooked. The acting was so strong and the cast a true single organism. I wasn't sure what i would think about a show entirely composed of men, but it was the only way it would make sense to tell this story. Plus the singing was gorgeous, both the solo voices and the choral pieces. Kudos to  the entire cast and creative team. It was also told respectfully and honestly and artfully. It hit all the markers.  I cried a li ttle - during the scene in the picture, not because the scene was sad, but because it was so beautiful and because it hit me that it is sad that we are still in a place that we need to tell these stories. For most of the world I live in, Love is Love is Love is Love, but there are many places in the world, in our country, in our communities, where that is still not the case. So even though this ...

I had the pleasure of taking in Alberta Opera's Jack and The Beanstalk  last week at the Backstage Theatre. They only had a very short public performance run before they headed off on their 200+ performance school tour. I was so glad I managed to catch this show as I have been disappointed to some degree with the TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) that I have been able to catch over the last few years. This one, directed by Lana Michelle Hughes with music direction by Erik Mortimer, was delightful. The perfect show to make younger audiences appreciate and enjoy theatre. A clear story with captivating characters (played with skill, talent and enthusiasm by Ethan Snowden, Marc Rico Ludwig and Rachel Ironmonger), humour and well-written and well-performed music, and a subtle message that was neither preachy nor throw-away. It also clocked in under an hour, which from my experience with my own children is simply perfect. Kudos to the cast and creative team for an enjoyable introductory ...

Took in The Aliens by Annie Baker at Theatre Network this past week. It's a very introspective piece with silences and pauses but don't let that scare you off. Director Taylor Chadwick has made sure that the pauses are present and engaging, not simply waiting for the next thing to happen. The action is meticulous and purpose driven, pulling us in. It focuses on KJ (Chris Cook) and Jasper (Evan Hall), two 30 something misfits who hang out in an alley behind a coffee shop. Enter Evan (played with wide-eyed wonder and a delightful awkwardness by Michael Vetsch), a 17 year old coffee shop worker who encounters them and forms a connection with them, entranced by their seeming wisdom and coolness as compared to his relative inexperience. Although KJ and Jasper are failures by most modern standards, they do not see themselves that way and neither does Evan. Their purposeless lives have purpose if only to them. They are here in this alley for a reason even if that reason is just to ...

I took in the Opening Night performance of A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen at Walterdale Theatre  this past Wednesday evening. I knew what was coming, having read much of Ibsen in my 20s and 30s, and revisiting some of it in my 40s. What struck me was how sadly relevant it still is today. It spoke sharply to the defined roles that people impose on themselves and others with regards to marriage and parenthood and life in general and that need to find and understand oneself outside those expectations. It speaks also to societal judgement and the implications of stepping out of line morally and the personal and professional ramifications of moral missteps. I see it all around me - particularly in our social media world - the implications of social shaming for errors combined with the need to present a near-perfect persona to the world. I'm torn on some of this in today's world because I find social media shaming morally abhorrent in many situations... but I digress... It i...

I'm very aware that there are a lot of people around me that are 'not from around here'; mostly because I am an immigrant myself. I blend in well... because I have been in Canada from a very young age and because I think of myself as Canadian, but there have always been stories and accounting of our heritage in my family (Norwegian, German, Macedonian, Irish, English, American,... and so on). Now I was born in Minnesota (the most Canadian of all the states), not China or Zimbabwe or Wales, but I have always been conscious that Canada is a country of travelers - probably because I lived in Fort McMurray for a large part of my life and the majority of people there come from somewhere else. I went to my friend's homes and was warned to eat from the pot on the left because I was Canadian and I was unlikely to be able to handle the spiciness of the pot on the right. I did my best to understand the heavy accented English their parents spoke, enjoying the cadence and knowing...