Vancouver, BC:  If the names did not already tell you that Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is intended to be a comedic homage to Anton Chekhov, the bust of Chehkov in Alison Green's wonderful book-lined sitting-room set would be a strong indication.

Vancouver, BC: Wow! This is among the most outstanding productions I have seen in Vancouver. Direction, performance, technical design and implementation  - flawless. Don't think I moved a muscle throughout the play, except to give Meg Roe a standing ovation, something I don't take at all lightly.

Vancouver, BC: As those of you  who have followed my recent  theatre travels and cruise adventures dancing at sea to destinations from Bora Bora to Beijing to  Los Angeles to New York, know by now, I am delirious about dance, so how could I not love a show with a song titled "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing"?  Add some rapid-fire tap dancing, great ensemble work and music and lyrics that are embedded  in my memory bank from years back, and White Christmas makes for a delightfully sentimental evening's entertainment.

Vancouver, BC: Matthew  (Jeremy Crittenden),  Mark  (David Hurwitz),  Luke (Jak Barradell),  Juan (Vincent Tong) and Abraham (Geoff Stevens) are the Altar Boyz, members of a boy band who are playing the final concert of their "Raise the Praise"  tour - at the Granville Island Stage - and, according to their impressive digital electronic device, the  Soul-Sensor DX-12,   they have several hundred heavily burdened souls in the audience to save, by the end of the concert. That's the premise of the show.  A thin story-line to be sure, but that is all that is needed to thread twelve high-energy  song and dance routines into a swinging, toe-tapping non-stop 90 minutes of  pure entertainment.

Vancouver, BC: How can one not love Les Mis? The book  has everything - Sympathetic downtrodden characters who  either  triumph over adversity or die tragically with their dreams unfulfilled; a good guy chasing a bad guy  where the bad guy is really good at heart and the good guy 's obsession with his quest is bad;  student protests with dramatic deaths on barricades, and of course, the wickedly funny  innkeeper and his wife. Then there is the music - songs to make you cry, songs to make you laugh, catchy melodies that tumble over each other for a place in your head; and that you hum as you drive home after the show.  I first saw a touring production of Les Misérables in Vancouver probably twenty years ago  and still remember the intense post-show  family discussion about the students sacrificing their lives in a futile cause.

Vancouver, BC: At first glance it would seem that a story set in early 1980s Northern England, about preparing a class of grammar school boys to write university entrance examinations for Oxford and Cambridge would provide little target for heated debate on the way home. However as I and my companion for this evening, a teacher with a life-time of experience in special education,  have previously had many intense discussions on the pros and cons of standardized tests, school report cards and the politics of education politics, I was anticipating his take on the play with great interest and indeed there was much to discuss.

Vancouver, BC: I first saw Doubt in New York in July 2005, the year this play won John Patrick Shanley the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Superbly performed, the production was riveting -the tension in the audience was tangible - absolute silence, audible gasps, a few "no nos". I loved the show and rushed off the very next day to the Drama Book Shop to pick up a copy of the published script. As I eagerly anticipated the Arts Club production I wondered whether the play would have the same impact on a second viewing. But even knowing the story line, last night I found the play almost as powerful as before.

Vancouver, BC: The Arts Club continues its run of crowd pleasing musicals with The Producers. The version of this musical now playing has had an interesting and unusual evolutionary history. The screenplay for the initial 1968 film The Producers, written and directed by Mel Brooks, garnered Brooks an Academy award for screenplay. It starred Zero Mostel as Max Bialystok and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom. In a reversal of what usually happens, the film was developed into a Broadway musical, which opened in 2001 with Nathan Lane as Bialystok and Matthew Broderick as Bloom. Lane and Broderick recently reprised their stage roles in the 2005 film version of The Producers. This seems to be a new trend with Hairspray following suit.

And that tragedy is at the heart of Daniel MacIvor's insightful new play. In a "snapshot" inspired by the visit of Tennessee Williams to Vancouver shortly before his death in 1983, MacIvor shows us a man terrified that the talent that made him a great Playwright has deserted him. He clings to the hope, however faint, that his writing still has the "it" that the critics and audiences love because the reality is that he has to go on living though he is, to paraphrase another great playwright, "sans inspiration, sans love, sans everything."

After weeks away in the dry heat of California and then the cooler, thin-air mountains of Colorado, I am back in the saddle, or rather, the theatre seat again, for the remount opening night of Cookin' at the Cookery. And what a ride it was tonight. Under the direction of Bill Sample (keyboard), musicians Graham Boyle (percussion), David Sinclair (Guitar) and Rene Worst (Bass) produced swinging rhythms that I swear called out to me "get dancing, girl". But being a well trained theatre patron, I kept my hands and feet from tapping out the beat and my mouth from belting out the words. It was a struggle. But I loved the show.

Vancouver, BC: Among my CD collection of Broadway musicals, one of my favorites is the original London cast recording of "Company". However I had never seen "Company" performed so it was with great anticipation that I headed off to the Stanley for opening night of the show. And the production lived up to my expectations thanks to a terrific, high energy cast, who sang Sondheim's clever, acerbic lyrics so clearly that I could hear and savour every word. Well, almost every word except for the thousand word a minute "Getting Married Today" brilliantly performed by Tracy Neff.