• PHOTOS: Photography Club Camp

    The St. Albert Photography Club held their 6th annual camping trip to Elk Island National Park on the weekend. The club, which has approximately seventy members, has been in existence for twenty seven years and meet at the St. Albert Inn three times a month. (PHOTOS BY LARRY WONG/POSTMEDIA)
    A member of the St. Albert Photography Club participates in a light painting photography session at Elk Island National Park on August 19, 2018. The club, which has approximately seventy members, has been in
  • Fringe Review: A Sad Ass Cabaret

    A Sad Ass Cabaret
    4 stars out of 5
    Stage 13, Old Strathcona Public Library
    Most songwriters will tell you that it’s easier to write sad or dark songs than happy ones. Some of the best actually had good reasons to write sad stuff, though sad lives don’t always inspire lyrics of a depressing nature. You’ll hear about both in this entertaining hour of songs and stories about a few famous songwriters, a collaboration between Vancouver’s T.J.Dawe and Lindsay Robertson.
    Dawe se
  • Fringe review: Buyer and Cellar

    Fringe review: Buyer and Cellar
    • 3.5 stars out of 5
    • Stage 10, Have Mercy Acacia Hall
    Apparently, Barbra Streisand has really built a mall in the basement of her Malibu home where she displays all the dresses, antiques, costumes and other stuff she has collected.
    Imagine working there as the pseudo-shopkeeper, dusting, mopping and waiting for the owner herself to come down and play customer for her own things.
    That’s the premise of this comedy, which recounts the adventures of
  • Fringe Review: The Real Inspector Hound

    The Real Inspector Hound
    • Stage 12, The Varscona Theatre
    • 5 stars out of 5
    What do you get when you pair some of Edmonton’s most talented actors with a script by renowned playwright Tom Stoppard?
    A damn fine time at the Fringe.
    The Bright Young Things production of The Real Inspector Hound delivers a steady stream of laughs and surprises in a tight 60 minutes that manages to be an absurdist farce, a whodunnit, and a play within a play. This is non-stop fun.
    The play centre
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  • Fringe Review: Concord Floral

    Concord Floral
    • 5 stars out of 5
    • Stage 4, Academy at King Edward
    Concord Floral is a massive abandoned greenhouse amid a thistle-covered field.
    It’s where local teens go to hang out, party, smoke weed, and have sex.
    But it harbours a secret, a dark secret that begins to haunt the group of teens that are central to the play.
    Once it is uncovered, it spreads through the group like a plague forcing all of them to confront an event they thought they had left behind them.
    Performed
  • Exploring Wine: What to pair with the Fringe

    Edmonton Journal wine columnist Juanita Roos talks wine with Joses Martin, general manager of the Grindstone Comedy Theatre & Bistro. 
    The Grindstone Comedy Theatre is a venue for the 2018 Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festival. 
  • Fringe Review: For Science!

    For Science!
    • 5 stars out of 5
    • Stage 3, Walterdale Playhouse
    How many of you can pass by a roll of bubble wrap without having to pop it? Who among you can see a cup full of Lego perilously close to the edge of a counter and resist the urge to move it back to a safer spot, or worse, send it clattering to the floor? Who can avoid the Pavlovian response of ringing a bell for a treat?
    Better yet, who’s willing to do all of those, and more, in front of a packed house at the Walterd
  • You see food everywhere you look: Foraging for lunch in Edmonton's river valley

    Kevin Kossowan and Blair Lebsack lead a group on an expedition to forage for food in Edmonton’s river valley.
    A harvest lunch was then prepared by RGE RD restaurant Chef Blair Lebsack, which included mushrooms on toast, foraged cold brew tea, tumbleweed salad, foraged onion dumplings, wood over roasted broccoli and mixed berry clafloutis.
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  • Edmonton Oilers bring in Scottie Upshall on PTO. D-man coming in trade next?

