The Sunday Feature, April 17, 2011

"HOUR" COMMUNITY: OR IS IT?

by David King

On April 9, the staff and alumni of HOUR Magazine reunited at Mainline

Theatre for a toast to the magazine. Closing its pages after two decades,

the writing went on the wall: HOUR became as thinned out over the last year as its contributing staff. A former theatre critic for HOUR (just before Gaëtan Charlebois, in fact), it's been a nostalgic week for me, particularly reading the massive outpouring of anecdotes and memories from staffers on Facebook, many of whom kicked off their journalism careers in the alt weekly.   

Kevin Laforest is the new Editor-In-Chief of HOUR Community, HOUR's print and online replacement. After several rumours circulated that HOUR would simply become a supplement within the pages of its parent VOIR, Laforest puts that to rest.

After Dark, February 1, 2011

BitchWars and Politics
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois


Today marks the beginning of CharPo's third month and it begins with a mad week of theatre, most of which promises to be very exciting.

But this last week has been an interesting one for theatre news and gossip.

On the opening night of Joe Louis at Infinitheatre, artistic director Guy Sprung took the stage before the play and welcomed the celebrities in the audience. Weird enough. But it became surreal when he mentioned a local theatre critic among their number. Mr. Sprung! What the hell was that about?

Then there was the delicious bitch-war between Brendan Kelly (of the Gazette) and whoever handles the Mirror's Twitter feed. It began with some CBC radio discussions about the daily, the weeklies and their coverage of the arts and Kelly saying the Gazette was doing a good job (wrong-o) and the weeklies less of one (wrong-o again!). (BTW, if you follow me on Twitter—@gcharlebois—along with real info I always retweet the fun bits.)