By Frank Moher A lot of Canadian teachers are rightfully angry at the Conservatives these days — none more so than drama teachers. Barely hours after Justin Trudeau was elected leader of the Liberal Party, the Cons unleashed an attack ad deriding his work experience: as a camp counsellor, white water rafting instructor, and most […]
Steve’s soldierly pantomime
By Montreal Simon Ever since he came to power Stephen Harper has tried to use the military for crass political purposes. First he wanted to use it to change his image from nerdy policy wonk to Great Warrior Leader. And when that failed miserably, for obvious reasons, he set out to change the military’s image. […]
Open season on critics
By Zoe Grams Fringe, film fest and publishing season is upon us – a time when the smell of suntan lotion lingers as we push into theatres. But it’s the critics, not just the performers, who are making headlines. With 76 events in the Vancouver Fringe, more than 100 in the Toronto International Film Festival, […]
Burlesque dancer teases B.C. censors
A BoB short B.C. liquor laws have forced Miss Rosie Bitts, a Victoria-based burlesque dancer, to cancel her PG-13 show Shimmy Town. The performance was supposed to take place on June 29 at Svelte Cocktail Lounge in Victoria. The choreography included a kiss between Bitts, 37, whose real name is Trinda Reed, and a male […]
LPG cut, Summerworks restored: Is this any way to run a culture?
Update, June 14th: Moore reverses cuts to LPG. By Frank Moher Let us now consider the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the confusion that is its Minister, James Moore. As we reported on the weekend, the Literary Press Group of Canada, a 37-year old organization whose job is to sell the books of Canadian authors, […]
Will “Slings and Arrows” take aim again?
By Zoe Grams When NBC’s dreadful soap-musical “Smash” is the only representation of theatre artists in mainstream culture, you know there’s a problem (for theatre artists, at any rate). So it’s no wonder there has been an online flutter over the potential relaunch of the Canadian comedy “Slings and Arrows.” Creator Bob Martin tells the […]
Dziekanski flies like a bird in opera
The tragic story of Robert Dziekanski has become an opera, opening on Thursday in Halifax. Composer John Plant and author J.A. Wainwright have put music and lyrics together to tell the tale of the Polish immigrant who died in 2007 after being tasered multiple times by RCMP at Vancouver International Airport. Wainwright says that watching the […]
The Bard for MBAs
By Mark Leiren-Young Whether t’is nobler to study the Bard or to learn to balance your chequebook, that is the question posed by the Financial Post business section. Although the article by Fabio Campanella, CA, CFP, CIM is a partner at Campanella McDonald LLP never actually suggests ditching English Lit in favour of watching your […]
Inside Read: The Opening Act
Our Inside Read feature presents excerpts from new Canadian books we think you might want to dip into further. In The Opening Act, author Susan McNicoll offers a lively history of Canadian theatre post WW II, including the following account of Vancouver’s 1953 Tobacco Road “fiasco.” Published by kind permission of Ronsdale Press. “The police […]
Fort McMurray’s Keyano College sends arts to tailings pond
By Frank Moher The sacking of four instructors in the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Keyano College in Fort McMurray is creating an uproar well beyond the city better known for its resource extraction talents. Artists, of course, are well aware that their masters — whether they be cabinet ministers or academic administrators — […]
