The Improv Centre presents Exploration Blank to June 27

GET READY TO embark on a space expedition fuelled by cosmic-level laughs. The Improv Centre’s latest adventure, Exploration Blank, launches audiences aboard a spaceship bound for alien encounters, strange new worlds, and the kind of playful chaos that you can always count on these improv-comedy pros to deliver.

Created by artistic director Alan Pavlakovic, Exploration Blank is a lively exercise in controlled mayhem. While the production follows a structure, riffing on Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and other sci-fi shows, the specifics are shaped by audience suggestions—prompted, naturally, by the cast. Improv games and rotating performers ensure no two performances are alike, reinforcing improv’s core appeal: unpredictability.

One element that will likely remain consistent from performance to performance is the introduction of the characters. After all, when boarding a space vessel, it only makes sense to meet your crew. Before the journey begins, the audience also gets to assign each character a quirky trait or defining detail. At the performance Stir attended, Jalen Saip—our Captain Jalen—led the mission, with one notable gap in her life: she had never been on a first date.

Next came Assistant Captain Beverly (Meaghan Hommy), eager to take command but continually held back in her career due to the rollerblading habit she developed in pilot school. The crew’s mental health is in the hands of Counsellor Lloyd (Cameron Grant), who is part human, part squirrel. Security Officer Kip (Will Vaughan) isn’t scared of anything on Earth; however, in space, he’s scared of his own thoughts. And Pilot Ford F-150 (Emily Schoen) is in love with Captain Jalen.

With introductions complete, the adventure began. On their first mission—prompted by an audience suggestion—Ford F-150 and Kip were tasked with retrieving cheese from a mysterious planet. The pair immediately met an alien, embodied by Grant and Hommy. Harkening back to an old Theatresports game, Grant and Hommy had the challenge of speaking in unison. This resulted in the alien informing Ford F-150 and Kip that they had landed on planet Mighty Cheese, and that before they could take any cheese, they would have to perform a dance.

Ready on cue, tech crew Brendan Kelly and Neil Battle played George Michael’s “Careless Whisper”, and Ford F-150 and Kip dutifully started grooving, with Kip leaning into seductive dance moves.

At the next stop, Ford F-150 and Kip had to assist the planet’s inhabitants with a crisis—which again, thanks to an audience suggestion—was to help eat spaghetti. However, due to the planet’s extreme gravity, they needed the help of a “robot”, i.e. an audience member. The brave volunteer, dubbed Laura 2000, aptly took on the task of positioning Ford F-150 and Kip’s limbs to allow them to help eat the planet’s overabundance of pasta, ultimately delighting Grant and Hommy’s Italian-inspired aliens. 

At another moment, the cast cleverly weaved in a game of What Am I Doing? as part of a mission to pacify a hostile alien intruder. Captain Jalen was tasked with appeasing the alien by successfully honouring the intruder’s ceremonial traditions. To do this, Captain Jalen had to guess three hobbies (which had been determined by audience suggestions when she wasn’t in the room) through charades performed by the other actors. This sparked a hugely interactive moment, as audience members voiced their encouragement or winced whenever Captain Jalen missed the mark. At this performance, “horse feeding” proved to be overly tricky to guess, but the alien intruder was kind enough to deem Captain Jalen’s efforts close enough.

The most riotous moment was what’s known as a Rashomon-style improv game, where the same incident is enacted according to a different character’s recollection, with each telling escalating in absurdity. The incident here was Captain Jalen’s recollection of microwaving fish, causing an unpleasant smell aboard the ship. However, this wasn’t quite how the others remembered the incident, as shown in the reenactments. By the time the incident played out a third time, it had spiralled into a wild scene involving Captain Jalen forcefully shoving her crewmates aside to cram a live sturgeon into the microwave. 

Amid all this comedic chaos, the cast also managed to build character arcs and include tender moments. For example, Captain Jalen finally got her first date. And Counsellor Lloyd reunited with his squirrel family in Stanley Park. This blend of charming comedy, audience engagement, and humanistic storytelling is what makes the Improv Centre truly special. 

