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The 12th annual SHIFT Festival will combine movement, music, and sharp personal notes in a 90-minute show diverse in form yet linked in theme. The three-day festival offers three pieces for one price from July 11–13. A platform for expression Marie’s Letters is about the experience and survival of the Métis, with indigenous artist Tai Amy…
The sky’s the limit for Joshua Lalisan, a 20-year-old actor and dancer living in Surrey, British Columbia. He will be playing the role of Sky Rymand in Theatre Under the Stars’ (TUTS) rendition of Mamma Mia. The character of Sky Rymand is the love interest of Sophie Sheridan, a woman trying to find her father. Sky…
All’s Well That Ends Well is one of four offerings from this year’s Bard on the Beach, but this production has a brand new perspective. With a fresh staging that aims to shine a different spotlight onto this Shakespearian text, the performance will run from June 26 to Aug. 11. A collaborative piece While the original…
A fantastical show with a setting that is both otherworldly and very personal, Chicken Girl is the newest production from rice & beans theatre. The show will run from May 24–June 7 at the Orpheum Annex. A personal connection Chicken Girl is written and directed by Derek Chan, co-artistic director of rice & beans theatre. It contains three different…
In Shadows, Strings and Other Things: The Enchanting Theatre of Puppets, visitors will be able to explore a series of elaborate stages that have been created especially for the puppets exhibition. Curator Nicola Levell believes that visitors will be surprised by how the gallery has been transformed in order to accommodate the exhibition. “It is incredibly…
“It’s so important that people come to see this play because it doesn’t sit in a negative place. We raise these serious issues to try to process them,” says Valerie Methot, director, playwright and set and sound designer of REWIRE. Created in collaboration between industry professionals and youth, REWIRE addresses the causes of negative stress including grief, poverty…
What would it be like to walk into a performance without knowing the script? That is what NASSIM, the international award-winning play, asks of its performers. There are no rehearsals; there is a different guest actor at each performance; and the actors never see the script until they step on stage to perform it. “This [type of…
It’s a tale with a twist! Theatre professionals Amaranta Leyva and Kim Selody are working hard to retell the most magical of all stories, fairy tales. And these stories are a little different than you’re used to. “The heart of the play is the message,” says Leyva, lead actor in Jack and the Magic Bean. It’s a…
A couple of lifetimes ago and another world away, the lives of many Japanese Canadian families changed forever in 1942. Trying to understand what these times were like, from a Nisei’s perspective, is what initiated The Tashme Project: The Living Archives. The Firehall Arts Centre will present the docudrama play Apr. 2–13. “We shift from character to…
Improv as an art form is very positive, joyful and celebratory, and that’s kind of the mindset that we approach each of our special shows with,” says Margret Nyfors, Director of Public Education and Co-Director of Rookie League at Vancouver Theatre Sports (VTS). Together with former artistic director Denise Jones, Nyfors co-produced Shamrocks & Shenanigans, a…
A new version of Hansel and Gretel is just what the world needs at this time, says Ellie King. “There’s rotten stuff going on in the world right now, so our goal is to lighten people’s lives, to bring light through the door,” says King, who is the founder and artistic director of The Royal Canadian Theatre Company,…
In the upcoming theatre production The Ones We Leave Behind viewers are immersed in a character play that subtly addresses one of society’s major issues: social isolation, abandonment and loneliness. With the support of the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (VACT), the seminal MSG Lab play will be making its debut from Oct. 24–Nov. 3 at The Cultch’s…
Javaad Alipoor, writer, co-director and lead performer, brings The Believers Are But Brothers to centre stage at the Culture Lab Oct. 30–Nov 10. The one-actor play deals with identity, insecurity and fantasy while taking on the topics of toxic masculinity and far-right extremism in the online world. A representation of masculinity and extremism With just a few…
