Tarragon Theatre unveils Under-30 Playwrighting Competition

Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre has announced a new incentive to encourage new Canadian stage work with, one imagines, a more youthful perspective: the National Under-30 Playwrighting Competition. The winning playwright will recieve $3000 and a spot in Tarragon’s annual Play Reading Week. To be eligible your birthday must fall after April 30, 1979, and you must [...]

Read Full Post »

This one goes to eleven: Amiel Gladstone

Amiel Gladstone: Playwright, Director, Blogger (he has one of the best titles for a blog ever), he works all over BC from Victoria (a co-founder of Theatre SKAM) to Vancouver to the Okanagan. His numerous plays include Hippies and Bolsheviks and My Three Sisters, a Chekhov adaptation. Amiel is truly tireless in his efforts to [...]

Read Full Post »

I love my city

From the Georgia Straight today: York Theatre safe at last – by Jessica Werb After over a year of campaigning, battles with city hall, and business negotiations, the future of the York Theatre now appears to be secure. At a news conference on Monday, February 2, the City of Vancouver, the Wall Financial Corporation, and [...]

Read Full Post »

Eulogizing yourself

Canadian playwright Leanna Brodie on the question: “What would you like academics to write about your work in 50 years?” “In writing with humour and insight of a varied and distinctive panoply of characters, Brodie showed an infectious compassion for all, without pity or sentiment for any. That is why audiences still love to see [...]

Read Full Post »

At last: Craig’s List and Steve Fonyo set to music

Seriously, sometimes theatre marketing is all in the titles. Tonight’s line up at Club PuSh (the temporary entertainer’s lounge set up on Granville Island for the duration of the festival that I wish was a real bar in Vancouver all year round) jumps right off the page. Two Twenty-Minute Musicals begin the entertainment tonight, followed [...]

Read Full Post »

This one goes to eleven: Bob Frazer

Meet Vancouver’s Bob Frazer. (There, we lay claim to him. It’s official now because it’s on the internet.) Born in Ontario but raised in the Okanagan, Bob has become a bit of a Golden Boy of our stages here. I love his simple bio from the program for his current production of Skydive, onstage now [...]

Read Full Post »

Funky Cold Medea

Tonight I was treated to a long-overdue fix of classical stage by the theatre department at the University of British Columbia. They are ambitiously tackling the Greek tragedy Medea, and as much as I talk about the importance of staging contemporary theatre in Vancouver as a necessity towards growing a new, as yet uninitiated audience, [...]

Read Full Post »

Hamlet

Hamlet by Harry Venning – 1989, Week 39

Read Full Post »

PuSh off to a flying start

I missed the premier of Skydive here in 2007 to my utter chagrin, the story of its conception sounded fantastic: two old theatre school buddies were jamming on ideas over beers one day and one of them said “hey, how cool would it be to stage a play entirely in mid-air?”. And boom, Skydive was [...]

Read Full Post »

The Next Stage: Now with UQ Events listings

Hey, Vancouver theatre companies, have you jumped on the UQ Events train yet? It’s a social-network-y site that is poised to become a real influencer in Vancouver’s entertainment scene, and a great fit for indie theatre promotions. It’s a fantastic service, and it’s free. The folks running the site are seriously cool, too. Here’s how [...]

Read Full Post »

This one goes to eleven: Jay Brazeau

To open our year in theatre interviews we are very pleased to present a mainstay of the Vancouver stage industry, and a pillar of our arts community. Jay is a theatre actor/writer/director and also works steadily in the TV/film industry. He could actually be our hardest working man in show business. Jay is directing Jeffrey [...]

Read Full Post »

New on the V-List: Skydive

The PuSh Festival is featuring the triumphant return of Realwheels‘ Skydive, a play with a concept so cool I can’t wait to see it live. Actors James Sanders and Bob Frazer perform the whole thing suspended above the stage in freefall. Here they are telling us why would should go down and see the show… [...]

Read Full Post »

Oh, those annoying paying guests…

How are we in the theatre going to adapt to the omnipresence of technology in the hands of our precious audience members? I for one am so bored with the pre-show “turn off your cell phones and other things that go beep” speech before every single play that I see that hearing it now makes [...]

Read Full Post »

Using Video to Promote your Show

Rebecca is a contributing columnist and founder of Rebecca Coleman Marketing and Media Relations, a Vancouver PR company. She blogs at artofthebiz.com and twitters under @rebeccacoleman. Over the last few months, I’ve been doing guest posts on the topic of visuals to accompany your publicity campaign. We talked about the two photo shoots you need [...]

Read Full Post »

Deadline approaches for Solo Collective’s emerging playwrights competition

Hey writers! Made any resolutions to get some of your work out there this year? Solo Collective and The Playhouse are now accepting submissions for the sixth annual Emerging Playwright Competition. They choose 5 winners from the submitted monologues and present their work at Solo Flights, an emerging writers showcase in April. Submission Requirements: Typed [...]

Read Full Post »