Evident in Exploration Blank is its sense of ease. Despite the constant influx of audience input, the structure feels sturdy enough to give performers room to breathe. Scenes unfold at a relaxed pace, allowing the cast to fully explore each comedic premise rather than rushing to the next beat. For the audience, this also creates a sense of comfort—an assurance that the show is in capable hands, no matter how unpredictable it becomes. If Exploration Blank’s prime directive is to create an evening of terrific comedy and entertainment, mission accomplished!

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A DISCO- AND Motown-driven comedy about nuns and a Disney fairy tale will alternate this summer at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park.

The company has announced its 2026 season roster, with Sister Act and Disney’s The Little Mermaid rotating from July 3 to August 22.

TUTS’s two-show subscription packs are on sale now at tuts.ca, and will be followed by early-bird single tickets on May 19.

Based on the 1992 hit movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, Sister Act is about disco diva Deloris Van Cartier, who goes into witness protection at a convent. Disguising herself as Sister Mary Clarence, Deloris takes over the flailing convent choir. Veteran musicals director Peter Jorgensen helms and choreographs the production, returning after steering TUTS’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2025. Sean Bayntun returns for the fourth year as music director.

A classic animated film comes to the stage in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, featuring the young Ariel, who saves the life of a prince and strikes a dangerous bargain with the sea witch Ursula to become human. It will be directed and choreographed by Nicol Spinola, who choreographed the summer 2022 production of Something Rotten!. Brent Hughes is music director on the show.

This year, TUTS will be celebrating its 86th year of staging musicals under the Douglas firs in Stanley Park.  

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Glitch Theatre, in partnership with the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre, is presenting Arc One on May 23 at 7:30 pm.

A roadkill road trip, the medical office of Anton Chekhov, an impossible waterfall, and the back seat of a speeding car—these are just a handful of the places Arc One will take audiences in an evening of live original performances by D/disability-identified artists.

This is the first community-engaged project by Glitch Theatre, formerly known as Realwheels Theatre, since its rebrand last year. Arc One engages 10 new and emerging artists for an evening of short original performances ranging from prose and poetry to stories and essays. Live-mixed sound and music will accompany the offerings, which vary in length from five to seven minutes each. The event will be recorded live for release as a podcast series later this year.

Arc One features the work and performances of Sunny Daydream Chen, Elijah Curror, Kyla Dowling, Jessica Hood, Isabel Miller Iparraguirre, Helen Jiang, Desirée Leal, Carmen Josephine Lee, Cass McKenzie, and Gary Tam. The evening is facilitated by Glitch’s co-artistic director, Adam Grant Warren, with production management by company producer Jordyn Wood.

“In ‘emerging artist programming’, and particularly in the programming of emerging artists who identify with D/disability, there’s still a tendency to applaud presence for presence’s sake,” shares Warren in a release. “We’re often celebrated not because our work is strong and resonant, but because we’re on the stage at all. Arc One pushes against that. It’s an investment in skill, process, story, and community connection.”

Arc One features sound design by Malcolm Dow and original compositions by Mishelle Cuttler. Nico Dicecco is behind the show’s lighting design and technical direction, while Stephen Field Elgar has put together the set design. The crew is rounded out by project assistant Damion LeClair and access coordinator V/Veronique West.

The content of the performance is blind and low vision–friendly. Closed captioning will be projected above the stage area.

Tickets for Arc One range in price and are available online through Glitch Theatre.

Post sponsored by Glitch Theatre.

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The Cultch, Urban Ink, and Rave Theatre present On Native Land at the York Theatre to April 19

COREY PAYETTE’S CONTRIBUTION to our theatre community cannot be overstated. By bringing awareness and insight to important Indigenous issues, he’s given a voice to many who had been silenced. His Children of God remains a landmark work: poetic, devastating, and urgently necessary.

In his newest musical, On Native Land, which recently had its world premiere presented by The Cultch, Urban Ink, and Raven Theatre, Payette again serves as writer, composer-lyricist, and director. He’s helped by some powerful performances and design elements, and the show, while fragmented, begins with much promise.

Set designer Alaia Hamer has created an atmospheric, nature-inspired forum for storytelling, with sheaves of golden grain embedded between chairs where the cast and musicians situate themselves when not involved in the onstage action. Above the stage hangs a striking circle of twisted willow, suggesting a bird’s nest and its symbolism of home—or as a metaphor for Indigenous and colonial cultures intertwining. All of this is bathed in Jonathan Kim’s design of radiant, sunshine-like lighting when the audience enters before the show. Later, the look shifts to dramatic tones and shadows to amplify the action. 

