Thursday, March 29, 2012
News: Montreal Fringe Festival announces dates
The Montreal Fringe Festival has announced it's dates for the 2012 edition, its 22nd. The festival will run 20 days, from June 4-24, with 500 local and international artists featured.
The Fringe will be running against several other events, notably Les Francofolies (June 8-16) and Le Festival TransAmérique (May 24-June 9).
Read The Press Release:
News: Segal Announces adventurous and audacious 2012-13 season
John Gilbert, Musical director of Guys and Dolls (via: frog)
PAUL’S BABYSegal Centre Announces It’s 2012 – 13 Season
joel fishbane
“Paul Flicker, this is your baby this year,” said the Segal Centre’s Executive Director, Manon Gauthier at today’s press conference to announce their 2012 – 13 artistic season. Flicker, who took over for former Artistic Director Bryna Wasserman, is the driving force behind this new season – and if it’s a baby then it’s one that’s going to keep a lot of Montrealers up late at night. With four world premières, three musicals, a Hollywood star, the first lady of Canadian theatre, an international co-production and a slew of multi-racial shows, the Segal has announced its boldest season in years.
Review: Lucy Lost Her Heart
Heartless
by Chad Dembski
Lucy Lost her Heart is the third part of a trilogy that has been in development since 2005 by Theatre Junction Grand. This is my first time experiencing one of their performances and this was the company's first time in Montreal.
The show seems to start as the audience enters with all the performers in American Apparel underwear and warming up and rehearsing on stage. They smile at the audience and seem to be preparing but also seem to be in some kind of character as well. The show begins and the story of five “lost souls” who are trapped in more ways than one (in a mine, in the past, in their memories) a strange line between character and performer is constantly played with. These characters include Flip (Mike Tan) who begins hosting the show and dreams of being a cowboy, Pocahontas who speaks en français as if in a constant dream and slowly paces back and forth on stage, Pierre (Stephen Turner) who has undergone a massive trauma that seems to both inspire and hold him back, Red (Isabelle Kirouac) the minor of the group who seems trapped in her own head and Lost Soldier (Ian Kilborn) who has returned from an unknown war.
First-Person: Kristian Gravenor (and students) on the season
Paul Ahmarani in Cantate de guerre at Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui (photo: Valérie Remise)
Below The Mountain
Montreal theatre-goers rate the season by looking at Cantate de guerre, True Nature, Closer, Le destin tragique de Tubby et not-Tubby, Les enfants de la pleine lune, God of Carnage, Story-Ya, Cornered, Gaëtan, Requiem pour un trompettiste, La Noce, In Absentia, Tristesse Animal Noir, Le maitre de la rosse, après moi le deluge, The Game of Love and Chance, the Leisure Society.
by Kristian Gravenor
Being a discussion leader at the Thomas More Institute’s (TMI) theatre course for the last dozen years has taught me that it’s not always that easy to convince the 20 to 30, largely fifty-something-and-plus, two-thirds female student bodies that my way of seeing plays is the right way.
Of course they are wrong, but there’s not much I can do about it.
The disagreements are always an issue at the final discussion of the year when we sit down and try to figure out which of the 18 plays (split evenly between English and French) had the best actors, sets, stories, and so on.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
New: Beyond the Mountain fund-raises for Children's Hospital
Beyond the Mountain raises over 500 for good cause
This past December Beyond the Mountain produced a fundraiser production of Paul Van Dyck's Paradise Lost with the help and generosity of the Segal Centre, for the Montreal Children's Hospital Foundation.
Beyond Our Fourth Wall, March 28, 2012
Rick Miller’s hilarious play about the history of Christ aboard Air Jesus flight 679.
Bigger Than Jesus (version française)
Apr. 12 – 21
Salle Fred Barry
Theatre…en françaisby Estelle Rosen
Adolescent young woman stifled by her mother, has only her imagination to make her happy.
Apr. 5 – 14
Espace Libre
Omnibus Theatre celebrates the opposite of indignation.
March 27 – April 21
Espace Libre
In 1934, a group of miners receives an assignment that unexpectedly initiates them into the history of art.
Apr 4 – 12
Théâtre Jean Duceppe
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
After Dark, March 27, 2012
IKIWISIObscenity, libel and censorship in the age of the internet
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois
In a US obscenity case back in 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote in an opinion that hard-core pornography was hard to define but, "I know it when I see it." (He later regretted having written it and was convinced it would be on his tombstone - indeed, it was mentioned in most of the obits when he died in 1985.)
Indeed, if you consider all the hot-button words artists use, have aimed at them or bandy about, many fall into the vague and personal realm of "I know it when I see it" (IKIWISI): obscenity, pornography, erotica, slander, libel, racism, sexism, homophobia...
Let me give you my reasons for thinking about these things this week in particular:
Monday, March 26, 2012
News: FTA announces exciting lineup 2012
Exciting lineup in Annual Festby Estelle Rosen
The sixth edition of the Festival TransAmériques (FTA), taking place from May 24 to June 9, 2012 includes plays, dance pieces, exhibits and film screenings.
At today's press conference conducted by Artistic Director Marie-Hélène Falcon along with Artistic Associates Karine Denault and Martin Faucher, they reviewed the 24 plays, including film excerpts. We also heard about the annual free performances, meet-the-artists, and after-show parties.
As someone who has followed FTA for many years, exciting productions from all over the world featuring theatre presentations we'll never have another opportunity to see is a given. One interesting note is this is the first year I've seen more Canadian productions than ever in the program.
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