Tempus Theatre presents…
Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize winning play
A Delicate Balance
Directed by Anthony F. Ingram
Starring: Anna Hagan, Terence Kelly, Teryl Rothery, Bert Steinmanis, Valerie Sing Turner, and T Weir
March 1 - 18
Tuesday to Sunday 8pm
Jericho Arts Centre
1675 Discovery Street (at NW Marine Drive)
Pay-What-You-Will: Tuesday March 6 and 13
For Tickets: ticketstonight or 604.231.7538
Join us after the show on March 11, and celebrate Edward Albee’s 79th Birthday!
On an autumn weekend, Agnes and Tobias find their stately home invaded by her alcoholic sister, their daughter who has just left her fourth marriage, and their best friends seeking refuge from a mysterious terror. As the powerful ties between family, friends and each other begin to pull in opposing directions, Agnes and Tobias discover that more is at stake than just who gets the spare room.
"[A Delicate Balance] is basically about these people who have accommodated to their own weaknesses and compromises, the adjustments they've made. When the time comes that there is a demand put on them, they have to figure out whether or not they are strong enough anymore to do what should normally be done; the Christian way, to take you in. The [delicate balance] is between what we should be doing and what we ultimately decide we need to do to protect ourselves."
-Edward Albee
Who - or what - is Tempus Theatre?
In 2005, five actors - Anna Hagan, Anthony F. Ingram, Bert Steinmanis, Valerie Sing Turner and T Weir - were brought together as part of the cast of Caryl Churchill’s groundbreaking work, Cloud 9, which became both an audience and critical success. Challenged by the complexity of the play and inspired by each other’s talent, ideas and passions, they sought a way to continue working together on scripts that challenged actor and audience both artistically and intellectually. Thus, Tempus Theatre was born. Celebrating the ephemeral essence of theatre – the unrepeatable moment of performance – Tempus Theatre is committed to producing strong, text-based work that provokes consideration of the past that has shaped us, the present we live in and the possible futures we may encounter. For more information about Tempus Theatre, visit us on the web
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Mar 1-18: "A Delicate Balance," Anthony Ingram
Anthony Ingram's involvement with Pacific Theatre goes right back to 1984, when "Tony" auditioned for the Pacific Salt Company! A billion shows later at PT (ELEPHANT MAN, BEGGARS AT THE WATERS OF IMMORTALITY, HALO, PRIVATE EYES, RON'S FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY PARTY, etc, etc) and everywhere else, Anthony's in the director's chair for Eddy Albee's seventy-ninth birthday party...
Mar 28 - Apr 7: Bigger Than Jesus, Cultch
I tried to see this one in other cities - Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton - thinking to maybe bring it out to Pacific Theatre. Actually got a Canada Council grant to check it out at one point, but the timing was off. And then found out the show would be coming here anyway. So that's good. (Probably wouldn't have fit in my little room anyhow. "Bigger Than Jesus Bigger Than PT!"...)
Pretty sure it won't be exactly orthodox, but pretty sure it will be stimulating, entertaining, and very, very theatrical. I don't know about you, but I often get the most spiritual nourishment from artists who may not be "believers," but who encounter this this stuff with fresh eyes, surprisable hearts and new language. Let yourself be distracted by what they get wrong and you'll probably miss out on what they get right - sometimes, something nobody else got quite right, or at least not in quite the same way, ever before.
When it comes down to it, though, I'm just a Jesus junkie. If it's got that guy in it, I've got to check it out. For good or ill, I'm there.
See you - and Jesus, I hope - at the Cultch.
*
BIGGER THAN JESUS
Created by Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks
Performed by Rick Miller
Directed by Daniel Brooks
Designed by Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson
Mar 28 - Apr 7, 8pm
Mar 31 & Apr 7, 4pm matinees
Vancouver East Cultural Centre
Who was Jesus? Was he the Son of God or just another prophet? Bigger than Jesus begins with a 33-year-old man coming face to face with the Roman Catholicism ingrained in his youth. He leads us on a quest to understand the tremendous impact that a Jewish peasant from Galilee has had on the world. Through twelve interlocking character portraits (mirroring the 12 stages of the Passion), we confront varying interpretations of Christ and Christianity, and the often cavernous gulf between them.
This challenging new one-man show features the trademark humour and intelligence of actor/playwright Rick Miller. Live video projections show off Miller’s facial expressions, Daniel Brooks’ clever staging, and the play’s innovative design. Bigger than Jesus has wowed audiences across Canada, the US, Germany and Italy. Christians and non-Christians alike will find plenty of philosophical points to chew over, as well as virtuoso performing and staging to enjoy. Visit the show's website to learn more.
TOP 10 SHOWS of 2004—Toronto Star
TOP 10 SHOWS of 2004—NOW Magazine
BEST of 2004—EYE Magazine
WINNER: Dora Award for Production, Actor and Lighting
*
ABOUT THE SHOW
"Religion is the best defense against a religious experience." Carl Jung
"An exciting piece of multimedia theater with a challenging point of view, Bigger Than Jesus could have a big future... a fast-paced, thought-provoking ride." Variety
Two thousand years after his death, Jesus continues to be a potent and controversial figure, inspiring both devout worship and incalculable violence. Who was Jesus? Was he the Son of God or just another prophet? A politically correct social worker or the Messiah? Bigger than Jesus grapples with the thorny crown of Christianity through conflicting viewpoints, each embodied by a character obsessed with Jesus. A challenging new one-man show featuring the trademark humour and intelligence of Rick Miller.
"Miller and Brooks divide the piece into several substantial units. In each of them, Miller plays a different character: a Jewish academic, a revivalist preacher, an obsequious flight attendant, and, finally, Jesus himself. One of the show's strengths is the way miller takes each of these portraits right to the edge, making them zestily theatrical, but without ever slipping into caricature.
"The best sequence is the Last Supper, which Miller begins by staging with a series of tiny plastic dolls - everyone from Jesus through the Tin Man, Darth Vader and George W. Bush. He then launches into a sharp and accurate parody of "Gesthemene" from Jesus Christ Superstar, which shows off his excellent singing voice and scores some telling satirical points.
"One of the show's greatest strengths is the use of a live video camera that allows Miller's facial expressions and Brooks' clever staging to be seen to best advantage. The camera flies, twists and changes focus to create a series of striking, always apt visual images, sometimes projecting onto the screen, sometimes onto Miller himself.
"Non-Christian viewers may not grasp all the subtleties of the piece's parallel structure with the Catholic Mass but will still find plenty of philosophical points to chew over, as well as virtuoso performing and staging to enjoy." Variety
*
Weaving together the Catholic liturgy, the gospels and some good old-fashioned bible-thumpin’, Bigger than Jesus is a funny and poignant multi-media mass that questions the mysteries of life and the thorny crown of Christianity.
This challenging new one-man show features the trademark humour and intelligence of actor/playwright Rick Miller. Live video projections show off Miller’s facial expressions, Daniel Brooks’ clever staging, and the play’s innovative design. Bigger than Jesus has wowed audiences across Canada, the US, Germany and Italy. Christians and non-Christians alike will find plenty of philosophical points to chew over, as well as virtuoso performing and staging to enjoy.
Pretty sure it won't be exactly orthodox, but pretty sure it will be stimulating, entertaining, and very, very theatrical. I don't know about you, but I often get the most spiritual nourishment from artists who may not be "believers," but who encounter this this stuff with fresh eyes, surprisable hearts and new language. Let yourself be distracted by what they get wrong and you'll probably miss out on what they get right - sometimes, something nobody else got quite right, or at least not in quite the same way, ever before.
When it comes down to it, though, I'm just a Jesus junkie. If it's got that guy in it, I've got to check it out. For good or ill, I'm there.
See you - and Jesus, I hope - at the Cultch.
*
BIGGER THAN JESUS
Created by Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks
Performed by Rick Miller
Directed by Daniel Brooks
Designed by Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson
Mar 28 - Apr 7, 8pm
Mar 31 & Apr 7, 4pm matinees
Vancouver East Cultural Centre
Who was Jesus? Was he the Son of God or just another prophet? Bigger than Jesus begins with a 33-year-old man coming face to face with the Roman Catholicism ingrained in his youth. He leads us on a quest to understand the tremendous impact that a Jewish peasant from Galilee has had on the world. Through twelve interlocking character portraits (mirroring the 12 stages of the Passion), we confront varying interpretations of Christ and Christianity, and the often cavernous gulf between them.
This challenging new one-man show features the trademark humour and intelligence of actor/playwright Rick Miller. Live video projections show off Miller’s facial expressions, Daniel Brooks’ clever staging, and the play’s innovative design. Bigger than Jesus has wowed audiences across Canada, the US, Germany and Italy. Christians and non-Christians alike will find plenty of philosophical points to chew over, as well as virtuoso performing and staging to enjoy. Visit the show's website to learn more.
TOP 10 SHOWS of 2004—Toronto Star
TOP 10 SHOWS of 2004—NOW Magazine
BEST of 2004—EYE Magazine
WINNER: Dora Award for Production, Actor and Lighting
*
ABOUT THE SHOW
"Religion is the best defense against a religious experience." Carl Jung
"An exciting piece of multimedia theater with a challenging point of view, Bigger Than Jesus could have a big future... a fast-paced, thought-provoking ride." Variety
Two thousand years after his death, Jesus continues to be a potent and controversial figure, inspiring both devout worship and incalculable violence. Who was Jesus? Was he the Son of God or just another prophet? A politically correct social worker or the Messiah? Bigger than Jesus grapples with the thorny crown of Christianity through conflicting viewpoints, each embodied by a character obsessed with Jesus. A challenging new one-man show featuring the trademark humour and intelligence of Rick Miller.
"Miller and Brooks divide the piece into several substantial units. In each of them, Miller plays a different character: a Jewish academic, a revivalist preacher, an obsequious flight attendant, and, finally, Jesus himself. One of the show's strengths is the way miller takes each of these portraits right to the edge, making them zestily theatrical, but without ever slipping into caricature.
"The best sequence is the Last Supper, which Miller begins by staging with a series of tiny plastic dolls - everyone from Jesus through the Tin Man, Darth Vader and George W. Bush. He then launches into a sharp and accurate parody of "Gesthemene" from Jesus Christ Superstar, which shows off his excellent singing voice and scores some telling satirical points.
"One of the show's greatest strengths is the use of a live video camera that allows Miller's facial expressions and Brooks' clever staging to be seen to best advantage. The camera flies, twists and changes focus to create a series of striking, always apt visual images, sometimes projecting onto the screen, sometimes onto Miller himself.
"Non-Christian viewers may not grasp all the subtleties of the piece's parallel structure with the Catholic Mass but will still find plenty of philosophical points to chew over, as well as virtuoso performing and staging to enjoy." Variety
*
Weaving together the Catholic liturgy, the gospels and some good old-fashioned bible-thumpin’, Bigger than Jesus is a funny and poignant multi-media mass that questions the mysteries of life and the thorny crown of Christianity.
This challenging new one-man show features the trademark humour and intelligence of actor/playwright Rick Miller. Live video projections show off Miller’s facial expressions, Daniel Brooks’ clever staging, and the play’s innovative design. Bigger than Jesus has wowed audiences across Canada, the US, Germany and Italy. Christians and non-Christians alike will find plenty of philosophical points to chew over, as well as virtuoso performing and staging to enjoy.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Mar 21-31: The Taming Of The Shrew, TWU
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
By William Shakespeare
March 21 -31
Wed-Sat
Evenings: 8pm
Saturday matinees: 2pm
Freedom Hall, Trinity Western University
Tickets:
Adults: $12
Students & seniors: $10
*Opening night and matinees: 2 for 1
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21 and FRIDAY, MARCH 23 PERFORMANCES ALREADY SOLD OUT! BOOK YOUR TICKETS SOON!
For more info or to purchase tickets online, visit our website:
www.twu.ca/theatre
For directions to campus, visit:
http://www.twu.ca/campus/directions/
For directions to Freedom Hall once you arrive on campus, visit:
http://www.twu.ca/campus/map/
For details on the show, see below:
THEATRE AT TWU TRAVELS TO 1950’S ITALY FOR
The Taming of the Shrew
LANGLEY, B.C.
1950’s Italy. Sun in your eyes… Love in the air…. Cross-dressing in the piazza??!! Trinity Western University presents William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew in a production that rethinks this classic battle of the sexes as a meeting of the minds.
“Traditionally, this play focuses on gender conflict and many people see the “taming” of Kate as anti-feminist” says director Aaron Caleb. “Our production really messes with the usual gender stereotyping because I think the story is ultimately about people connecting. The personalities are what give the play its spark and its humour.”
Caleb has blurred the gender distinctions to rework the script for his mostly female cast. This production has: female characters that were originally male, females playing males who disguise themselves as females, females who play both male and female roles, and males portraying male characters who masquerade as females. Confused yet? That’s all right, since Caleb believes the play is all about confusion and connection.
Two Abbotsford natives are among the women who play men in this production. Fourth year theatre major Laura Van Dyke plays the male servant Grumio (who disguises himself as a woman in one scene) and second year student Jenni Fischer plays both a young boy and an old woman.
“In order to play the role, I found I had to completely transform my body,” Van Dyke says. “My walk became much more grounded and solid, my voice changed. I even feel stronger!” Fischer agrees, “Playing both a boy and a woman makes you very aware of your physical choices,” she says. “It has been fun to explore the different ways age and gender affect movement and to try to incorporate that in these characters.”
Fast-paced, fun and full of physical comedy, The Taming of the Shrew features stunning 1950s fashions by award-winning costume designer Nicole Bach. The range of styles in that decade provided ample opportunity for Bach to create a distinctive look for each character that displays her obvious love for the period.