    This in from the Edmonton Oilers: “The Oilers have signed Scottie Upshall to a PTO contract. The forward & Fort McMurray native has played 759 @NHL regular season games & has spent the last three years in St. Louis, tallying 7G, 12A over 63 games in 2017-18.”Bob Stauffer @Bob_Stauffer: “Scottie Upshall has gone on PTO’s 2 of the last 3 years and earned Contracts: St.Louis 2015 (St.Louis) Vancouver 2017 (St.Louis). He can skate, competes, is smart and can PK. Could
  • Fringe review: Field Guide to the Gays

    Field Guide to the Gays
    • 3 stars out of 5
    • Stage 37, Auditorium at Campus Saint-Jean
    Do you know what a bear is, or a beard, or one of the original meanings of gay? If not, Logan Donahoo is happy to spill the tea for you.
    The ebullient Orlando, Fla. performer provides an hour-long voyage through the history, slang and civil rights milestones of gay culture, or more precisely American, overwhelmingly male, gay culture.
    For the most part it’s a light-hearted romp, even the primer
  • Fringe review: The Wilds

    The Wilds
    • 3.5 stars out of 5 
    • Stage 37, Auditorium at Camps Saint-Jean
    Not too often do shows have audiences laughing one minute and then sniffling with tears flowing down the next. But that is the roller coaster of emotions The Wilds elicits without a single word being spoken.
    This new physical theatre production by Victoria-based company Wonderheads uses great movement, music and expression to tell the beautiful story about life and love.
    The story follows Wendell
  • Fringe review: Punch Up

    Punch Up
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 9, Telus Phone Museum
    Comedy can save lives.
    That might sound like hyperbole, but in the world of Kat Sandler’s Punch Up, it’s actually true. Or so thinks Duncan (Perry Gratton), the Most Pathetic Guy Ever. He’s determined to convince Brenda (Merran Carr-Wiggin), the Saddest Girl in the World, that he can make her laugh, and if she does, that she’ll promise not to attempt suicide.
    Only one problem; Duncan himself is not gifted
  • Fringe review: The Importance Of Being Earnest

    The Importance Of Being Earnest
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 15, Cool Air Rentals Stage at Holy Trinity Anglican Church
    Oscar Wilde’s most famous play is subtitled “a trivial comedy for serious people” and that admission alone should open the door to adapting it in all sorts of ways. This time around director Celia Taylor and a cast of eight drag his hallmark of Victorian farce into the 21st century with generally successful results and humour intact.
    More than just a c
  • Fringe review: Today, For Now

    Today, For Now
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 7, Yardbird Suite
    As that crimson twilight sun keeps reappearing above the smoky Edmonton skyline what could be more appropriate than a comic-apocalyptic scenario? Yup, we’re doomed, with a gigantic asteroid headed straight for planet Earth in just a few days.
    Sure, it’s been done before. In fact the apocalypse (before, during and after) might be the most popular fictional theme right now (wonder why that is?). But credit Vancouver
  • Fringe review: 50 First Dates

    50 First Dates
    • 3 stars out of 5
    • Stage 7, Yardbird Suite
    Based on real life, this is the mostly comic story of Mari, who got frustrated with dating losers. That’s how she decided to experiment, to try 50 first dates, hoping that quantity would help her find quality, as she explains.
    Mari Chartier is the charming host of this one-woman show that jumps between her live storytelling, some short video clips, her video blogs, photos, electronic messaging and other signposts in her
  • Edmonton weather: Clear skies won't last, as smoke expected to return

    Although the sun is shining and air quality is good for the Edmonton Marathon and Edmonton Air Show, the smoke is likely to return later this week.
    Today’s forecast calls for sun and haze with a high of 21 C and an overnight low of 8 C. Tuesday is expected to be sunny and get a little warmer with a high of 25 C and a low of 13 C.
    But then the situation may change Tuesday night into Wednesday, as the northwesterly wind that’s been blowing the smoke away from Edmonton and towards Calga
  • Fringe review: Handel: The Musical

    Handel: The Musical
    • 4 out of 5 Stars
    • Stage 16, Sanctuary stage, Holy Trinity Anglican Church
    Precisely 259 years after his death, Baroque composer George Frideric Handel is zapped back to life by God, and, His Almightiness has some requests.
    Show tune requests, that is.
    So, here’s Handel (Edmonton singer and voice teacher Ron Long) — creator of The Messiah, composer for British royalty — clad in his embroidered jacket, powdered wig and short pants, standing at the
  • Fringe Review: Bushes In The Basement

    Bushes In The Basement4.5 stars out of 5
    Stage 36, La Cite AuditoriumYou might enjoy this even more if you’ve read the best-selling novel which it parodies, V.C. Andrews’ Gothic tale of 1950s Republican America, Flowers In The Attic. Then again, if you liked the book, the racy adult content of this thoroughly irreverent sexual farce might feel a bit extreme.
    But anything goes at the Fringe, and sex comedies enjoy no bounds. Four actors take on the job of spoofing right-wing Catholic
  • Edmonton police shoot and kill man after collision

