Finster Finds

  I had the absolute pleasure of taking in the Opening Night of  Evelyn Strange at the Varscona Theatre as part of the 40th Anniversary Season for Teatro la Quindicina. Before the show I was lamenting to my friend the challenge of another company doing a Lemoine play in Edmonton, because even though the scripts were so good, any other company was unlikely to do it as well as Teatro would, and then this production (directed by Shannon Blanchet) proved my point brilliantly.  Everything about the production was on point, from the costumes to the style of the acting, to the music and the lighting. It's perfectly cast with Gianna Vacirca as the mysterious title amnesiac Evelyn Strange; Oscar Derkx as her rescuer Perry Spangler who works to help her figure out who she is; Belinda Cornish as the glamourous wife of Perry's boss; and Jesse Gervais as Perry's co-worker and rumored lothario. The four of them are funny, invested, and tangled in a truly unusual way ( no spoilers! ) ...

 Last night, instead of watching the hockey game, we went to the Citadel Theatre to see 9 to 5 ! (It's okay, the Oilers won and are currently up 3-1 in the series so my going to the theatre did not affect that in any way.) I'd deliberately booked my tickets late in the run because of my show which had just closed on the weekend, but I wasn't going to miss this one!  It was a fun show - very silly and reminiscent of the movie, as it should be - replete with the questionable clothing choices of the late seventies, wigs aplenty, and of course the iconic title song! It's a fun night out and you have until May 29th to catch it. Stand-outs for me include Juan Chioran as the despicable Mr. Hart. I hope we see him back out West for more shows at the Citadel because he is just so good! It would be nice to see him play a more likeable character, but his portrayal of the sexist and egotistical CEO was so much fun to watch! I also loved Kristin Johnston as the uptight and infatuate...

This past Saturday we closed the show, The 39 Steps, at Walterdale Theatre. I was director. It's a role I have taken on many times before and one I truly enjoy. This one was extra special for me.  You may be aware that something happened over the last two years. I refer to it as The Great Pause and for those in theatre it definitely was a pause. For me, as both and artist and audience member it meant a radical shift in what I was doing. Now, I have mostly been doing community theatre for the last few years. I had already shifted away from ambitions of professional theatre for personal reasons, but it didn't really slow my pace. It was rare for me not to be in rehearsal or mentoring other artists at any given moment and my theatre-watching pace was easily 2-4 shows per week. When the Pause happened, I had just finished playing Great Aunt March in Little Women and was mentoring a director whose show was 2 weeks from opening (fortunately we were able to see this onstage only a...