The Taming of the Shrew features Jackie Faulkner as Katherina, John Voth as Petruchio, Rebecca Branscom as Bianca, Thomas Gage as Lucentio and Laura Van Dyke as Grumio. Completing the cast are Daniel Cloake, Jenni Fischer, Amanda Hart, Matthew Nauta, Holly Pillsbury, Laura Taylor, and Robert Steinkamp. The design team is Nicole Bach (costumes), Lora-Lynne Frewing, (lighting) and Aaron Caleb, who furthered his directorial vision by designing a sun-drenched Italian piazza for the set. The Stage Manager is Victoria Thompson, assisted by Carrie Waterton and Erin Mahoney.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Dylan Hears A Who
Lots of gimmicks and spoofs show up on the net every day. This one goes way beyond. You'd swear somebody had dug up outtakes from lost Dylan tapes, circa "Like A Rolling Stone." Until you listen closer and realize Bob (or pseudo-Bob) isn't singing some little rhyming ditty along the lines of "How does it feel to be on your own / no direction home / a complete unknown / like a rolling stone" - no sir, he's singing a timeless little rhyming ditty along the lines of "I do not like them in a box / I do not like them with a fox / I do not like green eggs and ham / I do not like them Sam I Am." Inspired.
No Soul Food there, except for a good chuckle. But apart from the fact that that is probably soul food enough for most of us, I know that many soul food afficionados also happen to be Dylan devotees, so I figure some of y'all might be interested.
PS A while back I told you about Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, Bob Dylan's new weekly radio show where he plays favourite music (and all kinds of other tasty tidbits: clips from movies or old radio shows, poetry, vintage ads, brief interviews, bad jokes), all related to that week's theme. We've had "Bible" and "Baseball," "Shoes" and "Eyes" and "Musical Instruments." My driving companion all last fall. We're now up to #44 ("Texas"), the rumour is there'll be fifty episodes, so you may want to tune in before they're all gone. You can hear them when they're broadcast by subscribing to XM Radio, but if you don't have a digital radio, you'll want to download the programs. The site I mentioned for download no longer exists, but the ever-reliable Nick found us a new source. Check the link above for details, including the new link.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Mar 9-24: Gallery 7, "Steel Magnolias"
Gallery 7 Theatre & Performing Arts Society proudly presents
Steel Magnolias
by Robert Harling
A heartwarming tale of friendship and surviving the joys and challenges of life
March 9, 10, 15 – 17, 22 – 24, 2007 @ 7:30 PM
Discount Matinees: March 10 & 17 @ 2:00 PM
MEI Secondary School Theatre, 4081 Clearbrook Road, Abbotsford
Featuring:
* Tracey Anderton * Melissa Franson * Shannon Pedder *
* Shelley Picard * Lindsay Rindt * Michelle Ronning *
Directed by Sarah Hu
Set Design by Lori Rippin
Costume Design by Elva Atha
Lighting Design by Noah Arney
Sound Design by Sarah Hu
Stage Managed by Gary Atha
Truvy’s hair salon, nestled in the heart of a small town deep in the American south, forms the backdrop to this heart-warming and endearing tale of friendship where life’s hard-fought victories are celebrated and tragedies are made more bearable. Laugh, cry and ruminate along with six colorful friends as they share together each other’s joys, challenges and ambitions.
Call House of James now for tickets: 604-852-3701
Diane Tucker, Vancouver poem in Apple Valley Review
It's a point of pride with me (I know, cardinal sin and all that. Fine. I'm a sinner. That comes as a surprise?) that Pacific Theatre's CHRISTMAS PRESENCE and other such nights (CONFESSIONS, PASSION, TESTIMONY, etc) almost always feature a real live poet. We've had Richard Osler, we've had Karl Petersen, we've had... Well, lots.
One of 'em is the much-enthused-about Diane Tucker, who's just had one of her pieces published in the Apple Valley Review literary journal. I'll make you make your own journey to their site for the poem itself - just click on the link, scroll down past the pretty picture of the little girl and leaves and nature and stuff to find the link to Diane's - but I'll whet your appetite with her notes on the poem's Vancouver setting;
One of 'em is the much-enthused-about Diane Tucker, who's just had one of her pieces published in the Apple Valley Review literary journal. I'll make you make your own journey to their site for the poem itself - just click on the link, scroll down past the pretty picture of the little girl and leaves and nature and stuff to find the link to Diane's - but I'll whet your appetite with her notes on the poem's Vancouver setting;
On “Speeding north: Vancouver”
I’ve taken the Number 10 Hastings bus down Granville Street into downtown Vancouver hundreds of times, but one night, a shiny, rainy, stereotypical Vancouver night, everything I saw meant more somehow. I guess I was thinking how the city’s changed since I was born there almost 42 years ago. Even though Vancouver, still a young city, has taken over the last few years to wearing too much make-up and unbuttoning her shirt a little too low to attract the cool guys, I still remember her when she was a sweet, interesting nobody in comfortable shoes who was perfectly happy with bad Chinese food, walking in the rain, a romantic movie and a slice of (non-gourmet) pizza. I still want to think of her that way and I don’t think she likes it.
Mar 1 - Apr 8: Damon Calderwood Bird Pix
Damon Calderwood was THE ELEPHANT MAN at PT a year and a bit ago, he's got a long history with our Salt Company and a ton of other shows around town, and I'm thrilled to say we'll be acting together (at last!) in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS next January (you heard it here first - more season announcements to follow in due time). What you may not know is that Damon is an accomplished photographer: as well as doing a lot of the archive and publicity shots for our company, Damon is a birder, and the release of his first book and the opening of his first gallery show make March a big month for the lad!
This from Damon...
This from Damon...
Flights Of Fantasy
Mar 1 - Apr 8
The Blackberry Gallery
Port Moody Arts Centre
2425 St. Johns Street, Port Moody (at St. Johns and Kyle).
931-2008
Gallery hours: Mon-Thurs 10am-8pm, Fri/Sat 10am-5pm, Sun/Holidays noon-4pm
I wanted to invite you to my first ever Gallery Display of my bird photographs. I am also launching my first book, Flights of Fantasy: Photographing North American Birds. The display will be on from March 1st to April 8th, 2007, and includes pictures of a variety of beautiful birds from my trips to the Arctic, Oregon, and all over British Columbia.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Talk to you soon,
Damon
Mar 11: Leora Cashe Jazzes Joni!
Wow! Leora Cashe always raises high the roofbeams when she sings at Christmas Presence or any of the other Pacific Theatre gigs she graces. Now she's got an evening of jazz covers of Joni Mitchell material, and you know it's going to be stunning. If I have my way, you'll see me there!
'Both Sides Now'
The Songs of Joni Mitchell
A Jazz Tribute To A Canadian Standard
Sunday March 11 @ 7:30
The Cellar / 3611 West Broadway / Reservations 738-1959
arrangements by Ross Taggart
Leora Cashe - vocals
Ross Taggart - piano
Buff Allen - drums
Darren Radke - acoustic bass
Leora writes: "During the recording of my first jazz vocal demo, Ross Taggart inspired me with the idea of recording a CD featuring the songs of Joni Mitchell. How does one pick 12 or so tunes from such a rich song treasury? I love them ALL! So I decided to focus on the early recordings from 1968-1974. This past fall we started working on these new arrangements and I've gotta say, Ross Taggart has captured an exquisite harmonic landscape to frame these 'Joni Gems'. Well done, Ross, and a great big heartfelt Thank You! We're thrilled to be working on this project together, honouring the music from one of our Canadian treasures. 'Carey, Michael from Mountains, Woodstock, Big Yellow Taxi, All I Want' are some of the tunes just to name a few."
$10.00 cover with $10.00 food or drink minimum
Check out Leora's website
Mar 10: Celtic ceilidh at St. Barnabas
PT regulars will know Stephen Elcheshen and Kerri Norris from performances in a number of Stones Throw shows - most recently, Kerri played George MacDonald's wife Louisa in A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR.
What you may not know is that Kerri and Stephen are seriously into the whole celtic thing: they've done lots with Stage Eirrann, and now they've got some sort of wild Irish party going on at their home church in New Westminster. (It's called a ceilidh, and you say it "KAY-lee." Just so you know.)
Here's the dope from Kerri;
What you may not know is that Kerri and Stephen are seriously into the whole celtic thing: they've done lots with Stage Eirrann, and now they've got some sort of wild Irish party going on at their home church in New Westminster. (It's called a ceilidh, and you say it "KAY-lee." Just so you know.)
Here's the dope from Kerri;
It's a Celtic Ceilidh - featuring traditional celtic music by Celtic Traditions from 7pm-9pm and some other presentations. (Poetry readings, singing etc.)
There will be munchies, sweets and a raffle. Tickets are $25 and can be bought at the door.
*
Church eyes green plans for future
St. Barnabas Anglican Church is going green.
Rev. Mavis Brownlee is pleased that St. Barnabas Church is one of four congregations selected to receive a solar hot water panel in the Diocese of New Westminster. The initiative represents St. Barnabas' ongoing commitment to the objective of becoming a green parish.
"It is going to be up and running by mid-March," she says. "The tank is here. We are waiting for the second part."
Mavis says it's anticipated that the solar hot water panel will result in annual cost savings of $268 per year, but more importantly, will result in significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The exact emission reductions will be known when the panel becomes fully operational in mid-March
St. Barnabas is encouraging community leaders to take the green challenge and reduce emissions in city facilities and vehicles. The federal government and the Diocese of New Westminster provided funds for the solar water panels.
In celebration of the greening of the parish, St. Barnabas is having a Celtic ceilidh on Saturday, March 10 at 7 p.m.
"We will have good food and good drink," Mavis says. "We invite you all to help celebrate the greening of the parish."
The Celtic ceilidh fundraiser features music by Michael Pratt and Lynn McGowan of Celtic Traditions.
Tickets (only 100 are available) are $25 and available at
St. Barnabas parish hall, 1010 Fifth Ave, New Westminster
For more information, call 604-526-6646.
Rickie Lee Jones "The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard / Lee Cantelon "The Words"
Sad to say, Soul Food missed reading about Rickie Lee Jones' Commodore show (March 8) until the darn thing was over. Neither Black Swan nor the local book emporia are open yet this morning, so it'll be a couple hours before we can run down and pick ourselves up copies of "The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard" or "The Words." Meanwhile, I'll content myself with spinning those first two RLJ LP's (though something tells me we've come a long way from "Chuck E's In Love") while you pull up a chair and help yourself to a heapin' helpin' of words about Rickie and her friends, Lee and Jesus.
Rickie Lee Jones finds her spiritual side
by Alexander Varty
Georgia Straight, March 1 2007
When Rickie Lee Jones entered the makeshift recording studio on Los Angeles's Exposition Boulevard, she thought she was just going to help out her friend Lee Cantelon. The Vancouver Island–based poet, photographer, and world traveller had recently compiled The Words — a book of the sayings of Jesus arranged for modern readers — and was anxious to issue these texts in spoken-word form. With Mike Watt, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Low already behind the project, he was pleased to have Jones on board as well.
But she just couldn't do it. Faced with a microphone and prerecorded tracks courtesy of guitarist Peter Atanasoff and recording engineer Bernie Larsen, she decided that the words of Christ were too baggage-laden to fit in her mouth. She also realized that something else was at work: while Jones couldn't speak for Jesus, his parables were drawing her into the world of the Holy Land, circa the year zero.
“The first image that I had was that we were drawing pictures of Jerusalem a few thousand years ago, setting the stage for me to look out of people's eyes—or for them to look out of mine,” she explains, reached at a St. Paul, Minnesota, hotel. “To have one foot here, but mostly, you know, to inhabit that time and look out through them and tell you what I saw and what I heard.”
Words welled up out of her, and Cantelon's project quickly morphed into Jones's next CD. The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard is the most coherent and accessible statement Jones has made since 1997's underrated Ghostyhead, yet more than half of its 13 tracks feature lyrics the singer made up on the spot.
“I'd done this before, in that I've sometimes taken a chance in making a text in front of an audience,” Jones allows. “But this was obviously extraordinary. I didn't plan or expect what came out, and for it to take shape so clearly was very wonderful and miraculous in that setting.”
Christian mystics might call Jones's experience gnosis, the direct and instantaneous experience of the divine. This isn't entirely new to Jones: like musicians as diverse as John Coltrane and Iggy Pop, the singer has often felt a connection to something bigger while performing. But to have the spirit manifest in something as concrete as a song has changed her relationship to the Christian message, if not to organized religion.
“Through knowing Lee, I've developed sympathy and understanding and empathy for the character that is Christ,” she says. “But my point of view would be kind of radical to a traditional Christian.
“The idea of practising utter nonviolence in thought and action is still a very profound idea,” she continues. “That's the beginning and end of that rabbi's message. And he was against religion—he was really against rote prayer, against being pious in the sense of making a big deal out of your prayers. Yet it seems that's the only kind of representation he has: the things he absolutely didn't seem to like at all.”
With subversive gospels like Cantelon's The Words and Jones's Sermon, this may be starting to change—and, frankly, it's about time.
The full story behind the recording sessions is told at Lee Cantelon's website. Here is an excerpt;
We were now into our second week at Marc's studio, mid-June, 2005. I asked Rickie Lee Jones if she would come across town to Exposition Boulevard and read from the book. ... For as long as I had talked to Mike about this, I had shared the same vision with Rickie, and felt that it was important to have a woman's voice reading the Jesus words. Rickie arrived in the afternoon, and we looked over a few chapters that might appeal to her.
Rickie said she was ready, and we did a test reading for levels. She read only a few sentences, and abruptly stopped. "This isn't going to work for me," Rickie said, and suggested that she sing her lines, and that, instead of reading verbatim from the book, she use it as a reference and improvise lyrics based on one or more pages. We all agreed that she should try this approach, and selected a track that we thought would serve her voice. Bernie set up a vocal microphone, from his collection of antique sound equipment. (We went on to use a Russian microphone for Rickie's vocals. When it broke, we couldn't fix it, because the transformer and all the literature was written in Russian.) I asked if Rickie would like to hear the track through her headphones, so she could get a sense of the melody, chord changes, and length. "Sure," Rickie said, and we played about twenty seconds before she stopped us. "That's good. I'm ready now," she said. "Just let it roll and let me see what happens."
