Theatre

Mary Ellen MacLean is rehearsing her new play, Velocipede, in the Dalhousie Arts Centre. Studio Two is a large cavernous cube. A metal grid is suspended from the ceiling, just above a catwalk which wraps around the room. Far below on the studio floor, about 20 cycles are parked, a herd of rust, rubber, chrome, […]

The Neptune Theatre has an “A” level. This is where the administrative offices are located, on the floor above the main foyer. There is a long, carpeted hall, its walls spotted with glossy promotional posters of past shows and interrupted by offices on both sides. At the hall’s end is the Pratt & Whitney studio, […]

When Yvonne Ng was a young girl living in Singapore, her mother would play Chinese children’s folk songs on the piano and Ng would perform solo dances in front of a pretend audience, a small light mimicking a stage spotlight. “It sounds like we had a huge bonding thing—not really,” Ng says, laughing, “but someone […]

Two thousand five has been a year of opportunity for independent theatre artists. With the launches of so many new companies, the sudden growth of indie productions proves that even with obstacles like few venues and small budgets, for our theatre community, the shows must go on. In March, one of Halifax’s few full-time veteran […]

Last December, OneLight Theatre hosted a day-long discussion about the state of Canadian theatre in The Crib, its intimate space on Gottingen Street. The response was so overwhelming that this year’s forum has expanded into the Dalhousie Arts Centre for an entire weekend of disussion, philosophies and performances. Beginning on December 10, the event will […]

Seeing that lower-income earning gays were not being well-represented by the media, Michael Best decided to take matters into his own hands. Five years ago he began to compile a series of unusual experiences from his personal life, and eventually his confessional anecdotes became a full-length play. It’s been a long time in the making, […]

Marie Chouinard doesn’t read her own press. She’s surprised to hear about a feature interview penned by celebrity interrogator Sarah Hampson in last Saturday’s The Globe and Mail. If Chouinard did peruse her own publicity, she would learn that she’s considered one of Canada’s most important and visionary choreographers. She would read that her new […]

DaPoPo Theatre Company’s first year would not be complete without a performance of pure science-fiction social commentary. Thursday marks the opening night of Rossum’s Universal Robots. At first, the robots appear to bring an end to working-class blues. They can handle any chore, any task, no matter how toilsome. Programmed solely to work, no one […]