Theatre

About 100 people have gathered in Ginger’s Tavern and most of them have their fists raised in the air. Emphatically, the arms jerk down, a sea of fists pump together in solidarity. With the fist-pumps comes a one-word chant of encouragement from a bar full of voices. “Speak!” It’s mid-January, and the crowd has gathered […]

You’ve got to love Halifax. It’s a little city with a big arts community and an abundance of great live theatre. In the past year, there have been some outstanding professional shows, some unforgettable community theatre and some small productions mounted with low budgets and high passions. Here are some of the most memorable happenings […]

Comedy albums have enjoyed a resur-gence as of late. Both Tenacious D and Weird Al Yankovic recently hit the top 10 in the United States with their respective albums The Pick of Destiny and Straight out of Lynwood, while internet phenomenon Dane Cook has spent over a year on the charts with his double disc […]

It is 7:45pm on Sunday night and the buzz in the air is palpable. Ginger’s Tavern is close to capacity as groups of young adults stream up the stairs on a minute-by-minute basis. By the time 8pm rolls around, there isn’t an empty seat in the house. The audience has gathered not to see a […]

Is a “harmless” racist joke ever really harmless? Do ends sometimes justify means? Are there degrees of truth? These are just a few of the difficult questions raised by This is How it Goes , playwright Neil LaBute’s exploration of exploitation and race relations currently playing at Neptune’s Studio Theatre. While the questions may be […]

We live in dangerous times. Canadian troops are dying with alarming frequency. Atomic weapons tests are rearing their ugly mushroom-shaped heads. War is a game played by countless young people in the flickering light of computers. Armed conflict is all around us, yet we are, for the most part, happily removed from it. Flash back […]

Being funny isn’t always easy. In fact, for Irish stand-up Tommy Tiernan and many of his fellow touring comedians, it’s often downright difficult to keep tickling the humerus night after night. “It has its challenges to be sure,” says the comic from County Meath, speaking from his hotel room in Corner Brook. “I mean, here […]

Practically any evening of channel-surfing will reveal an abundance of forensic crime dramas. But before CSI (in any city), before Bones, certainly before Cold Case, there was CTV’s Cold Squad, helmed by the spunky Sgt. Ali McCormick, AKA Julie Stewart. Stewart—the only cast member to work all of the show’s seven seasons—has been looking for […]

Now I’m getting more than a little anxious. Worried that this warm bath of a sunny September afternoon might be all shot to hell. I am knocking on the front door of a colourful house on a central Halifax street, lined on both sides with late-Victorian style domiciles. So far, nobody inside has been roused […]