I closed the sliding fire door to give Rickie some privacy. Bernie cued the Logic track on his laptop. I looked at Peter. What was Rickie planning to do? She didn't have any lyrics. She didn't even know what the song sounded like. The track started, two guitars, chords pounding out a tribal beat. "For a thousand years," Rickie sang. Her voice was plaintive, filled with sadness, timelessness. "Now I walk among them and I see them, and I open up my wrists and nobody knows my name. So I walk again ...I look at you. Do you know my name? Say it...do you know my name? Do you know my name?"
As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. To say we were stunned would be an understatement. "That didn't just happen," Peter finally said. I rolled the door back. Rickie was still standing at the microphone, her eyes closed. I waited until she took off the headphones. I tried to say something appropriate, but the words wouldn't come. Rickie's performance had changed the project in the three minutes and thirty-four seconds it had taken to record what became Nobody Knows My Name. Without hearing the track, and without lyrics, she had reset the direction for the project. She turned and walked out into the early evening, absorbing slowly what had just happened. I walked up Exhibition with her, but we didn't talk. She had emptied so much emotion into that song. I thought about the lyrics. "Did the anonymous Christ walk among us? In using his name, did we reveal that we did not know or recognize him?" There were many implications in what Rickie has just "written." And more depth was to come...
Should we try this approach again? I didn't want to impose this on Rickie, but we all agreed to record another track. Peter and I picked some music we thought would work, and waited. "How about the chapter on prayer," I suggested when Rickie had returned (physically and emotionally). She read a few pages from the book, then put the headphones on. The door rolled shut and Bernie hit command "R" on the laptop. The cursor began tracking along the timeline. Again, Rickie was hearing the song for the very first time. "I wanted to pray," she sang, and followed, "How do you pray in world like this? You know I see the people on TV and they close their eyes and they bow their heads and they say, 'Let us pray,' and it feels so cold and meaningless..."
Five minutes later there was only silence. The first two songs, Nobody Knows My Name and Where I Like it Best were finished. We never did go back and change one note of these tracks, all the way through to mastering. The melody and lyrics remained exactly as they were captured that afternoon and evening, beneath the dusty skylight of the cluttered studio on Exposition Boulevard. Instead of a literal reading from the book, Rickie was guided to say what she felt in her spirit, to answer without thinking, to seek without implying that she knew, or could know, the answers.
It is recorded that Jesus once told his followers not to be "like the religious" who repeated (memorized) prayers over and over, thinking that God would hear them because of their repetition. Rickie's decision to improvise, in that moment, forced us away from stereotype or dogma.
"You wake up one morning and you're someone else," Rickie sings in I'll Be True.
postscript
I was reminded, during the making of the record, of something W. H. Auden once said. He was talking about the spirit of creativity and likened it to the Holy Spirit. He said he knew when the Holy Spirit was speaking to him, because the idea was always new, something he had never thought before, and it always demanded something of him. I think we would all agree that this happened to us during the months that we engaged ourselves with The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard. Each of us heard and felt something new, and, in turn, we were challenged to act on what was expressed. There is truth in these songs, lightness, and lack of artifice. May they "catch you in its ray."
The text of Lee Cantelon's book "The Word" is online at his website. Here's what he has to say about that project;
The idea for the book was to extract the words of Jesus from their New Testament setting, and to approach them from a non-religious perspective.... The goal was to free the words of Jesus from the socioeconomic, political, and institutional impositions/distortions that had attached themselves to his message throughout orthodox (Christian) history. Many more well-known authors have attempted to amplify the Christ story. This list includes names such as Nikos Kazantzakis, Sushako Endo, and Jose Saramago (among many others). What made my book different from these, is that I sought, not to retell the story, but to expand the recorded words of Christ out from the four Gospels, including newer linguistic understanding, and to arrange them topically. The essence of the Christ message, from my perspective, can often be understood as an indictment of the church. The Jesus I discovered during my research warned of the perils of religion. My Jesus worked to achieve liberation for the slaves and oppressed, dignity for the poor, and for those who were outcast because of gender, race, or social prejudice. The entire Jesus message seemed, in my studies, dangerous to the elite, ready to shake the foundations of the status quo.
In the 21st century, the book seems particularly relevant. We are living in a time when the message of Christ is greatly misrepresented. The Words is about undoing down these perceptions, as it is about realizing our potential to be compassionate and do good. Within the message of The Words you will discover keys to a more "abundant life," and a mandate to share this good news with anyone who will listen.
I can't tell if the original spoken word project, "Words From The Streets," is still going forward, but I'm hoping so. You can get a taste of the first track of "Words From The Streets" - "Blessed Are You" by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony - at Cantelon's website.
*
And one last voice to be heard from. Thom Jurek is a regular at the Arts & Faith conversation board, though we rarely cross paths - he mostly talks music, I hang out with the movie crowd. Here's some of Thom's rave review for AllMusic Guide;
...easily the most arresting recording of Rickie Lee Jones' labyrinthine career... something so completely unraveled, moving, and beautiful, something so unexpected -- even from a latter-day Beat chanteuse like Jones -- that it can only be called art. Certainly many of these songs feel raw, but they are supposed to; it's not artifice, it's inspiration.
Check the opener, "Nobody Knows My Name," where a three-chord Velvet Underground-styled vamp gives way to Jones as she channels Jesus walking through the streets of history and particularly Los Angeles, as himself, as disguised as a suicide, as a player, as every woman and man, and comes out truly anonymous. The pain in her voice when she gets to the refrains is the wail we only get from her in live performances. This is likewise the case in "Gethsemane," a tad -- not much -- more polished, and once more with Jones as Jesus, here relating the agonizing experience of the beginning of Jesus' moment of trial before he has been handed over to be put to death. In her voice she says, "I'd like to just sleep awhile" in near whimsy, but the agony is there. In "Lamp of the Body," with Peter Atanasoff, Bernie Larsen, and Joey Maramba in a combined Eastern and Western lilting rock groove as intruding sounds enter the mix, Jones sings as Jesus with the lamp of the body being the eye:
"See the darkness shine
How great is the dark
See the dark
And are there not 12 hours of daylight
But if you walk by night
You will fall...."
This gives way to the nearly pop-sounding "It Hurts." This track simply has to be heard to be believed. It rocks, it rolls, it stings and stabs, and it breezily calls forth all the complex emotions of being human and divine. It's angry and tender, uncertain and immediate.
Is this "Christian" music? Not in any CCM sense. It's punk rock, it's shimmering heat L.A back-court street rock, it's back-porch rock, garage rock, and just plain rock. But Jones is trying in her way to offer proof of the inspiration she found in Cantelon's book, and to relate the humanity of the one called Jesus Christ as an actual person, who is in and around every one of us, no matter how broken, poor, angry, violent, deceitful, happy, or wealthy. There is no new agey overtone to this set. And besides all that, it rocks, it rolls, it swings and strolls. This is pop music from the jump, but it's pop that would never, ever be considered for play anywhere except on the home jukebox. And there is no Christian-ese...
This is the least polished and crafted recording of Rickie Lee Jones' career, and it stands alone in her catalog. It's a ragged kid in ripped blue jeans singing her heart out to you without drama or falsity. How can it be anything less than a masterpiece?
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Mar 16: GRACE at Pacific Theatre
Here's the press release for GRACE, that went into rehearsal just yesterday. Much excitement!
Greetings,
For fans of last year’s provocative PRODIGAL SON, and for those who relish HBO’s dark and twisted DEAD LIKE ME, Pacific Theatre presents an exciting, controversial upcoming production of GRACE.
Tickets are available through our box office by calling 604-731-5518.
Pacific Theatre Explores Twisted Fundamentalism in Grace,
by Craig Wright
Vancouver, BC – March 15-April 14, 2007 (opens March 16)
Some “happy clappy” Christians have a secret: they aren’t so happy. A mid-west American couple who moves to Florida to begin a chain of Christian hotels has just such a secret: they have a dark side – a deeply unhappy, lonely, insecure side. This aspect of their lives is explored in Pacific Theatre’s production of Grace, a darkly funny and provocative new play by a writer of HBO’s hit television series, Six Feet Under.
Proclaimed as “the most controversial, talked-about show of the year” (Tom Williams, Theater in Chicago), this examination of twisted fundamentalism runs at Pacific Theatre March 15 - April 14, starring Craig Erickson (Peer Gynt, Prodigal Son), Alexa Devine (Jessie Award winning The Big League), and Kerry van der Griend (Lonely Planet). Pacific Theatre is also delighted to announce Jessie Richardson winner Duncan Fraser (The Birthday Party, No Great Mischief) in the role of Karl.
Things are never what they seem in this play about a zealous Christian couple, their antagonistic neighbour, and the way religious ideas make sense – and sometimes nonsense – of life’s events. Pacific Theatre is thrilled to produce the Canadian premiere of a show which has been reviewed as “surely the most controversial and talked about play of the year” (Tom Williams, Theater in Chicago).
Greetings,
For fans of last year’s provocative PRODIGAL SON, and for those who relish HBO’s dark and twisted DEAD LIKE ME, Pacific Theatre presents an exciting, controversial upcoming production of GRACE.
Tickets are available through our box office by calling 604-731-5518.
Pacific Theatre Explores Twisted Fundamentalism in Grace,
by Craig Wright
Vancouver, BC – March 15-April 14, 2007 (opens March 16)
Some “happy clappy” Christians have a secret: they aren’t so happy. A mid-west American couple who moves to Florida to begin a chain of Christian hotels has just such a secret: they have a dark side – a deeply unhappy, lonely, insecure side. This aspect of their lives is explored in Pacific Theatre’s production of Grace, a darkly funny and provocative new play by a writer of HBO’s hit television series, Six Feet Under.
Proclaimed as “the most controversial, talked-about show of the year” (Tom Williams, Theater in Chicago), this examination of twisted fundamentalism runs at Pacific Theatre March 15 - April 14, starring Craig Erickson (Peer Gynt, Prodigal Son), Alexa Devine (Jessie Award winning The Big League), and Kerry van der Griend (Lonely Planet). Pacific Theatre is also delighted to announce Jessie Richardson winner Duncan Fraser (The Birthday Party, No Great Mischief) in the role of Karl.
Things are never what they seem in this play about a zealous Christian couple, their antagonistic neighbour, and the way religious ideas make sense – and sometimes nonsense – of life’s events. Pacific Theatre is thrilled to produce the Canadian premiere of a show which has been reviewed as “surely the most controversial and talked about play of the year” (Tom Williams, Theater in Chicago).
Monday, February 26, 2007
Blogger blogs THE QUARREL: "Food For Thought"
“I have ideas from time to time… I know I do.” - Michael Scott
Ryan Dueck on THE QUARREL
February 21 2007
Last Saturday, Naomi and I had the entirely unusual and entirely pleasant experience of an entire day in Vancouver without the kids (some friends had generously offered to let them have a sleepover from Friday to Saturday). After a leisurely morning where we could actually sleep in and have an enjoyable breakfast at a cafe on Main Street, we went to Pacific Theatre and saw the Canadian Premiere of The Quarrel by Joseph Brandes and Joseph Telushkin.
The play is about two Jewish childhood friends who meet in Montreal on Rosh Hashanah in 1948 after surviving the Holocaust. Chaim Kovler (played by Nathan Schmidt) is a Yiddish writer whose experience in WWII confirmed his previous disavowal of any belief in God and justified his pursuit of a thoroughly secular life of a creative writer; Hersh Resseyner (played by Dan Amos) is an Orthodox rabbi for whom similar experiences has led to solidify and entrench the faith of his youth. The two men were the best of friends in the yeshiva school of their childhoods, but separated as a result of Chaim’s desire to leave the school and abandon his religion. Both men lost their families in Auschwitz. Both were left alone, with nothing but faith, on the one hand, and bitterness, on the other to accompany them as they struggled to come to terms with the horrors they had witnessed and lived through. For eighty minutes we witnessed the combination of bitter disagreement, unmitigated anger, stubborn faith and deep friendship which the horrors of Auschwitz produced and confirmed in the lives of these two men.
The problem of evil obviously figures prominently in the story. For Chaim, Auschwitz represented nothing less than the God of the universe breaking covenant with his people. Indeed, the subtitle on the program reads: At Sinai, God made a covenant with Jewish people. At Auschwitz, he broke it. Chaim will countenance no justification of God’s behaviour. There is no adequate theodicy for what is symbolized by Auschwitz. At one point in the play, when Hersh argues that we can’t possibly know God’s ways, Chaim explodes in anger, shouting “If I knew God, I’d put him on trial!” For Chaim, if God exists he is a liar, and he is morally culpable for the deaths of six million of his “chosen people.”
For Hersh, on the other hand, Auschwitz has only intensified his devotion to Judaism - indeed his crowning accomplishment, the one in which he takes the most pride, is the opening of a yeshiva school in Montreal. His traditional Jewish worldview remains firmly in place; however his theodicy seems, to put it bluntly, pathetically inadequate if not offensive. “We must have done something to deserve what happened at Auschwitz… God must have had a reason… We can’t expect to understand…” The viewer gets the sense that Hersh is desperately grasping at something, anything to exonerate God for the monstrous evil that his people have experienced. Side by side with Chaim’s eloquent and devastating indictment of the God of Israel, Hersh’s explanations seem rather meager.