The show’s narrator is Land itself, embodied by Wahsontí:io Kirby. From their first moments, Kirby charms: they’re funny, direct, and immediately in command, and that’s even before Kirby sings. Within seconds of the opening notes, Kirby electrifies the York Theatre with a gorgeous voice that soars with exquisite tonality and conviction. Land proceeds to introduce the dual protagonists whose parallel narratives drive the show: Rielle, an ambitious Indigenous lawyer representing a high-profile land case, played by Amanda Trapp with authority and impressive singing; and Blood, a singer-songwriter grappling with Indigenous identity, portrayed by Dustyn Forbes.

Something that’s done exceptionally well in On Native Land is the fusing of traditional Indigenous music with the contemporary music-theatre sound. Kirby leads the Indigenous-themed “A Song You Have Every Right to Sing” to bridge the preshow land acknowledgment and the start of the show. As the piece takes us through the history of colonial land settlement in Vancouver, including the historic Gastown fires, Payette’s music transitions into contemporary musical theatre, with songs such as the conversational “Being” and “Waiting” fittingly bringing us into the present.

Still, at key points, On Native Land wobbles. Forbes is a strong singer, but the opening vocal lines Payette has written for Blood are in a high range that sits awkwardly for him. The result is a tentative entrance that undercuts Blood’s credibility as a rising singer. From there, an imbalance emerges between the two storylines.

Rielle’s opening scene—an exchange with a Chief (played with conviction by Taninli Wright)—clearly sets the stakes: colonial systems in conflict with Indigenous traditions and practice. The narrative question is immediate and legible. And beneath the music, a haunted, unsettled underscore, highlighted in the Chief’s “You’re Not the Same”, is a constant reminder of the underlying tension between Indigenous culture and the plotlines.

Blood’s opening, by contrast, appears to focus on a potential romance with Jakob (a terrifically grounded and thoughtful Zac Bellward). If the show’s aim is to thread personal identity, love, and land into a shared argument, Blood’s path needs to feel as structurally urgent as Rielle’s from the outset. Instead, the parallelism feels out of sync, because their meeting doesn’t register as consequential enough.

As the show moves forward, the desire to hold multiple threads at once—Rielle’s professional and personal complications; the Chief’s family dynamics; and Blood’s struggle to acknowledge his Indigenous roots—poses challenges throughout, with major turns arriving without adequate groundwork. A medical condition escalates dramatically, without being established earlier. Most notably, the two narratives don’t fully connect: a second-act moment suggests a bridge between Blood and Rielle’s worlds, then withdraws it.

Still, the onstage talent is often powerful. Trapp and Bellward are standouts, creating emotional resonance and connection for their characters. Woike and Jenna Brown—who plays Gracie, one of the Chief’s daughters—deliver gorgeous singing. And choreographer Jera Wolfe and assistant choreographer Nathan Coburn perform a powerful contemporary ballet duet with striking beauty and athleticism. In fact, the duet is one of the show’s strongest storytelling elements, because the movement, along with the addition of menacing, cloaked figures, invites audience interpretation. 

With some reworking, the storytelling in On Native Land would have more clarity and greater emotional impact. However, in the show’s current form, the issues faced by its characters—including the continued struggles of Indigenous self-identity and retaining connection to the land—are still unquestionably placed front and centre. Similar to Payette’s previous work, On Native Land will likely spark conversations on topics that might otherwise be brushed aside. If that’s the goal here, this can still be considered a win. 

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Nebula Performances Society reunites three-time Grammy Award–winning tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Wenwen Du for a concert at the Vancouver Playhouse on May 14 at 7:30 pm. The pair will also perform in Ottawa at the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre on May 6 at 7:30 pm.

An exceptionally influential recitalist, Bostridge is celebrated for his profound musicianship, intellectual depth, and definitive interpretations of Lieder and art song. His performance career has taken him to the foremost concert halls, orchestras, and opera houses in the world, while his recordings have won several major international record prizes.

Du is known both for her piano accomplishments and for her role as artistic director of Nebula Performances, where she curates concerts, masterclasses, and workshops for the musical community. Her upcoming Vancouver presentation with Bostridge will be an evening of art song featuring the music of Hugo Wolf and Benjamin Britten.

