I sit, mesmerized, eyes closing, as “Big Mama” (Jackie Richardson) sings the slowest, most heart-felt rendition of Summertime I have ever heard, seeming to tease my very soul from its body. Big Mama! The Willie Mae Thornton Story, a Belfry Theatre/National Arts Centre co-production, is a blues musical feast, exposing Victoria audiences to an often under-appreciated stalwart of the 1950s-1980s blues scene. I am a blues fan, but, … [Read more...]
Big Mama! The Willie Mae Thornton Story at the Belfry Theatre. A review.
July 30, 2012 By 4 Comments
CCPA Performing Arts Party at Uptown
July 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
As I’ve shared before, there is a special place in my heart for the Canadian College of Performing Arts (CCPA). The Canadian College of Performing Arts is one of Canada’s top training centres for a career in the arts. Over the past 14 years, the Victoria-based College has made a difference in the lives of gifted young artists who have taken major steps towards their goals of becoming performers, teachers and arts leaders in communities across … [Read more...]
Announcing the first Singe Festival, Victoria BC, August 24th – September 2nd
July 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Announcing Victoria’s very first “off-Fringe” Festival - The Singe Festival (August 24th – September 2nd) featuring three of Victoria’s hottest and best known performers: Mike Delamont (Pick of the Fringe comedian 2011), Dave Morris (Pick of the Fringe improviser 2011) and Missie Peters (M-Award winning spoken word artist). Disappointed at not being selected in the Fringe lottery, and well aware that this year the Victoria Fringe Festival … [Read more...]
LIV Your Life Dragon Boat Fundraiser July 28th
July 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Join young women leaders for the first LIV Your Life Dragon Boat Fundraiser July 28th at Go Rowing and Paddle in Victoria, and help them reach their goal of $40,000 raised to assist your girls in Malawi stay in school. Clean running water. Electricity. Free school. In our western developed world, we take these to be basic rights. Yet, in many developing countries, even if school is free, uniforms and shoes are not, and children drop out … [Read more...]
Royal Tea at the Fairmont Empress to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee
July 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
When Executive Chef Kamal Silva was appointed to the Fairmont Empress Hotel, one of his very first decisions was to establish honey bee hives in the garden. (You can read more about the arrival of the Queen Bee in May 2011 here) Fairmont Empress Executive Chef, Kamal Silva, and Director of Food and Beverage, Nathan Pearce Now, a little over a year later, the bees have produced thousands of pounds of honey, and Chef Silva is incorporating it … [Read more...]
The Path by Impulse Theatre – a review
July 5, 2012 By 2 Comments
As the warm July day reaches a soft close and the sun heads slowly west, imbuing the air with golden light, we're gathered in the reception area of The English Inn, a period 1906 McClure mansion, prior to embarking on The Path, the newest site-specific interactive theatre experience from emerging Victoria company, Impulse Theatre. With drinks in hand, we follow our guide down the back stairs and into the magnificent gardens. She briefly … [Read more...]
Ocean Fox by Castlereigh Theatre Project – July 27/28 Intrepid Theatre Club
July 5, 2012 By 1 Comment
Castlereigh Theatre Project returns to Victoria for the première of their newest docu-drama Ocean Fox July 27th and 28th. Last seen at the YOU Show (Intrepid Theatre Club) in 2011 for a staged reading of their controversial work Castle in the Sky, the brother-sister playwriting duo of Jude Thaddeus Allen and Francesca Albright have been assiduously pursuing their storytelling vision. Ocean Fox is verbatim theatre, based on hundreds of hours … [Read more...]
Of Mice and Men, Blue Bridge Theatre, a review
July 4, 2012 By 1 Comment
With heart-breaking inevitability, the cast in Of Mice and Men, Blue Bridge Theatre’s current production, play out the unfolding tragedy in the lives of a pair of Depression-era migrant workers, George and Lennie. Originally written in 1937 as a play-novella by the Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck, this contemporary classic has the dubious distinction of being one of the most challenged books in North American literary history for its … [Read more...]
BC Économusée® Launch at Hazelwood Herb Farm
July 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The second Économusée® in British Columbia launched recently at Hazelwood Herb Farm, in North Oyster near the Nanaimo airport, and I was honoured to attend as an invited guest. A concept well established in Québec, the Atlantic Provinces and Northern Europe, Économusée® seeks to value artisanal producers and bring them to the attention of the larger population by providing a framework and network for development, publicity and promotion. An … [Read more...]
Theatre Skam’s Bike Ride 2012
July 2, 2012 By 2 Comments
Despite some rather soggy weather on the second weekend, Theatre SKAM’s fourth annual Bike Ride live outdoor theatre festival along the Galloping Goose trail attracted large and enthusiastic crowds of cycling theatre-lovers. Matthew Payne, one of the original founders of Theatre SKAM, based Bike Ride on a concept seen at HIVE in Vancouver where theatre-goers moved from space to space to view mini-plays and vignettes. He first experimented with … [Read more...]
