On Monday theatre is dark - or is it?
I must have been really tired because when I opened my eyes on Monday morning and checked the time it was 9:30. Guess I was catching up on the travel sleep deficit. Couldn't really face breakfast so I ordered a pot of coffee from room service and got myself thoroughly caffeinated while I dressed and got organized for my theatre booking expedition.
My Tuesday night was already allocated for All My Sons so that left me with Monday night and Wednesday night open. The last time I was in London there was virtually nothing on on Sunday and Monday and I wondered if that would be the same this time. However my last visit was in January. Now it is the height of the summer theatre season so probably there would be a reasonable selection of plays on.
By the time I was ready to go it was nearly eleven and I thought I had better get moving. My plan was to see what was available at discounted rates and if I could not find what I wanted, to go directly to the various box-offices.
On my way past the store where I bought my phone I stopped in for a quick discussion about OK buttons. By trial and error we decided it was the same as the back button - go figure - but it seemed to work.
At Leicester Square I got a dress circle ticket for Prisoner of Second Avenue and then I thought I would really like to see the follow up musical to Phantom, Love Never Dies. So I wandered along the Strand to the box office at the Adelphi and bought what I was assured was a good ticket for the Wednesday night 7:30 show. At 66 GBP it better be, and I pray for a little gnome in the seat in front of me.
On my way back I dropped into Sainsbury's to pick up some fruit and nuts.
If it is Sunday it must be Southbank
For some bizarre reason technical problems with this specific post are preventing me from attaching images so my wonderful pictures will hopefully appear in a separate post. Can't find any explanation in the html source code so I am posting this as is because trying to fix the problem is driving me nuts.
So here goes with Sunday and Southbank.
Sleep? or Dinner and a Show?
Flight, train, taxi - smooth as silk. The big question was sleep- or start my London adventure.
By shortly after 1 PM I was unpacked, showered and ready to head down to Leicester Square to check out the theatre scene. I also planned to see about getting a local cell phone so that I could call home without having to mortgage my home to pay my Fido bill when I got back to Vancouver.
As I walked along Charlotte Street I noticed that both sides of the street had restaurant, pubs and cafes, one after another. Basically the whole street is food and drink heaven. I turned right on Tottenham Court Road and passed a number of electronic stores.
I stopped in to enquire about a cell phone. After some negotiation I ended up picking up a small Sony Ericsson phone and a Lebara international mobile SIM card. Then I bought a calling credit top up for ten pounds and I was set for the rest of my trip, or so I figured.
I set off again down to Leicester Square feeling a bit like I was channeling Matt Damon - or maybe these days I should say Lisbeth Salander. Mind you I still had not figured out how to use the phone other than how to switch it on and off! More about that later.
I checked out the various discount booths at Leicester Square and finally decided to try for a ticket to Thriller Live at 4 PM at the Lyric Theatre. This is a show of songs from Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five and I figured if anything would keep me awake it would be that show.
Vancouver - Heathrow - Paddington - SoHo
It seems as though it would be a long and exhausting journey from Vancouver to my hotel in London but this is how the timing actually went:
Depart Vancouver around 5 PM (equivalent to 1 am London time the next day)
After a nine hour flight, arrive around 10 am at Heathrow
By around 11 am, I am on the Heathrow Express for the 15 minute ride to Paddington Station
The wait for a taxi was under 5 minutes and by 12 noon I was standing at the desk of the Rathbone Hotel for check-in.
Eleven hours from YVR to my London Hotel. Isn't it great to live in the 21st century!
Vancouver to Heathrow: Air Canada's direct flight
The Air Canada Boeing 777-300s have been in operation for about three years according to the Enroute magazine but this plane was so immaculately groomed it seemed almost new. I booked my flight when Air Canada was offering one of their discounted airfares so my budget allowed for a seat in the Executive First cabin. The London flight was packed and I was happy that I made that choice.
The flight took off a couple of minutes late but we were still scheduled to get into London on time. I enjoyed a glass of orange juice before take off - the sparkling wine does not do it for me! and shortly after we were aloft, I was offered a portion of mixed nuts and a choice of drinks.
London 2010 for Theatre and Dining: The plan unfolds
I'm a planner as any one who knows me even remotely is aware. My electronic calendar gets sorted out weeks, even months in advance. When asked, I declare that I have to do things that way because I am so frightfully busy - the life of an entertainment/food and wine/ travel/ dance-cruise writer is so full of attending events, eating and drinking (well maybe not drinking so much), traveling and dancing - that I need my PDA to keep track of what my weary neurons cannot. But the truth is that even before electronic PDAs existed and when the main events in my life were 1) work a 10 to 11 hour day at the hospital 2) have dinner with my family and 3) work some more at home, I still tried to fill out my paper calendar months ahead.
Today as I depart to spend five cultural and gastronomic days in London prior to a Ballroom Dance Cruise around the British Isles, it's a glorious July day in Vancouver, and I think "how crazy am I to be leaving town?"
Singing in the Rain at Theatre Under the Stars
Singing in the Rain
Book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; Songs by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed
Director Shel Piercy; Music Director Wendy Bross-Stewart; Choreographer Shelley Stewart-Hunt
Theatre Under the Stars,
Malkin Bowl, Stanley Park
Alternating nights to August 20th, 2010
Vancouver, BC. As much as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will enchant children this summer, adult audiences will enjoy this production of Singing in the Rain. Although the words "singing in the rain" can't help but evoke the iconic image of Gene Kelly in the 1952 movie, the fun this TUTS cast has with the story managed to get the movie images out of my mind.
