0°Recent Blog Posts - Ephemeral Pleasures
The festivals of summer, part 1.
When I was a little kid, the calendar was divided in two parts: the school year, in which all the scheduled activities happened week by week and wrapped up in June, and the summer, which started with a parade in June for Flag Day (a local invention) and continued with drive-in movies, ice cream ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
When I was a little kid, the calendar was divided in two parts: the school year, in which all the scheduled activities happened week by week and wrapped up in June, and the summer, which started with a parade in June for Flag Day (a local invention) and continued with drive-in movies, ice cream ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Carousel: a musical to think about
Foote in the Door Productions has taken another big step with their latest production, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 classic Carousel. Their first mainstage show was She Loves Me, a light workplace romance with a spunky determined shopgirl heroine. Their second mainstage show was How to ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Foote in the Door Productions has taken another big step with their latest production, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 classic Carousel. Their first mainstage show was She Loves Me, a light workplace romance with a spunky determined shopgirl heroine. Their second mainstage show was How to ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Opera done differently
Last night I attended the Opera Nuova production of the Tchaikovsky opera Eugene Onegin. It was fascinating. It has one more performance, tonight at 7:30 at the Oasis Centre in northwest Edmonton. If you like music or theatre and you aren’t sure if you like opera, this might be a good one...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Last night I attended the Opera Nuova production of the Tchaikovsky opera Eugene Onegin. It was fascinating. It has one more performance, tonight at 7:30 at the Oasis Centre in northwest Edmonton. If you like music or theatre and you aren’t sure if you like opera, this might be a good one...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience
My mother was very fond of Gilbert and Sullivan. She and I went together to the Stratford Festival a few times, to see Iolanthe, and I think Pirates of Penzance. The next year I thought I was giving her an extra treat by getting tickets to Hamlet. (Later that season I also got to see […]
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
My mother was very fond of Gilbert and Sullivan. She and I went together to the Stratford Festival a few times, to see Iolanthe, and I think Pirates of Penzance. The next year I thought I was giving her an extra treat by getting tickets to Hamlet. (Later that season I also got to see […]
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Busy stages at the end of November
What a busy couple of weeks it is for Edmonton stages! If your weekend isn’t already full, there’s lots of theatre to watch, with these four shows all closing this weekend. Fen, by Caryl Churchill, is playing at the Varscona Theatre until Sunday. Amy De Felice’s Trunk Theatre ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
What a busy couple of weeks it is for Edmonton stages! If your weekend isn’t already full, there’s lots of theatre to watch, with these four shows all closing this weekend. Fen, by Caryl Churchill, is playing at the Varscona Theatre until Sunday. Amy De Felice’s Trunk Theatre ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
How to Succeed in Show Business …
Once again, I’ve been too busy watching theatre and helping to make theatre to write about theatre. But I want to tell you about this one (which I’m working on) in time for you to go see it. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical by Frank Loesser first produced...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Once again, I’ve been too busy watching theatre and helping to make theatre to write about theatre. But I want to tell you about this one (which I’m working on) in time for you to go see it. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical by Frank Loesser first produced...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Saturday inside the Fringe, and out.