    A man was shot and killed by police Saturday night following a collision involving a reportedly stolen car.
    The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) is investigating.
    Edmonton police were called to a two-vehicle collision in the area of 66 Street and 123 Avenue Saturday at 9:47 p.m, said a police news release. Police determined one of the vehicles was stolen based on information given to them.
    Officers approached the reportedly stolen vehicle where “an incident occurred between t
  • Fringe review: Hip.Bang! presents Surveil

    Hip.Bang! presents Surveil
    • 4.5 stars out of 5 
    • Stage 18, Sugar Swing Ballroom, Main Floor 
    Anytime an audience needs to sign a waiver before a show, it’s clear something embarrassing is going to happen to someone. And after seeing the show, I am so glad it wasn’t me.
    In this new incredibly innovative comedy by Hip.Bang!, the actors and writers Tom Hill and Devin Mackenzie are pure genius in both portrayal of their characters and also making the audie
  • Fringe review: Tuesdays and Sundays

    Tuesdays and Sundays
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 15, Cool Air Rentals Stage
    Tuesdays and Sundays succeeds despite one of the dullest titles in the Fringe program.
    What sounds like it could be an earnest conversation about the value of visiting the elderly is actually a tantalizing recounting of one of P.E.I.’s most scandalous murder cases.
    This isn’t Anne Shirley’s P.E.I. Teenagers Mary Tuplin and William Milliman met at a rural New Year’s Eve party in 1886 and b
  • Mother of slain woman hopes billboard creates awareness, sparks tips in cold cases

    For five seconds, each minute, it flashes. A red dress crumpled on the street. A web address. A logo.
    The image, appearing between advertisements for football games and fast food on a digital billboard looming over a busy inner-city intersection, was placed by the mother of an Edmonton woman found slain 21 years ago.
    Kathy King’s daughter Caralyn Aubrey King went missing on Aug. 2, 1997. A month later, the 22-year-old’s body turned up in a wheat field near Sherwood Park. Her hom
  • How the Andrej Sekera injury has changed the Edmonton Oilers game plan: 9 Things

    This was not in “the plan”.
    As the architects of the Edmonton Oilers cobbled together the 2018-19 roster, they were relatively confident that veteran Andrej Sekera would return to being a productive NHL D-man. Maybe not the Sekera we enjoyed in 2016-17. Probably not, in fact. But productive. Would he be among the best 3rd pairing defenceman in the league (that’s where he was slotted). Close to it.
    But all that changed the day Sekera’s Achilles tendon went “pop&rdquo
  • Fringe review: Nonna's Story

    Nonna’s Story
    • 2 stars out of 5
    • Stage 3, Walterdale Theatre
    Remembering where one comes from and who got them there is at the forefront of Antonio Bavaro’s story paying tribute to his grandmother.
    Now based in Montréal, Bavaro recalls his relationship with his nonna growing up and then living with her as an adult in Edmonton.
    He also tells of her early life immigrating to Canada from Italy and in doing so portrays several different roles including his no
  • Fringe review: Mike & Chantelle Delamont: Maybe Baby

    Mike & Chantelle Delamont: Maybe Baby4 stars out of 5
    Stage 36, La Cite AuditoriumMaybe you’ve seen Mike Delamont at the Fringe before. Maybe you saw him on one of his tours through town. Maybe, on one of those occasions, you thought to yourself, “I really wish I knew a heart-wrenching personal story about Mike Delamont that would really round out my understanding of him as a person.”
    Well, then do I have a show for you.
    Mike & Chantelle Delamont: Maybe Baby is one part
  • Fringe review: HOTEL VORTRUBA

    HOTEL VORTRUBA5 stars out of 5
    Stage 37, Auditorium at Campus Saint-JeanA strong wind blows a young woman onto stage, the lightning and rain forcing her to find shelter. She gets blown around before reaching the hotel check-in. She starts banging on the stand, which bangs back.Physical comedy is somewhat of a lost art. Getting a laugh out of a look or a silly gesture isn’t nearly as easy as cussing up a storm and hoping for some quick laughs. Thankfully, Vancouver’s RAGMOP has brough
  • Fringe review: The Zoo Story