Bostridge’s engagement in the concert is made possible by the generous support of Nebula Performances executive producer Alice Chee.

Tickets are available here.

Post sponsored by Nebula Performances Society.

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Royal City Musical Theatre presents Shrek the Musical at Massey Theatre from April 17 to May 3

NAME A MORE ICONIC trio than Shrek, Donkey, and Princess Fiona. We’ll wait.

The three lead characters of DreamWorks Animation’s hit 2001 feature Shrek (based on the book by William Steig) have subsequently appeared in three sequels, a couple of TV specials, and several video games.

In 2008, they even got their own Broadway musical, which proved popular enough to spawn a version in London’s West End, as well as tours in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. 

Now, thanks to Royal City Musical Theatre, they’re coming to New Westminster’s Massey Theatre, along with Lord Farquaad, Dragon, Gingy, Pinocchio, and other denizens of the Kingdom of Duloc.

Set in a swamp near the kingdom, the family-friendly Shrek the Musical follows the endearingly grumpy ogre of the title, whose quiet home is suddenly overrun by exiled fairy-tale creatures. To reclaim his solitude, he strikes a deal with the villainous Farquaad, agreeing to rescue Fiona from a dragon-guarded tower. With the help of a chatty donkey, Shrek succeeds—but unexpectedly falls for Fiona, unaware she’s hiding a secret curse.

The original film’s voice actors, including Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow, left some mighty big boots to fill, but Royal City has assembled a cast with serious chops, including veterans of productions by the Arts Club Theatre Company, Theatre Under the Stars, and Bard on the Beach. Topping the bill are Tanner Zerr as Shrek, Madison Simms as Fiona, Chris Francisque as Donkey, Kamyar Pazandeh as Lord Farquaad, and Alexis Hope as Dragon.

With a creative team led by director Chris Adams, choreographer Tracey Power, and musical director Angus Kellett, Shrek the Musical might just make you believer.  

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The Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs is welcoming the change of seasons with SummerSing!, one of its most anticipated events, on May 10 at 2 pm. Taking place at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, this vibrant, large-scale concert celebrates community through choral music.

SummerSing! is an annual performance that brings together all nine ensembles from the Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs. The result is a richly layered program that spans ages and experience levels—from young singers just beginning their choral journeys to seasoned adult performers.

This year’s concert centres on folk traditions with music rooted in storytelling and shared cultural memory. The nine ensembles perform individually before joining forces in a full-choir finale, a hallmark of SummerSing! that demonstrates a powerful expression of collective voice. Ultimately, the event emphasizes music’s ability to connect audiences and artists of all generations.

For tickets and more details, visit the Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs.

Post sponsored by Vancouver Bach Family of Choirs.

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The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Kimberly Akimbo at the Stanley BFL CANADA Stage to May 3

FOR SOME, TIME is something to be feared; for others, it’s the key to their future hopes and dreams. Despite this weighty theme underscoring the Arts Club Theatre Company’s production of Kimberly Akimbo, the musical is ultimately a tender, quietly uplifting experience—one that invites both adolescent nostalgia and adult self-reflection.

Under Ashlie Corcoran’s sensitive direction of the Tony Award–winning script, the production glows, led by a luminous performance from Lisa Horner and buoyed by the genuine heart of the entire cast and creative team.

Set in Bergen County, New Jersey, in 1999, the story centres on Kimberly Levaco (Horner), a soon-to-be 16-year-old with a rare genetic condition that causes her body to age rapidly. Though still a child, Kimberly appears to be a woman in her 70s. We first meet her at Skater Planet, a local rink where she and her classmates—Martin, Aaron, Delia, and Teresa—hang out on a Saturday night. The teens embody the hallmarks of adolescence, from raging hormones to painful insecurity, and as show-choir kids, they’re also not the most popular at school. Kimberly’s crush, the earnest and tuba-playing Seth, also happens to work at the rink.