Those of us who are “wiser” and more philosophically sophisticated would say that any theodicy which persists in linking the kind of suffering symbolized by Auschwitz with human fault is grossly irresponsible, not to mention intellectually unpalatable. And in The Quarrel, there is not much doubt about which of the two views is seen to be more compelling. At the same time, the play does reveal a kind of fault line - one which has grown to be symbolic of the impermissibility of a certain kind of theodicy in much the same way that the Lisbon earthquake was two hundred years earlier. At Lisbon, it is said, the sheer destructiveness and horror produced by nature forced people to lose faith in facile notions of divine providence. If Lisbon represented the loss of faith in religion, Auschwitz represented the loss of faith in reason. If reason can lead to Auschwitz, then… well, then what? Hersh’s “inadequate” theodicies seem to represent a rather bewildered recircling of the wagons. Religion can’t explain evil of this magnitude, reason can’t explain it… what do we do? Just keep going around and around? Susan Neiman’s argument that Auschwitz leaves us “more helpless than Lisbon” because “our conceptual resources are exhausted” seems just about right…
This certainly seems to be the case at the end of The Quarrel. At the end of a lengthy rehearsal of familiar arguments and non-arguments, two lonely men remain, neither of whom is able to explain the evil they have experienced. The only thing they can agree on is that they need one another’s friendship. Neither one is convinced by the other’s arguments - there is no silly postmodern affirmation that they are both “right” in their own way - but they are drawn back to one another as human beings. The problem of evil simply remains the omnipresent and maddening enigma that it has always been. In the end, the only answer provided is not a logical solution to a philosophical problem, but a moving account of the ways in which evil can, however partially, be redeemed through restored relationships. It was a very moving production, and I am glad to have seen it.
Ryan's blog is http://rynomi.wordpress.com/
Ryan Dueck on THE QUARREL
February 21 2007
Last Saturday, Naomi and I had the entirely unusual and entirely pleasant experience of an entire day in Vancouver without the kids (some friends had generously offered to let them have a sleepover from Friday to Saturday). After a leisurely morning where we could actually sleep in and have an enjoyable breakfast at a cafe on Main Street, we went to Pacific Theatre and saw the Canadian Premiere of The Quarrel by Joseph Brandes and Joseph Telushkin.
The play is about two Jewish childhood friends who meet in Montreal on Rosh Hashanah in 1948 after surviving the Holocaust. Chaim Kovler (played by Nathan Schmidt) is a Yiddish writer whose experience in WWII confirmed his previous disavowal of any belief in God and justified his pursuit of a thoroughly secular life of a creative writer; Hersh Resseyner (played by Dan Amos) is an Orthodox rabbi for whom similar experiences has led to solidify and entrench the faith of his youth. The two men were the best of friends in the yeshiva school of their childhoods, but separated as a result of Chaim’s desire to leave the school and abandon his religion. Both men lost their families in Auschwitz. Both were left alone, with nothing but faith, on the one hand, and bitterness, on the other to accompany them as they struggled to come to terms with the horrors they had witnessed and lived through. For eighty minutes we witnessed the combination of bitter disagreement, unmitigated anger, stubborn faith and deep friendship which the horrors of Auschwitz produced and confirmed in the lives of these two men.
The problem of evil obviously figures prominently in the story. For Chaim, Auschwitz represented nothing less than the God of the universe breaking covenant with his people. Indeed, the subtitle on the program reads: At Sinai, God made a covenant with Jewish people. At Auschwitz, he broke it. Chaim will countenance no justification of God’s behaviour. There is no adequate theodicy for what is symbolized by Auschwitz. At one point in the play, when Hersh argues that we can’t possibly know God’s ways, Chaim explodes in anger, shouting “If I knew God, I’d put him on trial!” For Chaim, if God exists he is a liar, and he is morally culpable for the deaths of six million of his “chosen people.”
For Hersh, on the other hand, Auschwitz has only intensified his devotion to Judaism - indeed his crowning accomplishment, the one in which he takes the most pride, is the opening of a yeshiva school in Montreal. His traditional Jewish worldview remains firmly in place; however his theodicy seems, to put it bluntly, pathetically inadequate if not offensive. “We must have done something to deserve what happened at Auschwitz… God must have had a reason… We can’t expect to understand…” The viewer gets the sense that Hersh is desperately grasping at something, anything to exonerate God for the monstrous evil that his people have experienced. Side by side with Chaim’s eloquent and devastating indictment of the God of Israel, Hersh’s explanations seem rather meager.
Those of us who are “wiser” and more philosophically sophisticated would say that any theodicy which persists in linking the kind of suffering symbolized by Auschwitz with human fault is grossly irresponsible, not to mention intellectually unpalatable. And in The Quarrel, there is not much doubt about which of the two views is seen to be more compelling. At the same time, the play does reveal a kind of fault line - one which has grown to be symbolic of the impermissibility of a certain kind of theodicy in much the same way that the Lisbon earthquake was two hundred years earlier. At Lisbon, it is said, the sheer destructiveness and horror produced by nature forced people to lose faith in facile notions of divine providence. If Lisbon represented the loss of faith in religion, Auschwitz represented the loss of faith in reason. If reason can lead to Auschwitz, then… well, then what? Hersh’s “inadequate” theodicies seem to represent a rather bewildered recircling of the wagons. Religion can’t explain evil of this magnitude, reason can’t explain it… what do we do? Just keep going around and around? Susan Neiman’s argument that Auschwitz leaves us “more helpless than Lisbon” because “our conceptual resources are exhausted” seems just about right…
This certainly seems to be the case at the end of The Quarrel. At the end of a lengthy rehearsal of familiar arguments and non-arguments, two lonely men remain, neither of whom is able to explain the evil they have experienced. The only thing they can agree on is that they need one another’s friendship. Neither one is convinced by the other’s arguments - there is no silly postmodern affirmation that they are both “right” in their own way - but they are drawn back to one another as human beings. The problem of evil simply remains the omnipresent and maddening enigma that it has always been. In the end, the only answer provided is not a logical solution to a philosophical problem, but a moving account of the ways in which evil can, however partially, be redeemed through restored relationships. It was a very moving production, and I am glad to have seen it.
Ryan's blog is http://rynomi.wordpress.com/
Mar 1: Ron Reed on "Oblation: The Artist's Holy Calling" (Regent College)
"I take my children to the beach. On the north shore of Long Island it is a pretty stony proposition. The mills of the gods grind coarsely here; but, in exchange for busied feet and a sore coccyx, they provide gravel for the foundation of the arts… the oblation of things." Robert Farrar Capon
OBLATION: The Artist's Holy Calling
A man gathers stones on a beach…
Another snaps pictures of his Brooklyn cigar store
with the camera he stole from a blind woman…
A third trains his camera on a plastic bag in an alleyway…
Hobbyists? Artists? Priests? "Ingatherers of being"?
People with too much time on their hands?
Wanna see some movies? Wanna learn some Latin? We'll be talking lectio divina, we'll be talking liber mundi, we might even toss in some good old imago dei or et vidit Deus quod esset bonum. Ron Reed (founding artistic director of Pacific Theatre) uses clips from favourite films to explore the role of the artist in the world, and the artistic way of every living person on this planet – whether they think they're artists or not.
*
An open lecture/conversation, as part of The Offering Of The Arts
Regent College Chapel
Thursday March 1 @ 7pm
Directions to Regent
OBLATION: The Artist's Holy Calling
A man gathers stones on a beach…
Another snaps pictures of his Brooklyn cigar store
with the camera he stole from a blind woman…
A third trains his camera on a plastic bag in an alleyway…
Hobbyists? Artists? Priests? "Ingatherers of being"?
People with too much time on their hands?
Wanna see some movies? Wanna learn some Latin? We'll be talking lectio divina, we'll be talking liber mundi, we might even toss in some good old imago dei or et vidit Deus quod esset bonum. Ron Reed (founding artistic director of Pacific Theatre) uses clips from favourite films to explore the role of the artist in the world, and the artistic way of every living person on this planet – whether they think they're artists or not.
*
An open lecture/conversation, as part of The Offering Of The Arts
Regent College Chapel
Thursday March 1 @ 7pm
Directions to Regent
Feb 27 - Mar 3: The Secret Life Of Joseph Finch (Chutzpah Festival)
First day of rehearsal for GRACE, just finished the table reading and I'm struck with how it resonates with the themes of THE QUARREL - the holocaust, theodicy, all that. Then this email from dramaturg/director Rachel Ditor, raving about a show in the Chutzpah Festival...
Hi all,
I never do this so imagine how strongly I must feel.
Last night I saw The Secret Life of Joseph Finch, written and directed by Serge Bennathan and performed by Jonathon Young. It’s a stunning piece of theatre. The writing is vivid and the staging and performance uncommonly detailed and virtuosic. Jonathon’s physical and textually dexterity is remarkable. Though it is the story of a holocaust survivor the play’s content and imagery has a boisterous sense of humour and breathtaking beauty; it’s about home, heredity, fathers and sons; it’s riveting. I left feeling genuinely inspired. A great gift.
Below are the show times. Go see it.
Norman Rothstein Theatre
Tuesday Feb. 27th: 8:00pm
Wednesday Feb. 28th: 8:00pm
Thursday March 1st: 9:00pm
Friday March 2nd: 1:30pm
Saturday March 3rd: 7:00pm
Tickets: 604.257.5145
Or online: www.chutzpahfestival.com
Hope this finds everyone well.
Yours,
Rachel
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Feb 24: Arts In The City Lit/Drama Evening, Petersen, Tucker, et al
This just in from Diane Tucker...
Arts in the City: Literary and Drama Evening
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Grace Vancouver Church
1696 West 7th Ave. (between Fir and Burrard)
The evening runs from 7-10 and features poetry readings (from me, Karl Petersen and Bryan Halferty), drama, musical theatre, storytelling and comedy from Nadine Laughlin, Torbin Rolfsen, evenSteven and Jaclyn Nishi, all put together and hosted by the ever-charming Karl Petersen. The theme of the evening is Isolation/Belonging. There will be coffee, wine and sweets.
Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. You can reserve tickets by calling 604-871-4341. You can also reserve tickets here: http://www.artsinthecity.com/tickets.php
Sounds like it’s going to be a great evening!
Blessings
Diane Tucker
Arts in the City: Literary and Drama Evening
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Grace Vancouver Church
1696 West 7th Ave. (between Fir and Burrard)
The evening runs from 7-10 and features poetry readings (from me, Karl Petersen and Bryan Halferty), drama, musical theatre, storytelling and comedy from Nadine Laughlin, Torbin Rolfsen, evenSteven and Jaclyn Nishi, all put together and hosted by the ever-charming Karl Petersen. The theme of the evening is Isolation/Belonging. There will be coffee, wine and sweets.
Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. You can reserve tickets by calling 604-871-4341. You can also reserve tickets here: http://www.artsinthecity.com/tickets.php
Sounds like it’s going to be a great evening!
Blessings
Diane Tucker
Monday, February 19, 2007
Feb 23, 27: Brian Mix plays Langley, Cellar
If you attended the PT Gala, cellist Brian Mix will need no introduction. And indeed, that appearance was only the beginning: we're aiming to offer a small two- or three-concert chamber series tied in with our 2007-2008 season, featuring Brian and various musical friends.
At any rate, here's word from the man himself about a pair of upcoming performances...
Hello,
I have two upcoming performances you may be interested in - both are
of Bach Cello Suites performed on baroque cello.
The first concert is Friday, Feb. 23, at the Langley Community Music
School, Rose Gellert Hall, 4899 207th Street, Langley. Pre-concert
Chat & Coffee at 10:00am, Concert at 11:00am. $14/Adult, $12/Senior,
$10/Student. I’ll be playing Suites 2 and 3.
The second concert is Tuesday, Feb. 27, at The Cellar, a restaurant
and jazz club at 3611 West Broadway in Vancouver. Doors open at 7:00
PM for dinner, and the concert starts around 8:00 PM. Cover charge is
$10.00. I’ll be playing Suites 1, 2, and 3. More info at
http://www.musiconmain.ca/MOM_tuesdays.html.
Please pass this email on to anyone else you think may be interested.
Hope to see you there!
Brian.
At any rate, here's word from the man himself about a pair of upcoming performances...
Hello,
I have two upcoming performances you may be interested in - both are
of Bach Cello Suites performed on baroque cello.
The first concert is Friday, Feb. 23, at the Langley Community Music
School, Rose Gellert Hall, 4899 207th Street, Langley. Pre-concert
Chat & Coffee at 10:00am, Concert at 11:00am. $14/Adult, $12/Senior,
$10/Student. I’ll be playing Suites 2 and 3.
The second concert is Tuesday, Feb. 27, at The Cellar, a restaurant
and jazz club at 3611 West Broadway in Vancouver. Doors open at 7:00
PM for dinner, and the concert starts around 8:00 PM. Cover charge is
$10.00. I’ll be playing Suites 1, 2, and 3. More info at
http://www.musiconmain.ca/MOM_tuesdays.html.
Please pass this email on to anyone else you think may be interested.
Hope to see you there!
Brian.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Feb 20: Laurell Hubick at the Media Club
This just in from Laurell;
Howdy gang.
Just wanted to let you know about an upcoming gig I've got THIS COMING
Tuesday in Vancouver. Hope to see you out!
Tuesday, Feb 20
laurell @ the media club
with James Lamb and DK Ibomeka
695 Cambie Street
8:30pm
$7
Should be a great show, and I'm on first, so no waiting!
yipeeeeee............
okay. bye now.
Laurell
www.laurell.ca
(604)986-7019
laurell@laurell.ca
nectarmusicproductions
Howdy gang.
Just wanted to let you know about an upcoming gig I've got THIS COMING
Tuesday in Vancouver. Hope to see you out!
Tuesday, Feb 20
laurell @ the media club
with James Lamb and DK Ibomeka
695 Cambie Street
8:30pm
$7
Should be a great show, and I'm on first, so no waiting!
yipeeeeee............
okay. bye now.
Laurell
www.laurell.ca
(604)986-7019
laurell@laurell.ca
nectarmusicproductions
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Wind Tower by Sarah Hall (Regent College)
The True North: Lux Nova Wind Tower, Regent College
Stained Glass Artist Sarah Hall
By the age of nine, Sarah Hall already possessed a sense of vocation. “My father was on our church building committee,” she says, “and I remember staring at the stained glass windows while I waited for the meetings to end. I was entranced. I knew then what I was going to do—I was going to make windows.”