    The Zoo Story 3.5 stars out of 5Stage 17, The Roxy on GatewayPeter just wants to sit and read a book. It’s his bench, his routine, a quiet bench and his book. He’s too kind, too accommodating when Jerry wanders by and starts a conversation.It doesn’t start as a conversation. It’s more of an interrogation at first, a firing line of questions flying out of Jerry, pointed at Peter.
    It’s apparent from early on that there’s something different about Jerry. It could
  • Fringe review: The Cast of the Irrelevant Show: Doing Our Best

    The Cast of the Irrelevant Show: Doing our Best5 stars out of 5
    Stage 30, St. Basil’s Cultural Centre (2nd Floor)It’s hard to argue against a beloved, award-winning radio comedy show. In case you live under a rock, The Irrelevant Show ran in some form or another on CBC Radio for the better part of 14 years. Now they are hitting the road, bringing their radio comedy to … cultural centres near you.
    The venue doesn’t matter. You can’t see much from the back of St. Bas
  • Fringe Review: Adopted

    Adopted
    • 3 stars out of 5
    • Stage 21, El Cortez
    Adam Dyck is an experienced and talented standup-comedian.
    He knows how to craft and tell a joke, how to land a punchline. So there are plenty of laughs through the 45 minutes of his Fringe debut, Adopted.
    Workshopped with the help of director Olivia Latta from multiple stand-up sets, Adopted allows Dyck to tell a part of his story as an awkward kid who grew up with an older brother, both of them adopted, on a farm.
    There are jokes about
  • Fringe review: Fossegrim and Nøkk

    Fossegrim and Nøkk
    • 2.5 out of 5 Stars
    • Stage 6, Strathcona Community League
    Based on Scandinavian folk tales, Fossegrim and Nøkk are a sibling pair of shape-shifting woodland spirits. Fossegrim (Darian Ames) is a fiddle-playing ray of sunshine. Nøkk (Marguerite Lawler) is not quite so cheery. More like, grumpy and scary.
    Lonely and adventure-seeking girl Saga (Fiona Cain) probably should have been more suspicious when a fairy (Kristen Schaeffer) floated through
  • Fringe review: Call Me Oz

    Call Me Oz
    • 5 out of 5 Stars
    • Stage 4, Academy at King Edward
    First, a bit of back story. Osric is a character in Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet. He is a courtier and shows up in the final scene, helping with the duel between Hamlet and Laertes. In case you haven’t seen it, every character in Hamlet meets their untimely demise, with the exception of Horatio and Osric.Now, fast forward 45 years and we meet up again with Osric, who now goes by simply “Oz.” He
  • Fringe review: A Lesson in Brio

    A Lesson in Brio
    • 5 stars out of 5
    • Stage 12, Varscona Theatre
    This is a show about nothing, that turns into a show about everything. Also, joy. This is a show about joy.
    Confused? So might everyone else be when smiling social scientist Dr. Guinevere (Jenny McKillop) marches to the centre of an empty stage in the Varscona Theatre and announces that we are in a theatre — not some other place the production will transport us.
    We, the audience, are here to learn about brio, she sa
  • Occupational Health and Safety investigates death at WCB building

    A man in his 50s died at the Workers’ Compensation Board building Friday night for reasons unknown.
    Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) was notified of the death Friday evening around 10 p.m., said OHS spokesman Gurshan Dhillon on Saturday.
    OHS investigators have been attending the scene, near 99 Avenue and 107 Street, since late Friday, Dhillon said.
    The Edmonton Police Service was initially called to the scene Friday night.
    Nothing else concerning the man or his death are known at this
  • Fringe Review: Wellspring

    Wellspring
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 13, Strathcona Library
    There’s something wrong in the town of Wellspring.
    The water burns, the ground occasionally shakes, and people are up in arms. Some are concerned about the effects that fracking is having on their little hamlet, while others feel that a little environmental damage is just the cost of doing business.
    East Coast immigrant Rita (Natasha Napoleao) wants to keep her head down, ignore politics, and concentrate on making enoug
  • Fringe review: The Soldier’s Tale

    The Soldier’s Tale
    • 5 stars out of 5
    • Stage 5, King Edward Elementary School
    A soldier is on his way home from war. He meets the devil in disguise, who tricks him out of his cherished fiddle in return for an apparently magic book. The consequences of this meeting are spell-bindingly unfurled in this near-ideal production of Stravinsky’s modernist chamber-scaled masterpiece, based on a Russian folk-tale, and given in the U.K. English translation of the original French. It
  • Explosion at Grande Prairie salvage yard injures employee