Singing in the Rain was first produced as a stage musical in London's West End more than three decades after the film version and we saw an entertaining version of the Arts Club stage a couple of years ago. This is the first time for this musical on the TUTS stage, and the talented Cailin Stadnyk gets to reprise her part from the Arts Club production, as the untalented but gorgeous Lina Lamont..
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Theatre Under the Stars
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice
Directed by Shel Piercy;
Music Director Kevin Michael Cripps;
Choreographer Keri Minty
Theatre Under the Stars,
Malkin Bowl, Stanley Park
Alternating nights to August 20th, 2010
Vancouver, BC. TUTS could not have asked for a more perfect evening to open their 2010 season. The evening air was warm, and the strong winds that blew through Vancouver yesterday had moved on to bluster across another part of the province. This year TUTS have instituted reserved seating throughout, a move that seemed to be appreciated by all.
We arrived early, after enjoying a delicious meal at the Tapastree restaurant just off Denman Street, and sat down to enjoy the lively pre-show music.
The season opener was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by the team of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice, based on the story of Joseph from the old testament Book of Genesis. In keeping with the 1968 origin of this work as a fifteen minute performance piece for the music department of an high school project Director Piercy has changed the narrator function into an interactive communication between a group of children and a tribe of "flower children".
Destination Kelowna: The Kelowna Actors Studio
In Vancouver, arts organizations and theatre companies are reeling under the impact of massive cuts to arts funding. From our recent visit to Kelowna for the Spring Wine Festival, Destination Travel: Kelowna in the Okanagan Wine Country , here is an inspiring story of "a little company that could" - The Kelowna Actors Studio is thriving and looking forward to an expanded season next year - and they do it through ticket sales.
Randy Leslie and Nathan Flavel are the brains, passion and talent behind Kelowna's independent theatre company, The Kelowna Actors Studio. Despite being a week away from the opening of "The Miracle Worker" when we called to see them, they generously took time out of their frenetic schedules to show us around their theatre and describe their impressive plans for 8 productions during their 2010/2011 season.
Although neither mentioned this during our talk, some prior research on my part revealed that both Nathan and Randy have established themselves as dedicated contributors to the cultural and entrepreneurial scene in Kelowna. Randy was the recipient of the first ever Okanagan Angel Award in 2005 for his contribution to the local arts scene and recently received a civic award for Honour in the Arts. Nathan was the recipient of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce Young Entrepreneur Of the Year award for his work with Kelowna Actors Studio.
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Directed by Tariq Leslie
What You Will Equity Co-op,
Jericho Arts Centre
July 2 to July 24, 2010
Vancouver, BC: It is a fascinating experience to see how a directorial approach can alter one's perception of a play, particularly something so familiar as Twelfth Night. The production of Twelfth Night that I saw by Bard on the Beach in the 2008 season, was played with rapid-fire intensity and fairly sparkled with light-hearted humour.
This pace of this production of Twelfth Night was much slower and more leisured. This brought out the darker aspects of the play so the overall mood of the play was heavier and more ponderous.
The plot of mixed identities and genders centers around Viola (Courtney Lancaster), who, having survived a shipwreck in which her twin brother Sebastian (Adam Bergquist) was ostensibly drowned, enters the service of Orsino, Duke of Illyria (Trevor Devall) disguised as a boy, Cesario. Each twin, unbeknownst to each other is rescued - Viola by the captain (Yurij Kis) of the wrecked ship; Sebastian by a sea captain, Antonio (Kis).
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Music and Lyrics by William Finn and Book by Rachel Sheinkin
Directed by Michael Shamata. Musical Director Bruce Kellett
Arts Club Theatre/ Belfry Theatre production
Arts Club Granville Island Stage
June 15 to July 31, 2010
Vancouver, BC: I walked out of the Arts Club Theatre after seeing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee thinking, much to my surprise, that it was actually a little gem of a musical and perfectly suited to the Granville Island Stage. I really had not anticipated enjoying it as much as I did, so kudos to Michael Shamata and his cast.
This is because four years ago when I was writing "Rants, Raves and Reviews" for Immediate Theatre, I saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at The Circle in the Square Theatre in New York. That's a 650 seat theatre, larger than the 450 seat Granville Island Stage - and in retrospect it seemed much more cavernous than the Stanley which also has about 650 seats. I wonder whether the barn-like nature of the New York venue, and the fact that I was seated way back in the "bleachers" contributed to my grumpiness about the show at the time (Songs, Dances, Paintings -The Curtain Falls). My comments then were that "the story line was weak, the music unmemorable and the choreography unremarkable. The show runs for about an hour and 45 minutes with no intermission and my attention began to flag after the first hour."
This was not so for this energetic and funny Arts Club/Belfry production, which I enjoyed a lot. Fitting in nicely with the concept of the show, Shamata inserted a "snack break" midway through the Bee which means that those of us with short attention spans and stiffening joints got to come back relaxed and eagerly anticipating the second half of the show.
And this time I was also thoroughly engaged by the individual characters of the young spellers and their back- stories, which actually touch on quite weighty issues like parental neglect, sibling rivalry, and perfectionism. Not to mention that I found myself laughing out loud at some of their antics.
- 1 of 24
- ››