Following her call entailed traveling outside North America to find schooling specific to her needs. Hall enrolled in the Architectural Glass Program at Swansea College of Art, Wales, U.K., and graduated with her Diploma in Architectural Glass from the City and Guilds of London Institute. After apprenticing with Glass Master, Lawrence Lee, Hall spent a year in Jerusalem studying gold-leaf and techniques from the Middle East. While in Jerusalem, she had the opportunity to attend religious services of many different faiths, an experience, she says, “in which I came to know myself as a Christian.”
Hall’s art includes both abstract and figurative works, many of which are among the largest stained glass projects in North America: the 3000-square-foot window wall at St. Andrew Church, the 33 monumental windows based on the Doctors of the Church for St. Catharine of Siena in Columbus, Ohio, and—her current project—the True North: Lux Nova Wind Tower at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C. The 40-foot-high tower includes the first stained glass installation in North America to utilize photovoltaic cells, an energy source that generates electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. The photovoltaic array, embedded between two panes of glass, is composed of thin silicon and metal cells that convert sunlight into electricity. The energy collected will be used to illuminate the park at night with a changing color program inspired by the music of composer/violinist, Oliver Schroer. Containing 144 square feet of photovoltaic art glass, the installation also incorporates the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic.
Winner of numerous awards for her work, Hall was recently elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art, an honor bestowed on only five other Canadian glass artists. In addition to her work as a glass artist, Hall has authored numerous articles, as well as The Color of Light: Commissioning Stained Glass for a Church, published by the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1999; it is the first book of its kind in the field. Hall currently maintains studios in both Toronto and Germany.
Visit Sarah Hall’s website
From IMAGE Update
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Feb 18: Will Of The Wisp screening (Jody Thompson, Bruce Marchfelder)
Hey gang, we got an invite!
Bruce will be familiar to y'all - Vancouver Film School / Regent film history and film making and screenwriting courses / short film at Cannes Festival. He cinematogged this one.
But you may not know of Jody. She's a very accomplished actress, also a Christian, and also a filmmaker. This is her project, written and directed, and I'm sure hoping I can get down to see the screening. It's my daughter's birthday but hey - Thea has a birthday every year, but movies premiere only once!
Here's our invitation...
Bruce will be familiar to y'all - Vancouver Film School / Regent film history and film making and screenwriting courses / short film at Cannes Festival. He cinematogged this one.
But you may not know of Jody. She's a very accomplished actress, also a Christian, and also a filmmaker. This is her project, written and directed, and I'm sure hoping I can get down to see the screening. It's my daughter's birthday but hey - Thea has a birthday every year, but movies premiere only once!
Here's our invitation...
Ron: We'd like to invite you and the SOULFOOD family
to the screening this Sunday:
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18th 2007
Little Wolf Productions and The
International Filmmakers Institute
request the honor of your presence
at a private industry screening of the short film
WILL OF THE WISP
SEE WEBSITE FOR TRAILER
Where:
The Vancity Theatre
Vancouver International
Film Center
1181 Seymour Street (Seymour and Davie)
Admission is FREE
When:
Sunday, February 18, 2007
3:30 PM reception
4:00 PM screening
5:00 PM second screening
What:
WILL OF THE WISP : A SERIES OF SIGNIFIERS IN CONVERSATION
A 10 min experimental narrative
"Beautifully conceived and photographed, 'Will of the Wisp' is a stunning and surreal visual poem depicting the struggles of a haunted young woman as she fights to reclaim her body, her sexuality and her[self]."
brief nudity, mature subject matter,viewer discretion advised
Written and Directed by Jody Thompson
Cinematography by Bruce Marchfelder
Hope to see you.PLEASE FEEL WELCOME to bring guests.
For More Information Please Call
Little Wolf Productions: 778-233-3210 or
The International Filmmakers
Institute: 778-839-3210
Monday, February 12, 2007
Feb 13 & Mar 9: Vancouver Premieres of Two Goode Films
Jason Goode is a PT pal who's been making short films (with lots of other PT names involved). While they've been seen in a number of festivals (including L.A. and Calgary), they've not been officially screened in Vancouver. So here's your chance...
The premiere of DUCKS
A short film directed by Jason Goode
Starring Woody Jeffreys, Aleks Paunovic
Original Score by Tom Wuest
Tuesday, February 13th, 7:30pm
Pacific Cinematheque (1131 Howe St.)
Cineworks annual selected showcase of new short films
The Full Program:
The Tea Party - Allison Beda
Three - Oliver Hockenhull
iLove - Alec MacNeill Richardson
Infinite Moments - Karen Neilson
Frog Jesus - Ben Peters and Toby Gorman
Time Lost is Never Found - John Woods
Saddest Boy in the World - Jamie Travis and Amy Belling
---Intermission---
Cardboard Cutout - Adrian
3part Harmony: Composition in RGB #1 - Amanda Dawn Christie
The Clinic - Toby Gorman
Ducks - Jason Goode
inearth - Chris Brabant
The Call - Jason Karman
(http://www.cineworks.ca/exhibitions.php)
March 9th, 2007
The local premiere of THE HITCHHIKER
Directed by Jason Goode
Based on the play by Kathy Parson
Starring: Gina Chiarelli, Aleks Paunovic
Featuring music by Blue Rodeo
Featured in the Women in Film Festival B.C. (www.wiffbc.com)
Festival Dates: March 8th (International Women’s Day) through March 11th, 2007
Location: Norman Rothstein Theatre at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver,
950 West 41st Avenue
THE HITCHHIKER has already screened at: LA Shorts Fest, Calgary Int'l Film Fest, DNA Film Fest, Big House Film Fest (Best Comedy); and will be screening at the East Lansing Film Fest and Longbaugh Film Fest.
The premiere of DUCKS
A short film directed by Jason Goode
Starring Woody Jeffreys, Aleks Paunovic
Original Score by Tom Wuest
Tuesday, February 13th, 7:30pm
Pacific Cinematheque (1131 Howe St.)
Cineworks annual selected showcase of new short films
The Full Program:
The Tea Party - Allison Beda
Three - Oliver Hockenhull
iLove - Alec MacNeill Richardson
Infinite Moments - Karen Neilson
Frog Jesus - Ben Peters and Toby Gorman
Time Lost is Never Found - John Woods
Saddest Boy in the World - Jamie Travis and Amy Belling
---Intermission---
Cardboard Cutout - Adrian
3part Harmony: Composition in RGB #1 - Amanda Dawn Christie
The Clinic - Toby Gorman
Ducks - Jason Goode
inearth - Chris Brabant
The Call - Jason Karman
(http://www.cineworks.ca/exhibitions.php)
March 9th, 2007
The local premiere of THE HITCHHIKER
Directed by Jason Goode
Based on the play by Kathy Parson
Starring: Gina Chiarelli, Aleks Paunovic
Featuring music by Blue Rodeo
Featured in the Women in Film Festival B.C. (www.wiffbc.com)
Festival Dates: March 8th (International Women’s Day) through March 11th, 2007
Location: Norman Rothstein Theatre at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver,
950 West 41st Avenue
THE HITCHHIKER has already screened at: LA Shorts Fest, Calgary Int'l Film Fest, DNA Film Fest, Big House Film Fest (Best Comedy); and will be screening at the East Lansing Film Fest and Longbaugh Film Fest.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Mar 9-24: Steel Magnolias at Gallery 7
Gallery 7 Theatre & Performing Arts Society
proudly presents
Steel Magnolias
By Robert Harling
March 9 & 10, 15 – 17, 22 – 24, 2007 @ 7:30 PM
Discount Matinees: March 10 & 17 @ 2:00 PM
Showing at:
MEI Secondary School Auditorium
4081 Clearbrook Road, Abbotsford
Truvy’s hair salon, nestled in the heart of a small town deep in the American south, forms the backdrop to this heart-warming and endearing tale of friendship where life’s hard-fought victories are celebrated and tragedies are made more bearable. Laugh, cry and ruminate along with six colorful friends as they share together each other’s joys, challenges and ambitions.
Tickets on Sale Now!
House of James
2743 Emerson Street, Abbotsford
604-852-3701
www.gallery7theatre.com
proudly presents
Steel Magnolias
By Robert Harling
March 9 & 10, 15 – 17, 22 – 24, 2007 @ 7:30 PM
Discount Matinees: March 10 & 17 @ 2:00 PM
Showing at:
MEI Secondary School Auditorium
4081 Clearbrook Road, Abbotsford
Truvy’s hair salon, nestled in the heart of a small town deep in the American south, forms the backdrop to this heart-warming and endearing tale of friendship where life’s hard-fought victories are celebrated and tragedies are made more bearable. Laugh, cry and ruminate along with six colorful friends as they share together each other’s joys, challenges and ambitions.
Tickets on Sale Now!
House of James
2743 Emerson Street, Abbotsford
604-852-3701
www.gallery7theatre.com
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
COMPUTER CRASH. Please resend Soul Food posts
If you've emailed me info lately on a Soul Food type event, could you please resend that to me? surfer@ronreed.org
See, my laptop died last night. And while I've got most everything backed up, I can't get at it until the computer is fixed. (Which, being an Apple, won't likely be for six weeks. Maybe I need to break down and buy a PC, whaddya think? Steve Jobs, you listening to me?)
So if you send me stuff, I'll post it at the blog here, but won't be able to send out a Soul Food email until my laptop is up and running again.
Ron
See, my laptop died last night. And while I've got most everything backed up, I can't get at it until the computer is fixed. (Which, being an Apple, won't likely be for six weeks. Maybe I need to break down and buy a PC, whaddya think? Steve Jobs, you listening to me?)
So if you send me stuff, I'll post it at the blog here, but won't be able to send out a Soul Food email until my laptop is up and running again.
Ron
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Feb 4: Norval Morisseau play reading, Arts Club
Norval Morisseau is a first nations artist whose artwork Bruce Cockburn used for the cover of "Dancing In The Dragon's Jaws." A friend just passed along this email from well-known Vancouver actress Marilyn Norry about COPPER THUNDERBIRD, a play in development which deals with his life.
For the past 20 years or so I've been looking for plays or movies that deal
with spirituality without being sentimental, goofy, or downright
incomprehensible. It's been a perplexing search. This past week I was
privileged to work on a play at the Banff Centre for the Arts that I think
truly captures the joy and anguish it takes to be a spiritual and creative
person in this world. And it's very funny. The play is called Copper
Thunderbird and is about the Ojibway painter Norval Morisseau (a
retrospective on his work was recently featured at the National Gallery in
Ottawa and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto). It is written by Marie
Clement and is slated for a spring production at the National Arts Centre in
Ottawa directed by Peter Hinton. I will not alas be part of that production
(I was standing in for Margot Kane who gets to go) but the rest of this fine
cast and I will be presenting a reading of the script at the Arts Club
(Granville Island) this Sunday afternoon at 4 pm. Admission is by donation.
You won't be able to see the operatic staging planned with Morisseau's
fabulous paintings brought to life (I don't get to fly either) but you will
surely be able to imagine it. Even though Vancouver figures prominently in
the story (Morisseau spent time on East Hastings selling his paintings for
booze) it will be years if ever a production is mounted here. Please come by
if you can. And pass on this notice to anyone you think may be interested.
Marilyn
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Feb 1-4: sheree plett in alberta
hello friends,
many of you know that we (me and jer) are leaving for a small alberta tour this week, January 31-February 5, we're travelling in our new beautiful 1990 dodge caravan affectionately named "Ruby Bluesmoke" with 3 other band mates, Kenton Wiens (drums), Ben Appenhiemer (bass), Jeremy Penner (wurlitzer). We"ll be hitting up Calgary, Edmonton and Camrose. If any of you live in these cities or have friends that live there, please pass on these show dates and invite them!!
Feb 1st: Ironwood stage @ 8:30 pm (Calgary, AB)
Feb 2nd: Riverdale Hall @ 7:30pm (Edmonton, AB)
Feb 3rd: Summerside Church @ 8:15pm (Edmonton, AB)
Feb 4th: Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute @ 7:30pm (Camrose, AB)
for more details/addresses of veunue visit: www.myspace.com/shereeplettmusic
Hope to see some of you soon!
thanks for your friendship and support, sheree
//sheree plett
//www.shereeplett.com
//myspace.com/shereeplettmusic
many of you know that we (me and jer) are leaving for a small alberta tour this week, January 31-February 5, we're travelling in our new beautiful 1990 dodge caravan affectionately named "Ruby Bluesmoke" with 3 other band mates, Kenton Wiens (drums), Ben Appenhiemer (bass), Jeremy Penner (wurlitzer). We"ll be hitting up Calgary, Edmonton and Camrose. If any of you live in these cities or have friends that live there, please pass on these show dates and invite them!!
Feb 1st: Ironwood stage @ 8:30 pm (Calgary, AB)
Feb 2nd: Riverdale Hall @ 7:30pm (Edmonton, AB)
Feb 3rd: Summerside Church @ 8:15pm (Edmonton, AB)
Feb 4th: Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute @ 7:30pm (Camrose, AB)
for more details/addresses of veunue visit: www.myspace.com/shereeplettmusic
Hope to see some of you soon!
thanks for your friendship and support, sheree
//sheree plett
//www.shereeplett.com
//myspace.com/shereeplettmusic
Feb 2: Martyn Joseph concert
Some years back, a Martyn Joseph concert for the Rogue Folk Club was the artistic and spiritual high point of my entire year. Superlatives intentional. An immense stage presence, palpable integrity, virtuostic singing voice (he's Welsh, dontcha know), singular Christian perspective in a cultural context where that doesn't often go down too well. And you should hear his cover of "One Of Us"!