Kimberly’s father Buddy struggles with alcoholism, while her mother Pattie—pregnant with a second child—has both hands in casts following carpal tunnel surgery. Pattie harbours an intense fear of dying young and keeps a video diary so her unborn child might one day know her. The family has recently fled Lodi, New Jersey, following a mysterious incident they’re desperate to keep secret—one that involves Kimberly’s criminal aunt Debra. Naturally, Debra finds them. Armed with a sketchy, “slightly illegal” scheme, she pulls Kimberly and her classmates into her orbit just as Kimberly’s 16th birthday approaches—the same age as her projected life expectancy.

David Lindsay-Abaire’s book (adapted from his play) is clever and refreshingly odd. While Kimberly’s condition is undeniably a unique narrative hook, the story’s power lies in its richly drawn world. The show-choir kids scramble to raise funds for sequined costumes. Seth finds comfort in turning names into anagrams. Debra plots an elaborate mailbox theft and a basement chemistry lab. All of it hums with teenage aspirations, while Debra’s unfolding plan supplies momentum and tension beneath the humour.

The score by Jeanine Tesori and Lindsay-Abaire—under Caitlin Hayes’s masterful musical direction and energized by Shelley Stewart Hunt’s choreography—is a model of musical-theatre storytelling. Songs are lean and purposeful, each lyric revealing character or advancing plot, in collaboration with movement. The opening number, “Skater Planet,” cleverly introduces Kimberly, Seth, and the show-choir kids in a few short moments, including backstories. Pam Johnson’s multifunctional set—a collage of lockers, muted walls, and scaffolding—keeps the action fluid, aided by sliding panels that reveal new locales, and a compact revolving platform.

Horner’s performance is extraordinary in its nuance. She so fully inhabits Kimberly’s adolescent spirit that she’s tremendously believable as a teen. Every detail—the restless swing of her foot, her posture, her vocal inflection—rings authentic. Her solo “Make a Wish”, in which Kimberly pens a letter to the foundation, is quietly devastating, balancing youthful imagination with clear-eyed acceptance of her situation.

As Pattie, Steffanie Davis delivers sharp comedy alongside aching vulnerability, particularly in her video diary solo “Hello, Darling.” Josh Epstein brings warmth and complexity to Buddy, capturing both his failings and his love for his daughter. His standout moment, “I Should Be Happy for Her”, unfolds as a wry, moving internal monologue sung while driving Kimberly and Seth to school.

Jason Sakaki’s Seth is all nerves and sincerity, making the central romance feel grounded despite its extraordinary circumstances. Madeleine Suddaby revels in Debra’s amorality, playing her as gleefully manipulative and vocally commanding in numbers like “Better” and “How to Wash a Check”. Supporting these numbers, Sarah Cantuba, Angella Cody, Joaquín Little, and James Ross bring comic precision, stellar dance moves (especially from Little), and emotional credibility to the show-choir teens. Their show-stopping “Our Disease”—a biology presentation performed as an absurd, high-energy musical about scurvy and fasciolosis—is a highlight, fuelled by Hunt’s purposely over-the-top choreography. Another standout element of the production is the staging of the ice-skating scenes, skillfully pulled off by the cast. (This is made possible by a plexiglass surface over the stage, treated with a glycerin product.)

One of Kimberly Akimbo’s great strengths is that even without its central medical condition, the story would still resonate as a poignant coming-of-age tale. Kimberly’s disorder heightens the stakes but never overwhelms the humanity at the core. In the closing number “Great Adventure”, the cast sings, “No one gets a second time around”—a reminder to embrace life as it is, in whatever moment we find ourselves.

It’s a fitting sentiment for a show that gently holds up a mirror to our shared fears, hopes, and desires for connection, celebrating the beauty of imperfection and the urgency of living fully while we can.

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Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival returns to Sen̓áḵw/Vanier Park from June 9 to September 19, and single tickets are now available for purchase. The 37th season features a blend of Shakespearean comedy and tragedy with unique adaptations of Greek classics.

On the BMO Mainstage, Rebecca Northan directs a laugh-out-loud, music-filled production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, adapted by Bruce Horak with Northan. Set in a fictional, soccer-obsessed Vancouver suburb, this production guarantees laughter, mischief, and merriment. It plays in repertory with Macbeth—adapted and directed by Stephen Drover, the tragic tale uses stark design and stylized visuals to heighten themes of power and paranoia.