For me, it was the second Saturday of Fringe. Our show The Big Fat Surprise closed Friday night (with another sold-out house!) so Saturday I was washing show laundry, then celebrating the parking-space win, catching some shows, lending another artist some of my furniture for a prop, eating festi...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
For me, it was the second Saturday of Fringe. Our show The Big Fat Surprise closed Friday night (with another sold-out house!) so Saturday I was washing show laundry, then celebrating the parking-space win, catching some shows, lending another artist some of my furniture for a prop, eating festi...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Tragedy is silly, Happiness™ is not what it seems …
Epic Tragedy is actually neither. It’s frivolous and delightful, fun even if you don’t know the Greek-tragedy source material very well. Gerald Osborn sets his story in a taverna in the Ancient Greece of the classic tragedies, but with thoroughly modern tropes like a first date from...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Epic Tragedy is actually neither. It’s frivolous and delightful, fun even if you don’t know the Greek-tragedy source material very well. Gerald Osborn sets his story in a taverna in the Ancient Greece of the classic tragedies, but with thoroughly modern tropes like a first date from...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Intense, bouncy, or dark: Fringe for all moods
On Thursday I viewed three performances by local emerging performers, students or recent graduates from the various post-secondary theatre programs. They were all entertaining, and taken together made an interesting showcase of talent. All the shows were published work, but I hadn’t read ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
On Thursday I viewed three performances by local emerging performers, students or recent graduates from the various post-secondary theatre programs. They were all entertaining, and taken together made an interesting showcase of talent. All the shows were published work, but I hadn’t read ...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Upstairs and downstairs at the Fringe
Kind Hearts and Coronets – I never saw the Alec Guinness movie of the same name, but my father loved it. The stage version, directed by Ken Brown, is playing at L’Unitheatre at La cite francophone. John D. Huston plays the Alec Guinness roles as well as miscellaneous servants and ex...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Kind Hearts and Coronets – I never saw the Alec Guinness movie of the same name, but my father loved it. The stage version, directed by Ken Brown, is playing at L’Unitheatre at La cite francophone. John D. Huston plays the Alec Guinness roles as well as miscellaneous servants and ex...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
This is Fringe!
Letters from Battle River – I went to this because it got a shoutout at the end of Annotated Autobiography of Leone McGregor, both being narratives about early women doctors in/from Alberta. Laura Raboud plays the very energetic Dr Mary Percy, who travels from England to work for the Alber...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Letters from Battle River – I went to this because it got a shoutout at the end of Annotated Autobiography of Leone McGregor, both being narratives about early women doctors in/from Alberta. Laura Raboud plays the very energetic Dr Mary Percy, who travels from England to work for the Alber...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
History + storytelling = autobiography
The first show I watched from the audience at this year’s Fringe was the new work The Annotated Autobiography of Leone McGregor, by Savanna Harvey. The performer credits for the show listed Kendra Lamothe as Leone, Savanna as The Writer, Vina Nguyen as Freud, and Heather Janzen as The Stag...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
The first show I watched from the audience at this year’s Fringe was the new work The Annotated Autobiography of Leone McGregor, by Savanna Harvey. The performer credits for the show listed Kendra Lamothe as Leone, Savanna as The Writer, Vina Nguyen as Freud, and Heather Janzen as The Stag...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
@tension
The last theatrical presentation I attended that made such a strong connection between the medium and the message was The Genius Code, a Jon Lachlan Stewart creation exploring the concepts of recording interactions and replaying them and hearing individual viewpoints. @tension is a new work, a co...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
The last theatrical presentation I attended that made such a strong connection between the medium and the message was The Genius Code, a Jon Lachlan Stewart creation exploring the concepts of recording interactions and replaying them and hearing individual viewpoints. @tension is a new work, a co...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
Rough Magic
A little over ten years ago, on February 5th 2006, when I was living in Kingston Ontario, I wrote these notes about a play I’d just seen. I didn’t record the names of the actors or the director, but I wrote about it because the themes of creativity and aging were speaking to me in [...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
A little over ten years ago, on February 5th 2006, when I was living in Kingston Ontario, I wrote these notes about a play I’d just seen. I didn’t record the names of the actors or the director, but I wrote about it because the themes of creativity and aging were speaking to me in [...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
The other mysterious island
The Island was the main setting of the 2000s-decade JJ Adams tv show LOST. It didn’t have a name. Groups of attractive castaways found themselves on its shores, explored, encountered mysterious others, and were threatened and assisted by unexplained supernatural phenomena. And the 5-seas...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
The Island was the main setting of the 2000s-decade JJ Adams tv show LOST. It didn’t have a name. Groups of attractive castaways found themselves on its shores, explored, encountered mysterious others, and were threatened and assisted by unexplained supernatural phenomena. And the 5-seas...
Published at Ephemeral Pleasures