Just got an email from PT actor Ian Farthing about a concert this Friday night. I'll be in a play reading as part of the Rosedale On Robson Writers Week (more about that to follow sooner or later, over on the Pacific Theatre blog), and there's no way I'm missing that, but if it were anything else, I'd be thinking of cancelling to hear Martyn again.
Here's Ian;
Just got an email from PT actor Ian Farthing about a concert this Friday night. I'll be in a play reading as part of the Rosedale On Robson Writers Week (more about that to follow sooner or later, over on the Pacific Theatre blog), and there's no way I'm missing that, but if it were anything else, I'd be thinking of cancelling to hear Martyn again.
Here's Ian;
Hey y'all,
Martyn Joseph is a singer-songwriter from the UK who I got to know a little bit when I was working for the Arts Centre Group in London.
He is a fabulous performer and he's in town on Friday night, performing at the St. James Community Centre at 10th & Trutch in Kitsilano.
Martyn's done many a gig in Vancouver - both at the Folk Festival and at Capilano College as part of the Rogue Folk Club series. He loves BC and at one time was even thinking of moving here with his family. Well, he was thinking of moving to Prince George. God knows why.
He's toured with the likes of Celine Dion, Belinda Carlisle, Art Garfunkel, Suzanne Vega, Janis Ian and even Shirley Bassey!
I can't recommend him highly enough for his passion, his humour and his gritty faith.
So, I'll be there on Friday night at 8pm. Join me if you can!
Tickets are $23
Available from the Rogue Folk Club
604 736 3022 or online
Ciao for now!
Ian
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Jan 25: Nisbet, La Grand, Wiens at Backstage Lounge
If that girl on the right looks familiar, maybe it's because you saw her at CONFESSIONS last fall, that's Kathleen Nisbet. (At least, I think it's Kathleen. Only, how come that other girl's got her fiddle?....)Anyhow, she's making music tonight at the Granville Island Backstage Lounge. And so is Peter La Grand, who opened for Over The Rhine at Regent last fall. And Kenton Wiens, drummer for almost every PT show with music in the past two or three seasons, plays with Lily! Many birds, one stone.
Here's what the email said;
Lily Come Down... AND Viper Central?... AND Peter La Grand?
That's right folks - this night's a night to remember. It's a Thursday and it's a late show - not for weak constitutions.
When: Thursday January 25th, 10 pm
Where: The Backstage Lounge, Granville Island
Who: see above
What: Awersomeness...
Why: N/A
How: I'll leave that in your capable hands.
(Peter's on first, then Viper, then Lily...)
Jan 25 - Feb 3: Lost In Yonkers, Gallery 7
Gallery 7 Theatre & Performing Arts Society presentsLost in Yonkers
The Pulitzer Prize Winning Comedy by Neil Simon
January 25 – 27 & Feb 1 – 3, 2007 @ 7:30 PM
Discount Matinee: Saturday, January 27 @ 2:00 PM
MEI Secondary School Auditorium
4081 Clearbrook Road, Abbotsford
Tickets - House of James: 604-852-3701
Overheard in the lobby and on the street….
“The best play yet!”
“The play was great! I’m coming again!”
“I wanted to take Aunt Bella home with me!”
"Don’t miss this opportunity to catch one of Neil Simon’s best plays! It's the summer of 1942 in Yonkers, New York. Jay and Arty are left in the care of their stern and bristly grandmother while their father attempts to earn fast money to pay off debts. While there, the boys experience family in an entirely new and bizarre way as they relate with their love-starved aunt and their mysterious uncle who appears to have ties to the mob. As the summer goes on, the boys’ presence becomes a catalyst for emotional healing in an affectionless home where people are prepared for the hard life through hard-nosed discipline and correction."
Featuring…
* Pat Braun * Tamara Charman * John Dawson * Dave Peters *
* Nathan Peters * Tommy Peters * Shelley Picard *
Directed by Ken Hildebrandt; Set Design by Jordan Block & Ashley Unger; Costumes by Heather Davis; Lighting Design by Ryan LeComte; Make-Up Design by Sarah Wiget; Sound Design by Rick Havinga
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Jan 18: Joycelin Ng recital
Some of you know Joycelin from her work with Tom Cooper. She and I connected a few years back at a Student Forum: her focus was almost entirely on ministry, but she had chosen to sit with the Arts group. She's a trained pianist, and right away I started in on her, probing to see whether she was just as happy to leave her music behind, or whether there might be a place in her life to resume playing.
Saw her late last year, and I swear she was glowing. Perhaps it was entirely coincidence that she has also returned to playing the music that she loves. But I don't think so.
Anyhow, she had a performance scheduled earlier in January that was snowed out. It's been rescheduled for tonight...
Looking forward to seeing some of you tonight at 7:30pm. Xin and I will be playing some Veracini, Frescobaldi, Albinoni, Rachmaninoff, Hindemith and other great, but already dead composers who wrote for the double bass and piano. They did, however, live between the time of the 16th and 20th centuries and influenced many around them...
Come, relax, and enjoy...refreshments available in the foyer afterwards.
Where: Koerner Recital Hall, 1270 Chestnut Street (at the Vancouver Academy of Music across from Vanier Park, near the Burrard bridge).
When: 7:30-9:00 (ish) pm
Cost: Free
Cheers & thanks!
Joycelin
Saw her late last year, and I swear she was glowing. Perhaps it was entirely coincidence that she has also returned to playing the music that she loves. But I don't think so.
Anyhow, she had a performance scheduled earlier in January that was snowed out. It's been rescheduled for tonight...
Looking forward to seeing some of you tonight at 7:30pm. Xin and I will be playing some Veracini, Frescobaldi, Albinoni, Rachmaninoff, Hindemith and other great, but already dead composers who wrote for the double bass and piano. They did, however, live between the time of the 16th and 20th centuries and influenced many around them...
Come, relax, and enjoy...refreshments available in the foyer afterwards.
Where: Koerner Recital Hall, 1270 Chestnut Street (at the Vancouver Academy of Music across from Vanier Park, near the Burrard bridge).
When: 7:30-9:00 (ish) pm
Cost: Free
Cheers & thanks!
Joycelin
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Jan 25 - Feb 17: THE QUARREL
"At Sinai, God made a covenant with the Jewish people. At Auschwitz, he broke it."
January 25-Feb 17
Book Your Tickets Now!
Subscribers – be sure to use your tickets!
“Excellent! A war of the spirit on a battleground of ideas.”
Michael Wilmington, L.A. Times
“A rare triumph! Confronts guilt and justice in a compelling drama.”
Rabbi Harold Kushner
To book your tickets ($9-$32), call our Box Office at 604.731.5518
Pay-What-You-Can Preview Nov. 23, on the night-of, at the box office, or $10 in advance.
Book Your Tickets Now!
Subscribers – be sure to use your tickets!
“Excellent! A war of the spirit on a battleground of ideas.”
Michael Wilmington, L.A. Times
“A rare triumph! Confronts guilt and justice in a compelling drama.”
Rabbi Harold Kushner
To book your tickets ($9-$32), call our Box Office at 604.731.5518
Pay-What-You-Can Preview Nov. 23, on the night-of, at the box office, or $10 in advance.
Rosh Hashanah. 1948. When two intelligent, traumatized men meet on a park bench in Montreal, the ensuing struggle is at turns tender and intense. Chaim has lost all his faith; Hersh radiates his bitterness with extreme religiosity. This dialogue-driven story of hope and friendship in the face of genocide offers an intellectually vigorous discourse of great minds struggling to find common ground.
Morris Ertman, a recipient of nine Sterling Awards and a Dora Award for the Canadian Opera Company’s Beatrice et Benedict, will direct Pacific Theatre’s own Dan Amos, seen before in Halo, Shadowlands, Hamlet, and A Bright Particular Star. He is joined by Nathan Schmidt, a resident company member of Rosebud Theatre in Alberta, where he has featured in Voice of the Prairie, Cariboo Magi, and The Kite. The Quarrel features scenic design by Stephen Waldschmidt (A Bright Particular Star), stage management by Charlene Crawford (Broken), sound design by Luke Ertman (The Hungry Season), and lighting design by Graham Bedwell (Lilia!).
Midnight Theatre Collective is a new company of self-producing artists in Vancouver. It believes in the essential role of storytelling in human society, and in the power of theatre to engage and transform culture. Midnight Theatre Collective is comprised of self-producing professional artists committed to working in tandem with emerging actors and designers in the creation of passionate theatre. Dedicated to presenting both marginal and traditional stories with a creative, relevant edge, Midnight Theatre Collective is proud to premiere The Quarrel in Canada, a play in which two men ultimately learn they are seeking the same redemption, but looking down different pathways to find it.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Dec 16: Christmas Presence in the Valley Credits
ACT ONE
Ron - Robert Farrar Capon: Advent
Lance - Go Tell It On The Mountain
Ron - Sufjan Stevens: Tube Socks
Jonathan - The Lowly Shepherd Boy
Ron - Frederick Buechner" Emmanuel
Sheree - O Emmanuel
Rebecca - Mike Mason: Christmas In July
Leora - Love Came Gently
Lance - Maybe This Christmas
Ron - Howison: Reverie
Michael - Huron Carol
Ron - Annie Dillard: Feast Days
Jeremy & Sheree - Cloakroom
ACT TWO
Michael - The Little Drummer Boy
Lance - Disturber
Ron - Mike Royko: Pretty Well Picked Over
Leora - It Don't Cost Very Much
Jonathan, Jer, Lance - Once In Royal David's City
Rebecca - Jellema: Four-Square
Mike, Ron, Rebecca Karl Petersen: Night Watch
Lance - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (Joseph's song)
Mike, Ron - Rainer Maria Rilke: Joseph's Suspicion
Michael - What Child Is This (instr)
Rebecca - Madeleine L'Engle: O Sapientia
Sheree - Silent Night
Leora - Jesus What A Wonderful Child
Requested readings are posted at Oblations
Ron - Robert Farrar Capon: Advent
Lance - Go Tell It On The Mountain
Ron - Sufjan Stevens: Tube Socks
Jonathan - The Lowly Shepherd Boy
Ron - Frederick Buechner" Emmanuel
Sheree - O Emmanuel
Rebecca - Mike Mason: Christmas In July
Leora - Love Came Gently
Lance - Maybe This Christmas
Ron - Howison: Reverie
Michael - Huron Carol
Ron - Annie Dillard: Feast Days
Jeremy & Sheree - Cloakroom
ACT TWO
Michael - The Little Drummer Boy
Lance - Disturber
Ron - Mike Royko: Pretty Well Picked Over
Leora - It Don't Cost Very Much
Jonathan, Jer, Lance - Once In Royal David's City
Rebecca - Jellema: Four-Square
Mike, Ron, Rebecca Karl Petersen: Night Watch
Lance - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (Joseph's song)
Mike, Ron - Rainer Maria Rilke: Joseph's Suspicion
Michael - What Child Is This (instr)
Rebecca - Madeleine L'Engle: O Sapientia
Sheree - Silent Night
Leora - Jesus What A Wonderful Child
Requested readings are posted at Oblations
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Dec 12: Christmas Presence credits
ACT ONE
Nelson - Christmas Time Is Here
Michael - All Hail And Welcome
Ron - William Nicholson: "Christmas Drinks Party"
Sheree - O Emmanuel
Ron - Frederick Buechner: Emmanuel
Carolyn - Is Bethlehem Too Far Away?
Ron - David Sedaris: Santa's Little Helper (the Ryan edit)
Nelson - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Trish - Annie Dillard: God In The Doorway
Carolyn - Do Not Be Afraid
Ron - David Kossoff: Seth
Ruth - O Holy Night
Ron - Frederick Buechner: Gabriel
Sheree - Silent Night
Leora - It Don't Cost Very Much
ACT TWO
Nelson - I Saw Three Ships
Carolyn - What Kind Of King Is This?
Ron - Mike Royko: Pretty Well Picked Over
Michael - Good King Wenceslas
Trish - Mike Mason: Christmas In July
Leora - Love Came Gently
Ron - Dina Donohue: No Room At The Inn
Carolyn - Christmas Must Be Tonight
Ron - John Henry Faulk: A Child's Christmas in Texas
Leora - What A Wonderful Child
Ron - Ron Klug: Joseph's Lullabye
Sheree - What Child Is This?
Ron - Robert Louis Stevenson: Christmas Prayer
Michael, Ruth, All - Silent Night
THE PLAYERS
Carolyn Arends joined us tonight, and - a long-standing tradition - debuted a brand new Christmas song, "What Kind Of King Is This?" Beautiful. Also first CHRISTMAS PRESENCE this year for CP veteran Leora Cashe, who rocked the house with "Jesus, What A Wonderful Child!" (the one that's on the "Christmas Presence" CD), husband Jaye Krebs on the grand piano. First ever PT appearance for Ruth Gill, who sings with the Vancouver Bach Choir, and regaled us with a glorious "O Holy Night" and played the HT pipe organ for our closer, "Silent Night." Returning from previous nights were Michael Hart, Sheree Plett, Nelson Boschman, Spencer Capier, Becca Robertson, Rick Colhoun and Brett Ziegler. And joining me reading tonight was Trish Pattenden, who you've seen in THE FARNDALE CHRISTMAS as well as her Jessie-nominated turn in LETTICE & LOVAGE - a high point was her take on Mike Mason's brand new "Christmas In July."
Requested readings are posted at Oblations
Nelson - Christmas Time Is Here
Michael - All Hail And Welcome
Ron - William Nicholson: "Christmas Drinks Party"
Sheree - O Emmanuel
Ron - Frederick Buechner: Emmanuel
Carolyn - Is Bethlehem Too Far Away?
Ron - David Sedaris: Santa's Little Helper (the Ryan edit)
Nelson - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
Trish - Annie Dillard: God In The Doorway
Carolyn - Do Not Be Afraid
Ron - David Kossoff: Seth
Ruth - O Holy Night
Ron - Frederick Buechner: Gabriel
Sheree - Silent Night
Leora - It Don't Cost Very Much
ACT TWO
Nelson - I Saw Three Ships
Carolyn - What Kind Of King Is This?
