BY WENDY ELLIOTT
welliott@kentvilleadvertiser.ca
NovaNewsNow.com
Merritts awarded
Two Planks and a Passion Theatre in Canning came home last week with three of the six Merritt Awards for which they were nominated.
Director Ken Schwartz will be happy with the Outstanding Production Merritt for The Odyssey.
Burgundy Code was most deserving of the best supporting actress award and costume design Jenifer Darbellay did wonders on a limited budget.
We’re looking forward to two plays this summer up on the mountain. Two Planks will present Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town as well as the world premiere of Jerome: The Historical Spectacle written by bestselling author Ami McKay.
Cooperation
Ross Creek Centre for the Arts has teamed up with Northeast Kings Education Centre for a Community Arts Project. The School of Recreation Management and Kinesiology at Acadia University developed a project that would allow youth from NKEC to reflect on their communities in creative ways.
Prof. John Colton and Chris O’Neill at Ross Creek decided it would be great to collaborate. The Community Gallery at the Centre was the location.
“The purpose of this project was to explore youth’s relationship to their home and school communities,” Colton says. “We wanted to find out, do youth feel connected to their community and to what extent? What types of things do they like or dislike about their communities, what they might change about their communities and to what extent are they willing to be part of this change?”
Students from Grade 7 created collages allowing them to express how they felt about their communities. Grade 9 students made a patchwork community quilt based on individual cloth paintings and Grade 11 students used various visual art methods including photos, poems and drawings to reflect on different aspects of their community. The exhibit will remain up until March 30.
Opera breakthrough
Live high definition opera from the Metropolitan Opera in New York will be shown at the Empire Theatre in New Minas starting March 15 with Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes.
The Met's experiment of merging film with live performance has created a new art form, according to the Los Angeles Times. The round the world series has certainly enjoyed box office success, reaching an estimated audience of more than 325,000 viewers.
This season the Met is offering its second season of international HD transmissions with two more broadcasts. The latest is a new production of Peter Grimes. Running time is three hours and 45 minutes with two intermissions.
Peter Grimes is under investigation for unthinkable transgressions, yet composer Benjamin Britten’s probing exploration of the nature of guilt and judgment implicates an entire fishing village. Director John Doyle, a Tony Award winner for his interpretation of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, makes his Met debut, answering the challenges of this modern masterpiece.
Tenor Anthony Dean Griffey takes on the complex title role. Patricia Racette plays Ellen Orford, the woman who refuses to abandon him. Conductor is Donald Runnicles.
On March 22, Tristan and Isolde is on the schedule, followed by Puccini’s La Boheme April 5 and Donazetti’s La Filled du Regiment April 26.
Guitar recital
Dale Kavanagh, artist in residence at Acadia University’s School of Music, prof. Eugene Cormier and guitar students will hold a recital Sunday, March 16 at 3 p.m. in the Manning Memorial chapel.
Actor to speak
Shelley Thompson will give a talk from the actor’s perspective on Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night's Dream Tuesday, March 11 at 7:30 in Beveridge Arts Centre 244, Acadia University.
Sunday Music Concert
The final Sunday Music in the Garden Room concert this season will be presented Sunday, March 16 at 2 p.m. in the Garden Room of Acadia University’s Irving Centre in Wolfville.
It will be a program displaying two superb examples of the classical chamber musical genre seldom heard together in a single concert. They are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds in E flat Major, K. 425 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quintet for Piano and Winds (also) in E flat Major, Opus 16.
The five artists are familiar to Sunday Music audiences. John Hansen, long-time Acadia faculty member, will play the piano parts of the two quintets. The other four musicians are well-known members of Symphony Nova Scotia who all have demanding careers as soloists, chamber musicians and teachers of their instruments. They are: oboist Suzanne Lemieux; clarinetist Margaret Isaacs; bassoonist Christopher Palmer; and Wolfville native David Parker on French horn.
Sunday Music in the Garden Room is a free classical chamber music series sponsored by the Valley Branch of the Associated Alumni of Acadia University.
Fundy Film
Fundy Film Society continues its Winter Doc Series with My Kid Could Paint That. This fascinating documentary chronicles the rise and fall of child artist Marla Olmstead.
It will screen at the Al Whittle Theatre in Wolfville Wednesday, March 12 at 7 p.m.
The society continues its Winter Edge Series with Shake Hands with the Devil, the story of Canadian General Roméo Dallaire (Roy Dupuis, The Rocket) who is torn between his duty and his conscience when he finds himself eyewitness to hell on earth.
Caught in the maelstrom of the Rwandan genocide, Dallaire does his utmost to stem the bloodshed, but ultimately returns to Canada a shattered, haunted man.
It will screen at the Al Whittle Theatre in Wolfville Sun., March 23 at 4 and 7 p.m. For further information, see
www.fundyfilm.ca or call 542-5157. Tickets ($8) are available 30 minutes prior to the screening.
Irish drama
The Acadia Theatre Company presents The Cripple of Inishmaan, by Martin McDonagh, again this weekend.
This is an interesting production, but not a universal favourite. Certainly if you want to find out why McDonagh at the young age of 27 was the first playwright since Shakespeare to have four plays running simultaneously in London’s West End, go see it.
His is the stuff of black humour, of disability and poverty and violence. It is not a politically correct drama and the attempt at broad Irish accents means that much of the dialogue is hard to comprehend. I would rather have heard Maritime accents than fractured Irish, but that was director Robert Seale’s choice.
As with most student productions at Acadia, the energy of this young company is wonderful. The women are excellent. Valley gal Allison Zwicker shone as Kate and Maia Whitehouse sunk her teeth into a difficult role.
Will Lang gave his eccentric character a well-rounded quality and Daniel Franck as Cripple Billy managed to pull our heartstrings without saying a word.
The play runs March 12-15 at 8 p.m., with Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. March 15 in Lower Denton Theatre.
Ticket prices are $12 and $10 for students/seniors and may be purchased at the Box of Delights Bookstore in Wolfville or at the door. Tickets may also be reserved by calling the reservation line at 585-1766.
Tribute show
Live Bait Theatre in Sackville, N.B. is touring a two-man tribute to Simon and Garfunkel. Billed as the show they never gave, the duo playing Art and Paul will be in Wolfville March 14–15.
The musical comedy will feature 20 songs and has been playing to packed houses. The venue is the Al Whittle Theatre at 8 p.m.
Coming up
March 15
Rose Cousins and Edie Carey, Union St. Café, Berwick, 9 p.m
March 20
Rustic Harmony, Berwick Lions Hall, 2 p.m.
Until March 20
Death of the Party, art exhibition @ Ross Creek Centre, near Canning
Until March 28
Acadia Art Show, Beveridge Arts Centre, Wolfville