    An employee at a Grande Prairie salvage yard has non-life threatening injuries after a propane tank exploded on site Saturday.
    Grande Prairie RCMP responded to a call about an explosion at a north-end salvage yard around 11 a.m., a news release said.
    A 52-year-old man was taken to hospital with burns, said Grande Prairie RCMP Cpl. Shawn Graham.
    Initial reports said the explosion damaged equipment as well as injuring the employee.
    Alberta Occupational Health and Safety is now investigating the ex
  • Fringe review: KidLibs

    KidLibs
    • 2.5 stars out of 5
    • Stage 15, Cool Air Rentals Stage
    This St. Albert troupe of aspiring thespians took to the stage like a group of seasoned veterans as they tackled the difficult field of improv head on.
    On this day 10 kids, ranging from elementary school age to teenagers, had to think on their feet staging Press Conference, in which actors guessed what characters they were portraying based on questions posed by the audience.
    In other made-up-on-the-spot acts, pairs of KibL
  • Fringe review: TEDxRFT: Improvised TED Talks

    TEDxRFT: Improvised TED Talks 
    • 4 stars out of 5 
    • Stage 22, Garneau Theatre 
    Edmonton’s Rapid Fire Theatre is at it again with a belly busting improv show leaving the audience cackling in their seats, but not any wiser after their off-the-cuff TED Talks.
    Kory Mathewson and Julian Faid take command of the stage instantaneously delivering one-liners and quips to get the audience ready to understand that they aren’t going to learn anything useful.
    T
  • Fringe review: She Was A Great Dad

    She Was A Great Dad
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 9, Telus Phone Museum
    This is a fascinating tale of love, identity and secrets based on fictional New Yorker Johnny Swinton, a woman who left her family behind and presented herself to the world as a man when she realized this was the only way to get ahead as a musician.
    The story is told in a series of posthumous flashbacks as Johnny testifies about his double life to a heavenly admissions committee (he sets the tone early when he tells t
  • Therapy dog in fifth year of helping children cope after abuse

    Courtrooms can be intimidating — and even re-traumatizing — to child victims of abuse, so a certain yellow lab is there to help.
    Wren is a four-legged “staff member” of the Zebra Child Protection Centre, a non-profit child abuse response centre in downtown Edmonton. This year marks her fifth anniversary of work, as well as the fifth year of the centre’s support dog program.
    “She’s that initial comfort and that initial calming presence,” said Becci
  • Fringe Review: The Alien Baby Play

    The Alien Baby Play
    • 3.5 stars out of 5 
    • Stage 3, Walterdale Theatre
    Tom Murray
    Bethany is about to have a baby.
    As the title suggests, it’s an alien baby, and 15 months into the ordeal she’s feeling more than a little put out by the long gestation period. There are little consolations, of course, like the occasional ghostly visits from the father, Gabe, and the fact that her little one actually glows in the womb, but that doesn’t quite make up for the intense
  • Fringe Review: In My Place

    In My Place
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 1, ATB Westbury Theatre
    At the Fringe, you’ll see lots of dancing within plays (even roller-skating with this year’s production of Xanadu), but a straight-up dance show is a tougher find.
    Which is a bit of a shame, because when it is done well, it’s an enjoyable audience experience.
    From Viva Dance Company, we get In My Place, billed as “a contemporary dance show exploring a woman’s life as mother, wife & artist.&
  • Fringe Review: Roy Vs. The Red Baron

    Roy Vs. The Red Baron
    • 3.5 stars out of 5
    • Stage 35, L’Unithéatre
    One hundred years ago, this past April, a Canadian shot down the infamous Red Baron.
    Roy Brown, a fighter pilot based in Edmonton, was chasing the Baron , who was chasing another Edmonton flying ace, Wop May, who in turn was chasing the Baron’s cousin.
    The Baron had broken some of his key rules of aerial combat — including never flying low and never flying over enemy lines — in the chase,
  • Fringe review: The Secret of Castle Alphabet

    The Secret of Castle Alphabet
    • 4 stars out of 5
    • Stage 6, Strathcona Community League
    Castle Alphabet was once a hopping kingdom, until the king extinguished the everlasting light to get rid of invading monsters. Then he mysteriously vanished.
    Now, his glum staff keep the place running, hoping an heir to the throne will show up and restore the kingdom to its former glory.
    Castle Alphabet sends a young girl named Mea, who stumbles in from the rain, on a quest with an unknown goal &mda

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