Ron - Mike Royko: Pretty Well Picked Over
Michael - Good King Wenceslas
Trish - Mike Mason: Christmas In July
Leora - Love Came Gently
Ron - Dina Donohue: No Room At The Inn
Carolyn - Christmas Must Be Tonight
Ron - John Henry Faulk: A Child's Christmas in Texas
Leora - What A Wonderful Child
Ron - Ron Klug: Joseph's Lullabye
Sheree - What Child Is This?
Ron - Robert Louis Stevenson: Christmas Prayer
Michael, Ruth, All - Silent Night
THE PLAYERS
Carolyn Arends joined us tonight, and - a long-standing tradition - debuted a brand new Christmas song, "What Kind Of King Is This?" Beautiful. Also first CHRISTMAS PRESENCE this year for CP veteran Leora Cashe, who rocked the house with "Jesus, What A Wonderful Child!" (the one that's on the "Christmas Presence" CD), husband Jaye Krebs on the grand piano. First ever PT appearance for Ruth Gill, who sings with the Vancouver Bach Choir, and regaled us with a glorious "O Holy Night" and played the HT pipe organ for our closer, "Silent Night." Returning from previous nights were Michael Hart, Sheree Plett, Nelson Boschman, Spencer Capier, Becca Robertson, Rick Colhoun and Brett Ziegler. And joining me reading tonight was Trish Pattenden, who you've seen in THE FARNDALE CHRISTMAS as well as her Jessie-nominated turn in LETTICE & LOVAGE - a high point was her take on Mike Mason's brand new "Christmas In July."
Requested readings are posted at Oblations
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Dec 11: Christmas Presence credits
ACT ONE
Garth - Go Tell It On The Mountain
Ron - Robert Farrar Capon: Advent
Sheree - O Emmanuel
Rebecca & Ron - William Gibson: Butterfingers Angel
Paul - I Heard The Bells
Ron - John Lekich: A Keen Sense of Occasion
Jeremy - Cloak Room
Ron - David Kossoff: Seth
Sheree - Silent Night
Ron - Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Christ Climbed Down
Garth - Christmas Song (Alleluia)
ACT TWO
Ron - George Carlin: Holiday Message
Nelson - Santa Claus is Coming To Town
Ron - David Sedaris: Macy's Christmas Elf
Garth - Glory To The Earth Is Comin' Down
Sheree - No Snow
Garth & Rick - What Child Is This (instrumental)
Ron - Loren Wilkinson: Simeon
Rebecca - Mike Mason: Christmas In July
Paul In The Bleak Midwinter
Garth - It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
Ron - Ron Klug: Joseph's Prayer
Sheree - What Child Is This
THE PLAYERS
Garth Bowen is working on a Christmas album, so we were eager to have a listen to some of those tunes, both old and brand new. In addition to the two re-conceptions of traditional tunes she played us last year, Sheree Plett brought in two Christmas tunes she's penned in the past couple weeks, and at the last minute we added her husband Jeremy Eisenhauer to the roster when we found out he had a brand new tune in his back pocket as well! And Paul Hiller (you may remember him from that hot little country swing band we had onstage for CHICKENS) brought us a gorgeous, Vince Guaraldi-inspired "I Heard The Bells" and a heartbreaking, delicate "In The Bleak Midwinter" beautifully in keeping with the gentle tone of the evening's home stretch. All ably aided and abetted by our Christmas Presence House Band - Nelson Boschman, Becca Robertson, Brett Ziegler, Kenton Wiens, Rick Colhoun and the just-barely-back-from-touring Spencer Capier.
Requested readings are posted at Oblations
Garth - Go Tell It On The Mountain
Ron - Robert Farrar Capon: Advent
Sheree - O Emmanuel
Rebecca & Ron - William Gibson: Butterfingers Angel
Paul - I Heard The Bells
Ron - John Lekich: A Keen Sense of Occasion
Jeremy - Cloak Room
Ron - David Kossoff: Seth
Sheree - Silent Night
Ron - Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Christ Climbed Down
Garth - Christmas Song (Alleluia)
ACT TWO
Ron - George Carlin: Holiday Message
Nelson - Santa Claus is Coming To Town
Ron - David Sedaris: Macy's Christmas Elf
Garth - Glory To The Earth Is Comin' Down
Sheree - No Snow
Garth & Rick - What Child Is This (instrumental)
Ron - Loren Wilkinson: Simeon
Rebecca - Mike Mason: Christmas In July
Paul In The Bleak Midwinter
Garth - It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
Ron - Ron Klug: Joseph's Prayer
Sheree - What Child Is This
THE PLAYERS
Garth Bowen is working on a Christmas album, so we were eager to have a listen to some of those tunes, both old and brand new. In addition to the two re-conceptions of traditional tunes she played us last year, Sheree Plett brought in two Christmas tunes she's penned in the past couple weeks, and at the last minute we added her husband Jeremy Eisenhauer to the roster when we found out he had a brand new tune in his back pocket as well! And Paul Hiller (you may remember him from that hot little country swing band we had onstage for CHICKENS) brought us a gorgeous, Vince Guaraldi-inspired "I Heard The Bells" and a heartbreaking, delicate "In The Bleak Midwinter" beautifully in keeping with the gentle tone of the evening's home stretch. All ably aided and abetted by our Christmas Presence House Band - Nelson Boschman, Becca Robertson, Brett Ziegler, Kenton Wiens, Rick Colhoun and the just-barely-back-from-touring Spencer Capier.
Requested readings are posted at Oblations
Monday, December 11, 2006
Dec 10: Christmas Presence credits
ACT ONE
Nelson Boschman & the band - Christmas jazz
Ron Reed - Nicholson: "Christmas Drinks Party"
Michael Hart - Huron Carol
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Be Ready When He Comes
Ron Reed - "Clay"
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid
Michael Hart - Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
Ron Reed - Tom Carson: "Snow Angel"
Richard Osler - The Gift
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Fortify Me
Ron Reed - Ferlinghetti: "Christ Climbed Down"
Michael Hart - Light Of The Stable
ACT TWO
Nelson Boschman & The Band - Christmas jazz tune
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - You Better Run
Ron Reed - Rudi Krause: one way
Michael Hart - Mary's Boy Child
Ron Reed - Buechner: "The Annunciation"
Michael Hart - What Child Is This / O Little Town of Bethlehem
Richard Oslter - Advent poems
Michael Hart - Polish Carol
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Please Come Home For Christmas
Ron Reed - Lekich: "A Keen Sense Of Occasion"
Michael Hart - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Ron Reed - Falke: "Child's Christmas In Texas"
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Today
Ron Reed - Dillard: "Feast Days"
Michael Hart - Candle
*
THE PLAYERS
Michael Hart has been a Christmas Presence essential since the whole thing got started in the atrium at Regent College, thirteen or fourteen years ago. His gorgeous Christmas album, "Dulcimer Light," is in constant rotation at the Reed house every December: check it out at his website, as well as other albums such as Desire, Lord of the Mountain, The Heart of the Matter, Soulkeeper, and True.
Steve Dawson has joined us several times over the years, first drawn into the PT orbit by his brother-in-law Wyndham Thiessen. One of the workingest musicians in Canada (and half of "Zubot & Dawson" - the latter half, in fact), you can read about his newest release (and listen to some of the tunes!) at Black Hen Music. Where you'll also find Jim Byrnes - including streaming audio of three of the tunes he and The Sojourners sang for us last night: "Fortify Me," "Today" and "Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid," the latter "a nod to the 27th Psalm" and a glorious answer to "Clay." (Also check out Jim's Myspace page.) This summer somebody pointed me to Jim's latest CD, "House Of Refuge," and it instantly became the record of the year for yours truly. I sent Steve a fan email (he produced and plays on the record), one thing led to another, and last night all five of the boys joined us onstage. And didn't it rain!
Marcus Mosely, Ron Small and Will Sanders became The Sojourners when they joined JB for the "House Of Refuge" sessions, but they've sung together in all sorts of contexts over the years. I first heard the three of them as featured vocalists with the amazing Good Noise Gospel Choir, which Marcus co-Artistic Directos with Gail Suderman. A recent Christmas concert at my home church, Fraserview MB, is still being talked about, and I'd tell you to make sure and go to their upcoming gigs at the Cathedral - except they're already sold out! Watch the blog (or sign up for my Soul Food email) for word of their future performances.
And then there was our amazing house band; Nelson Boschman on piano (Keeping Time, Vol. 1), Brett Ziegler on keyboards, Kenton Wiens and Rick Colhoun on drums and percussion, and Becca Robertson on bass.
I've known Richard Osler for years, but it was reading his recent book "Again, No More: Poems Of Africa" that prompted me to invite him to join us for Christmas Presence. Carolyn Arends has posted several of Richard's Africa poems and stories in her online journal. For copies of his book (which includes a cd of the poet reading his own work), contact Richard directly at osler@shaw.ca. Thanks, Richard!
For other Christmas readings, check out Oblations
Nelson Boschman & the band - Christmas jazz
Ron Reed - Nicholson: "Christmas Drinks Party"
Michael Hart - Huron Carol
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Be Ready When He Comes
Ron Reed - "Clay"
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid
Michael Hart - Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
Ron Reed - Tom Carson: "Snow Angel"
Richard Osler - The Gift
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Fortify Me
Ron Reed - Ferlinghetti: "Christ Climbed Down"
Michael Hart - Light Of The Stable
ACT TWO
Nelson Boschman & The Band - Christmas jazz tune
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - You Better Run
Ron Reed - Rudi Krause: one way
Michael Hart - Mary's Boy Child
Ron Reed - Buechner: "The Annunciation"
Michael Hart - What Child Is This / O Little Town of Bethlehem
Richard Oslter - Advent poems
Michael Hart - Polish Carol
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Please Come Home For Christmas
Ron Reed - Lekich: "A Keen Sense Of Occasion"
Michael Hart - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Ron Reed - Falke: "Child's Christmas In Texas"
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners - Today
Ron Reed - Dillard: "Feast Days"
Michael Hart - Candle
*
THE PLAYERS
Michael Hart has been a Christmas Presence essential since the whole thing got started in the atrium at Regent College, thirteen or fourteen years ago. His gorgeous Christmas album, "Dulcimer Light," is in constant rotation at the Reed house every December: check it out at his website, as well as other albums such as Desire, Lord of the Mountain, The Heart of the Matter, Soulkeeper, and True.
Steve Dawson has joined us several times over the years, first drawn into the PT orbit by his brother-in-law Wyndham Thiessen. One of the workingest musicians in Canada (and half of "Zubot & Dawson" - the latter half, in fact), you can read about his newest release (and listen to some of the tunes!) at Black Hen Music. Where you'll also find Jim Byrnes - including streaming audio of three of the tunes he and The Sojourners sang for us last night: "Fortify Me," "Today" and "Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid," the latter "a nod to the 27th Psalm" and a glorious answer to "Clay." (Also check out Jim's Myspace page.) This summer somebody pointed me to Jim's latest CD, "House Of Refuge," and it instantly became the record of the year for yours truly. I sent Steve a fan email (he produced and plays on the record), one thing led to another, and last night all five of the boys joined us onstage. And didn't it rain!
Marcus Mosely, Ron Small and Will Sanders became The Sojourners when they joined JB for the "House Of Refuge" sessions, but they've sung together in all sorts of contexts over the years. I first heard the three of them as featured vocalists with the amazing Good Noise Gospel Choir, which Marcus co-Artistic Directos with Gail Suderman. A recent Christmas concert at my home church, Fraserview MB, is still being talked about, and I'd tell you to make sure and go to their upcoming gigs at the Cathedral - except they're already sold out! Watch the blog (or sign up for my Soul Food email) for word of their future performances.
And then there was our amazing house band; Nelson Boschman on piano (Keeping Time, Vol. 1), Brett Ziegler on keyboards, Kenton Wiens and Rick Colhoun on drums and percussion, and Becca Robertson on bass.
I've known Richard Osler for years, but it was reading his recent book "Again, No More: Poems Of Africa" that prompted me to invite him to join us for Christmas Presence. Carolyn Arends has posted several of Richard's Africa poems and stories in her online journal. For copies of his book (which includes a cd of the poet reading his own work), contact Richard directly at osler@shaw.ca. Thanks, Richard!
For other Christmas readings, check out Oblations
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Dec 10: Songs In The Night Christmas
Songs In The Night Christmas Service
West Point Grey Baptist
Sun Dec 10, 7pm
Most years I take part in a swell Christmas evening at West Point Grey Baptist. This year's Sunday performance of Christmas Presence precludes that for me at least, but any of you who aren't required on the PT stage tomorrow night may want to check out this marvelous line-up: Allen DesNoyers, Tammy Enockson, Al McKay, Autmn Stevick, Ryan McAllister, Dan McAllister and the Songs in the Night Band.
West Point Grey Baptist
Sun Dec 10, 7pm
Most years I take part in a swell Christmas evening at West Point Grey Baptist. This year's Sunday performance of Christmas Presence precludes that for me at least, but any of you who aren't required on the PT stage tomorrow night may want to check out this marvelous line-up: Allen DesNoyers, Tammy Enockson, Al McKay, Autmn Stevick, Ryan McAllister, Dan McAllister and the Songs in the Night Band.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Dec 12: Extra CHRISTMAS PRESENCE Performance!
The two Vancouver performances of CHRISTMAS PRESENCE listed in our season brochure are sold out, but fear not! We've added a special performance in the Holy Trinity sanctuary (right above the theatre) on Tuesday December 12! Carolyn Arends, Spencer Capier, Leora Cashe, Michael Hart and Sheree Plett and Ron Reed will be joined by Ruth Gill (from the Vancouver Bach Choir) and Trish Pattenden (LETTICE & LOVAGE, THE FARNDALE CHRISTMAS CAROL) for a "Raise The Roof" benefit performance for Holy Trinity Anglican Church, a small congregation facing a whopping huge bill for urgent repairs to the leaky roof, ill-fitting windows and ageing guts of the handsome (but elderly) heritage building that is their (and Pacific Theatre's) home.
