Semiahmoo Strings
Tickets are still available for the next concert by acclaimed youth ensemble The Semiahmoo Strings, A Little Night Music, Friday, Jan. 20, 7:30 p.m. at Mount Olive Lutheran Church, 2530 148 St.
The program will include a little something for everybody, including Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Saint-Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (featuring violin soloist Lucy Wang), the Intercontinental Fiddle Suite (with fiddler/violinist Kierah Raymond), plus virtuoso works by Holst, Liszt and Bernstein.
Tickets ($15, $8 students and seniors) are available from Tapestry Music, or by calling 604-538-1460.
Don Quixote
Axis Theatre Company – creators of the hit The Number 14 – collaborated with the Arts Club Theatre on a new version of the classic tale Don Quixote, which opens tonight (Jan. 17) at Surrey Arts Centre’s mainstage, running through Jan. 28.
As fans of the earlier show can imagine, masks play an important role in the new production, co-adapted by Colin Heath and lead performer Peter Anderson.
Based on the the two-volume 17th century classic by Miguel de Cervantes – celebrated as a high point of the Spanish Golden Age, and as a cornerstone of modern Western literature – Don Quixote uses masks not only to evoke a multitude of characters, but also explore themes of identity.
Most of all, the masks – created by Melody Anderson – make possible to recreate with a small troupe the comical and philospohical world of the elderly country gentleman, who has become so obsessed with accounts of knighthood and chivalry that he sets out on his own quest to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked.
David Roberts literary-inspired set takes theatregoers on the journey from Quixote’s candlelit study to a field of windmills and the castle of a duke.
Also along for the trip are Michel Perron, as the Don’s faithful and naive squire Sancho Panza, plus a company of recognized Vancouver talents including Sasa Brown, Marco Soriano, Raphael Kepinski, Beatrice Zeilinger and Allan Zinyk.
For reservations, and more information on the Surrey run, call 604-501-5566.
Art journaling
A free art journaling workshop for teens and tweens is offered by White Rock Library, Jan. 18 and 25, 4-5 p.m.
Aimed at young people who like to express themselves through drawing, colouring, and journaling, the class, taught by local artist and teacher Violette, will cover such techniques as collage, lettering and using markers and pencils to create rich, layered visual journals.
Students will come away from the class with one or two pages of journaling, plus handouts to refer back to in future work.
To register, call 604-542-2204.
Twenties mystery
Crescent Beach’s Beecher Street Cafe is presenting another in the popular series of murder mystery evenings by Grim Reaper: Who Stiffed Sammy? (Thursday, June 26, 7 p.m. at the cafe).
Producer Trevor Jenkins is offering to take everybody “back to the Roaring ’20s for a rollicking gangster-and-gunmoll-era period show” which blends participatory mystery game, live theatre, fine dining and prizes.
Beecher Street Cafe will become a speakeasy for the evening (‘Big Al’ is the password to get in) as participants help unravel the mystery of who pumped gangland chieftan Sammy Nitti full of lead that morning.
Flappers and gunmen will populate the venue – diners are invited to join in by donning ’20s-style costume – while suspects abound, including Sweet Nelly Kelly; Texas (the Queen of the Nightclubs); Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
Cost per person is $55 (including meal, but not including HST and gratuity). For reservations, call 604-538-1964.
Library reading
White Rock-based social justice activist Pummy Kaur – author of the best-selling What Would Gandhi Do? – will read from her latest book, A Season of Non-Violence: 64 Ways for 64 Days, Monday, Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. at White Rock Library, 15342 Buena Vista Ave.
Kaur, who asserts that global peace begins with the individual, outlines 64 suggestions for peace-promoting activities; one for each of the 64 days between the anniversaries of the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
To pre-register (recommended), call 604-541-2201.
Players Club
Now is the time for local live theatre fans to indulge their passion by buying tickets for a busy line-up of shows in the current White Rock Players Club season at Coast Capital Playhouse (1532 Johnston Rd.)
First up this year is Norm Foster’s Drinking Alone, directed by Susanne de Pencier, Feb. 8 to Feb 12.
Relying on the grand old standby of playwriting – the family reunion – Foster’s situation comedy centres on the uneasy meeting of two adult children with their long-estranged father, with new wife in tow, after 15 years of virtually no contact.
The daughter, an apparently successful TV news reader, is teetering on the edge of being an alcoholic, just like the mother to whose not-so-tender mercies their father abandoned them.
The son, Joe (played in this production by Terry Thomas) is a self-confessed failure who runs the family’s moribund drycleaning business. In a vain attempt to convince his father he’s not a complete loser, he hires Renee (Vanessa Klein), a woman from an escort service, to masquerade as his fiancee.
And that’s the source of many of the laughs in the show: cautioned not to say much about the couple’s history together, the chatty Renee can’t stop herself from weaving an elaborate tapestry of fantasy.
Evening performances are at 8 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday, with a 2:30 p.m. matinee Saturday, Feb. 25.
From April 11 to 28 the club will present its Theatre B.C. entry, the medieval drama of royal intrigue The Lion In Winter, by James Goldman.
The 1966 play imagines a Christmas in the year 1183 at Henry II of England’s French chateau at Chinon in the Anjou region, and the verbal and psychological battles between the king, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (imprisoned by him for supportring a rebellion against his rule) and their sons Richard, Geoffrey and John.
Also at court: Philip II of France and his half sister Alais – who is, in Goldman’s version, at least, Henry’s mistress.
From April 29 to May 5, the club will host the Theatre B.C. zone festival, in which its entry will be judged alongside other notable productions from community theatre groups in the Vancouver zone.
From June 13 to 30 the scheduled show will be Ken Ludwig’s farce Lend Me A Tenor.
Set in Cleveland in 1934, the show depicts the mayhem when famed tenor Tito Merelli, known as ‘Il Stupendo,’ receives an accidental double-dose of tranquilizers, and Saunders, the opera company manager has to find a substitute.
Adding to the fun: an autograph seeker mistaken for Merelli’s mistress, Merelli’s enraged wife, and Saunders’ ambitious assistant Max.
For tickets and show time information, visit www.whiterockplayers.ca or call 604-536-7535.
