Thursday, October 2, 2008

WATCH BRAVO TONIGHT

Airing tonight: "Does Art Matter? A Bravo! Election Special"
Wendy Crewson is a panellist, Peter Keleghan speaks, and clips from
ACTRA's election press conference are used, to include interviews with
Gordon Pinsent, Raoul Bhaneja and Alberta Watson.

Details:
DOES ART MATTER? A BRAVO! ELECTION SPECIAL (Bravo!, 8 p.m.) is smart,
pre-debate programming. Hosted by Seamus O'Regan of Canada AM, it's a
town-hall discussion with the arts community taking on those politicians
willing to debate the matter of the arts in Canada. The program promises
that writers, musicians, actors, painters and politicians of every
stripe will be there to discuss the state of the arts in Canada. And
funding issues.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

the Jessies...

So no MTC artists won Jessies this year. But we do want to reiterate how proud and honored we are for the nominations, and to have worked with such consummate artists. Ron and Tracy, we salute you!

The evening itself carried an interesting flavor... not the same excited, charged feeling we've usually had. It all felt a little distant and, perhaps... self-congratulatory??

The one thing that kept running through my brain was the very obvious feeling that this was NOT the ultimate end of why we do theatre. It's lovely to get together and celebrate each other's successes, but we really do this for the people. We do this in pursuit of that electric moment where the theatrical facade becomes realer than real and reaches beyond to touch something of the divine in all of us - audience and artists alike. Most of all we do this in service of the people who buy the tickets, find babysitters... and parking... and time... who take a chance that they might share in something special.

It's easy to say now, but I'd like to think that, even if we'd been nominated for, and won, a Best Production award, the highlights of working with Midnight would remain: my conversation with that Auschwitz survivor on opening night of The Quarrel, or the numerous people who took the extra effort to send a note about how much they were moved by A Man For All Seasons.

I guess I just want to thank everyone.

"The Quarrel" Touring Resources now online!!

Our ongoing, baby-step efforts to take The Quarrel around North America continue, this time with the launch of our online touring package...

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Fantastic Arts line-up this summer!

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON: Dan and Erin's Blog

What an incredible summer line-up of arts and entertainment in Vancouver! And these are just some of the major highlights:

Bard on the Beach:
King Lear is our must-see, set in the “near future”, directed by James Fagan Tate to the always haunting and sublime music of Joelysa Pankanea, and starring Bard Artistic Director Christopher Gaze. Other very exciting Bard shows include a 1920’s, vaudeville-esque staging of Twelfth Night, a contemporary Titus Andronicus, and a classic rendition of The Tempest, set to live string music.

Spamalot:
It’s on tour already! While our visiting production won’t include the likes of Hank Azaria or David Hyde Peirce, the show, which musicalizes Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail (and injects a bunch of other, classic Python humour), will be a must for those of us who tend to insert random phrases into conversation like, “I’m not dead yet,” “What is the airspeed velocity of a swallow?” or “In the frozen land of Nador, they were forced to eat Robin’s minstrel… and there was much rejoicing (yay…)”.

JC Superstar:
Theatre Under the Stars in Stanley Park takes on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s first, and artistically sharpest, work. Amazing soundtrack. Intensely deep and passionate exploration of Christ’s human side. It’ll be interesting to see if the mostly “emerging artist” cast pulls it off.

Cirque du Soleil - Corteo:
Could be the best Cirque show yet to come to Vancouver – with a stronger storyline and a design motif based more in ‘Old World’, carnival-esque characters and vignettes. This incarnation may have brought the whole phenomenon back, full-circle to what the archetypal circus was originally about. But still with all that breathtaking Cirque wonder.

Orphans:
If you read the entry a few weeks ago about auditioning for cool projects, then seeing others play the role… well, this’ll be that. But the play is fantastic – gritty, dark and bristling with raw humanity. Directed by wonderman Stephen Drover, too. I hope he cast the right guys ☺

Metamorphases:
This truly gorgeous play retells the stories of Ovid with simplicity and power. The production uses an actual pool as the central setpiece. Playing as a rental at Pacific Theatre. And, oh! Directed by Christine Willes, one of Vancouver’s finest artists, who blew us away in Prodigal Son a few years ago, and who you’ve probably seen in shows like Reaper, Dead Like Me and countless other locally shot projects.

And that’s just the theatre, folks! The surface is only scratched. Major concert stops by Oasis and Radiohead; the Pemberton Festival, with performances by Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, Vampire Weekend, Tom Petty, Wolfmother, Interpol, The Tragically Hip, The Flaming Lips, Sam Roberts… and more than a dozen other acts.
And let’s not forget movies! Get Smart, Batman: Dark Knight, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, Ironman, Wall-E, Tropic Thunder, Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, the Hulk… some of these we’ve already seen, but….

And now the lament. There is no possible %&@*ing way we can see all these things. Actually, with our budget, we can only afford one or two. How cruel is that?

Okay, for kicks I just added up what it would cost to attend all this stuff. Seeing all of our movies at the Clova (our newly discovered cheapie cinema), and only seeing two Bard shows, and just one night at the Pemberton festival, it will cost Erin and I $1,078, before taxes… and gas. Sigh. I know money can’t buy happiness. But it sure can buy a lot of other cool crap.

Friday, June 20, 2008

MTC in the Langley Advance

Ron, Tracy and Dan are featured in a Langley Advance Article here, highlighting the recent Jessie nominations, and their connection to Trinity Western University.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Long lost Quarrel Review

Just found a review of the Vancouver production... a deep, engaging article from a very Jewish perspective. Read it here, or download it here (right-click).

Okay, I'll admit I found this while googling myself. So sue me. I haven't quite figured out how google's inner workings... well, work. But I do know that the more certain keywords are searched, the higher priority they take on in OTHER peoples' searches.... Just trying to up the profile of the blog and www.danamos.net... vanity, vanity, all is vanity, I know.