There's lots of room in the sanctuary - I figure we can crowd ten or fifteen thousand people in there easy - but you'd be smart to book your tickets now at the Pacific Theatre box office: 604 731-5518.
There are still tickets left for CHRISTMAS PRESENCE IN THE VALLEY, PT's seasonal shindig slated for Clearbrook on Saturday December 16. Call the PT box office for those tickets as well!
There's lots of room in the sanctuary - I figure we can crowd ten or fifteen thousand people in there easy - but you'd be smart to book your tickets now at the Pacific Theatre box office: 604 731-5518.
There are still tickets left for CHRISTMAS PRESENCE IN THE VALLEY, PT's seasonal shindig slated for Clearbrook on Saturday December 16. Call the PT box office for those tickets as well!
Dec 12: Extra CHRISTMAS PRESENCE Performance!
The two Vancouver performances of CHRISTMAS PRESENCE listed in our season brochure are sold out, but fear not! We've added a special performance in the Holy Trinity sanctuary (right above the theatre) on Tuesday December 12! Carolyn Arends, Spencer Capier, Leora Cashe, Michael Hart and Sheree Plett and Ron Reed will be joined by Ruth Gill (from the Vancouver Bach Choir) and Trish Pattenden (LETTICE & LOVAGE, THE FARNDALE CHRISTMAS CAROL) for a "Raise The Roof" benefit performance for Holy Trinity Anglican Church, a small congregation facing a whopping huge bill for urgent repairs to the leaky roof, ill-fitting windows and ageing guts of the handsome (but elderly) heritage building that is their (and Pacific Theatre's) home.
There's lots of room in the sanctuary - I figure we can crowd ten or fifteen thousand people in there easy - but you'd be smart to book your tickets now at the Pacific Theatre box office: 604 731-5518.
There are still tickets left for CHRISTMAS PRESENCE IN THE VALLEY, PT's seasonal shindig slated for Clearbrook on Saturday December 16. Call the PT box office for those tickets as well!
There's lots of room in the sanctuary - I figure we can crowd ten or fifteen thousand people in there easy - but you'd be smart to book your tickets now at the Pacific Theatre box office: 604 731-5518.
There are still tickets left for CHRISTMAS PRESENCE IN THE VALLEY, PT's seasonal shindig slated for Clearbrook on Saturday December 16. Call the PT box office for those tickets as well!
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Hunter S. Thompson & Ron Reed, "Work and Art"
When you work with your hands, you're a labourer,
When you work with your hands and head, you're a technician,
When you work with your hands, head, and heart, you're a craftsperson,
When you work with your hands, head, heart and soul, you're an artist.
- Adapted from a speech given by Hunter S. Thompson
When you're out of work, you're a theatre artist.
- Ron Reed
When you work with your hands and head, you're a technician,
When you work with your hands, head, and heart, you're a craftsperson,
When you work with your hands, head, heart and soul, you're an artist.
- Adapted from a speech given by Hunter S. Thompson
When you're out of work, you're a theatre artist.
- Ron Reed
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Tarry G's new coffee bar!
Okay, this ain't exactly about art. Unless great coffee is art. A position which Tarry Giannakos would no doubt advocate.
Tarry and his wife Kristine are hardcore Pacific Theatre fans, known to many of you. Well, they've started a new venture, and I want everybody to know about it.
Here's another pal of mine and Pacific Theatre's to tell you all about it. Mister Rory Holland...
Tarry and his wife Kristine are hardcore Pacific Theatre fans, known to many of you. Well, they've started a new venture, and I want everybody to know about it.
Here's another pal of mine and Pacific Theatre's to tell you all about it. Mister Rory Holland...
Hey all, sorry for the Spam, but I did want to draw the attention of those that live in the Vancouver area, especially the North Shore, that a new coffee bar is opening in West Van that promises the best coffee, best atmosphere, and the highest speed wireless connection. CAFE CREMA is owned by Tarry and Kristine Giannakos - veterans of the coffee trade, but more importantly the most relational people you will ever meet. They have taken over and transformed the old "Bojangles" location at the bottom 15th Ave. and Bellevue.
"Does the North Shore really need another coffee bar?" Well, the answer for coffee snobs is - yes. Tarry is a fanatic about coffee so if you know your macchiatos from your mistos this is the place for you. And the North Shore DEFINITELY needs Tarry and Kristine. This place is bound to become the club house for many - great food, great people, comfy chairs.
They open Monday morning December 4th. Tons of parking, and easy stop on the way into the office, a perfect location for the mid-morning dog walking, running, workout crowd. My office is the table on the far left. See you there.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Dec 7: Gallery 7 auditions, STEEL MAGNOLIAS
Gallery 7 is a more or less a community theatre counterpart to Pacific Theatre, operating in Abbotsford.
info@gallery7theatre.com
www.gallery7theatre.com
Gallery 7 Theatre & Performing Arts will be holding open auditions on Thursday December 7, 2006 at 6:30 PM for its upcoming production of Robert Harling’s delightful comedy/drama, Steel Magnolias. The production, directed by Sarah Hu, will run March 9 & 10, 15 – 17, 22 – 24, 2007 with additional matinees on March 10 & 17 at 2:00 PM. Rehearsals will commence in January.
Truvy’s hair salon, nestled in the heart of a small town deep in the American south, forms the backdrop to this heart-warming and endearing tale of friendship where life’s hard-fought victories are celebrated and tragedies are made more bearable. Audiences will laugh, cry and ruminate along with six colorful characters as they share each other’s joys, challenges and ambitions.
All female performers ages 16 to 70 are invited to attend the auditions, which will be held at the MEI Secondary School Auditorium, 4081 Clearbrook Road in Abbotsford. Interested individuals are asked to sign up ahead of time by calling Gallery 7 Theatre at 604-504-5940 or by email at info@gallery7theatre.com. For more information about Gallery 7 and the rest of the 2006/2007 theatre season, please visit our website at www.gallery7theatre.com.
Cast of Characters:
TRUVY JONES: Early 40’s. Owner of Truvy’s beauty shop
ANNELLE DUPUY-DESOTO: Nineteen. Beauty shop assistant.
CLAIREE BELCHER: Mid-60’s. Widow of former mayor and a grande dame.
SHELBY EATENTON-LATCHERIE Mid-20’s. Prettiest girl in town.
M’LYNN EATENTON: Early 50’s. Shelby’s mother and socially prominent career woman.
OUISER BOUDREAUX: Mid 60’s. Wealthy curmudgeon, acerbic but loveable.
info@gallery7theatre.com
www.gallery7theatre.com
Gallery 7 Theatre & Performing Arts will be holding open auditions on Thursday December 7, 2006 at 6:30 PM for its upcoming production of Robert Harling’s delightful comedy/drama, Steel Magnolias. The production, directed by Sarah Hu, will run March 9 & 10, 15 – 17, 22 – 24, 2007 with additional matinees on March 10 & 17 at 2:00 PM. Rehearsals will commence in January.
Truvy’s hair salon, nestled in the heart of a small town deep in the American south, forms the backdrop to this heart-warming and endearing tale of friendship where life’s hard-fought victories are celebrated and tragedies are made more bearable. Audiences will laugh, cry and ruminate along with six colorful characters as they share each other’s joys, challenges and ambitions.
All female performers ages 16 to 70 are invited to attend the auditions, which will be held at the MEI Secondary School Auditorium, 4081 Clearbrook Road in Abbotsford. Interested individuals are asked to sign up ahead of time by calling Gallery 7 Theatre at 604-504-5940 or by email at info@gallery7theatre.com. For more information about Gallery 7 and the rest of the 2006/2007 theatre season, please visit our website at www.gallery7theatre.com.
Cast of Characters:
TRUVY JONES: Early 40’s. Owner of Truvy’s beauty shop
ANNELLE DUPUY-DESOTO: Nineteen. Beauty shop assistant.
CLAIREE BELCHER: Mid-60’s. Widow of former mayor and a grande dame.
SHELBY EATENTON-LATCHERIE Mid-20’s. Prettiest girl in town.
M’LYNN EATENTON: Early 50’s. Shelby’s mother and socially prominent career woman.
OUISER BOUDREAUX: Mid 60’s. Wealthy curmudgeon, acerbic but loveable.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Dec 1: Carolyn Arends "Something 2 Give" Concert
THE SOMETHING 2 GIVE TOUR
featuring Carolyn Arends and Greg Sczebel
December 1, 7:30 pm
Bell Performing Arts Centre, 6250 144th Street, Surrey
www.carolynarends.com / 1-866-953-1833
Carolyn Arends brings a new project (Pollyanna’s Attic), an exciting support act (soulful Juno-award winner Greg Sczebel) and a Big Cause (sponsorship for impoverished children in El Salvador) to Surrey's Bell Centre as the final date of their national Something to Give Tour. Not to mention the niftiest sideman this side of... Wherever the niftiest sidemen reside. Spencer Capier.
www.myspace.com/carolynarends
featuring Carolyn Arends and Greg Sczebel
December 1, 7:30 pm
Bell Performing Arts Centre, 6250 144th Street, Surrey
www.carolynarends.com / 1-866-953-1833
Carolyn Arends brings a new project (Pollyanna’s Attic), an exciting support act (soulful Juno-award winner Greg Sczebel) and a Big Cause (sponsorship for impoverished children in El Salvador) to Surrey's Bell Centre as the final date of their national Something to Give Tour. Not to mention the niftiest sideman this side of... Wherever the niftiest sidemen reside. Spencer Capier.
www.myspace.com/carolynarends
Monday, November 20, 2006
Nov 22: Viper Central (Kathleen Nisbet)
Kathleen Nisbet played fiddle at CONFESSIONS. She's in a bluegrass band called Viper Central. They've got a gig this week at...
The Cafe Montmartre
Wed Nov 22
4362 Main St.
"We are going to try to start the music at 9pm. There will be two sets." KN
The Cafe Montmartre
Wed Nov 22
4362 Main St.
"We are going to try to start the music at 9pm. There will be two sets." KN
Nov 24,25: Graham Ord Returns!
Soul Food regular Graham Ord moved away to Kelowna last year, but he'll be in the lower mainland this coming weekend. So if you've been feeling Ordless...
Graham Ord Acoustic concert
Fri Nov 24, 7:30
Sutherland Church, 630 East 19th Street, North Vancouver (19th and Grand Blvd)
985 8906
Offering of Hope
building project fundraiser for children in Watoto, Uganda.
Sat Nov 25
South Delta Baptist Church, 1988 – 56th Street, Tsawwassen, B.C
943-8244
Doors open at 5:30 pm (Live and Silent Auction). Gourmet Coffee and Bistro Bar.
Graham Ord Acoustic concert
Fri Nov 24, 7:30
Sutherland Church, 630 East 19th Street, North Vancouver (19th and Grand Blvd)
985 8906
Offering of Hope
building project fundraiser for children in Watoto, Uganda.
Sat Nov 25
South Delta Baptist Church, 1988 – 56th Street, Tsawwassen, B.C
943-8244
Doors open at 5:30 pm (Live and Silent Auction). Gourmet Coffee and Bistro Bar.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Nov 19: Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners on CBC
Sunday Nov 19, noon
"Westcoast Performance," CBC Radio 2
My favourite new record this year is "House Of Refuge" by Jim Byrnes. Produced by Steve Dawson (who several times has played his many stringed instruments at Pacific Theatre gigs), the gospel-soaked disk features The Sojourners, a very fine trio of singers from the Good Noise Vancouver Gospel Choir. You'd swear you stepped into a storefront church someplace in New Orleans.
Early this fall, the Rogue Folk Club hosted a CD release concert ("I was there. It was fabulous." reports Soul Foodie Rudi). CBC recorded it, and is broadcasting it tomorrow at noon on Radio 2.
*
Advance word about related matters. Good Noise will be performing a series of three Christmas concerts, the first at my home church, Fraserview MB in Richmond. When time gets closer I'll post more details, but here's the heads up for now (and just in case...)
FRIDAY, DEC 1, 2006 7:30 pm
Fraserview Church
11295 Mellis Drive, Richmond, BC
FRIDAY, DEC 15, 2006 7:30 pm
Christ Church Cathedral,
Georgia & Burrard Vancouver BC
SATURDAY, DEC 16, 2006 7:30 pm
Christ Church Cathedral,
Georgia & Burrard Vancouver, BC
Details at their website, linked above
"Westcoast Performance," CBC Radio 2
My favourite new record this year is "House Of Refuge" by Jim Byrnes. Produced by Steve Dawson (who several times has played his many stringed instruments at Pacific Theatre gigs), the gospel-soaked disk features The Sojourners, a very fine trio of singers from the Good Noise Vancouver Gospel Choir. You'd swear you stepped into a storefront church someplace in New Orleans.
Early this fall, the Rogue Folk Club hosted a CD release concert ("I was there. It was fabulous." reports Soul Foodie Rudi). CBC recorded it, and is broadcasting it tomorrow at noon on Radio 2.
*
Advance word about related matters. Good Noise will be performing a series of three Christmas concerts, the first at my home church, Fraserview MB in Richmond. When time gets closer I'll post more details, but here's the heads up for now (and just in case...)
FRIDAY, DEC 1, 2006 7:30 pm
Fraserview Church
11295 Mellis Drive, Richmond, BC
FRIDAY, DEC 15, 2006 7:30 pm
Christ Church Cathedral,
Georgia & Burrard Vancouver BC
SATURDAY, DEC 16, 2006 7:30 pm
Christ Church Cathedral,
Georgia & Burrard Vancouver, BC
Details at their website, linked above
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)