Over in the Douglas Campbell Theatre, local playwright Kate Besworth’s bold adaptation of Sophocles’s Antigone, directed by Ming Hudson, tells the emotionally potent story of a generational reckoning. And in Goblin:Oedipus, Wug, Kragva, and Moog bring chaotic curiosity and hilarious audience interaction to John Murrell’s adaptation of Sophocles’s Oedipus the King.

Several special events are taking place over the summer. New this year is Bard After Dark, a cabaret with drinks, laughs, and improv in the Douglas Campbell Theatre. Happening throughout August every Friday night at 10 pm, it features a rotating cast of some of Canada’s best improvisors. An additional ticket is required.

Wine Wednesdays promise exclusive tastings on July 8, August 12, and September 2, while Bard Pride Night on July 31 includes a pre-show celebration with special guests. Matinees on July 11, August 16, and September 6 are Family Days that welcome infants and children under six. There’s also a “Pay-What-You-Will” Relaxed Performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor on July 5.

Bard Club matinees are a chance to make new friends during pre-show talks and lively discussions at intermission; RSVP by adding Bard Club to a ticket on July 15, August 5, and August 26. More free offerings include In A Nutshell pre-show talks, Talkback Tuesdays with cast members, and Bard Explored talks with acclaimed scholars.

The full 2026 season schedule is on the Bard on the Beach website. Tickets are available for purchase online or by phone from the Bard Box Office at 604-739-0559.

Post sponsored by Bard on the Beach.

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Hunting Matthew Nichols runs April 10, 11, 14, and 16 at the Park Theatre, with screenings at Cineplex and SilverCity locations outside Vancouver

ONE OF THE BEST horror movies to come out of B.C. is finally seeing its wide theatrical release this weekend—and it draws stylistically from true-crime documentaries. And that gives it an eerie, nagging feeling that it’s real—even when you tell yourself it isn’t.

When the film premiered at the Whistler Film Festival a few years back, screenwriter and producer Sean Harris Oliver (who’s also a well-known Vancouver theatre artist) told Stir, “Sometimes when I get out of a screening, I'll have some people go, ‘But is that based on a true story? Was it based on someone that went missing?’”

Director Markian Tarasiuk weaves in a found-footage element that gives Hunting Matthew Nichols a distinctive Blair Witch Project vibe, while the story benefits hugely from its creepy Vancouver Island woods setting.

It tells the story of a sister searching for a brother and his friend who disappeared. They were amateur filmmakers who had a camcorder and left a stack of VHS tapes when they went missing 20 years ago. But when a lost video emerges that has deeply unsettling new evidence, sister Tara Nichols (a thoroughly convincing Tara MacDougall) embarks on a quest to solve what happened, weighing in with direct-address “interviews” throughout the film.

Throw in artful redramatizations and a haunting animated sequence that traces the origins of a local myth that Matt and Jordan became obsessed with, and you have genuine chills. Celebrated director Steven Soderbergh is even a fan, calling it “a sneaky, simmering take on the true crime folk horror genre that boils over and becomes truly unnerving". At the very least, it will be enough to give you pause the next time you head into the West Coast woods.  

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Alliance Française Vancouver presents Petit Pois, a Rendez-vous des familles (family meetup) event, on April 25 at 11 am.

A melodramatic tale that takes place across five scenes, Petit Pois tells the story of a little green pea, a survivor of a refugee camp from which he escaped. A military clown finds him in her vegetable garden and decides to help him, setting off on a worldwide journey in search of his family and homeland. Kids ages four to seven and their families are invited to follow the little pea over mountains, through valleys, across rivers, and into storms as he experiences wonder, tears, and laughter along the way.

This poetic, tragicomic, and delightfully absurd tale blends object theatre, clowning, physical theatre, and visual arts to delicately explain to young audiences what it means to be uprooted, confined, and rejected.

Petit Pois takes place in French without subtitles. Tickets and more details are available here.

Post sponsored by Alliance Française Vancouver.

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Theatre Replacement and The Cultch present End of Greatness at the Historic Theatre from April 16 to 18

THERE’S NO STRAIGHTFORWARD way to describe what End of Greatness—a new work by Maiko Yamamoto and Veda Hille—is about. And that’s kind of the point. 

In the show debuting at The Cultch after years of work, there are the microscopic intricacies of mushrooms and lichens. Then there’s cake as a scientific model for the cosmos; there is climate change and the forces of the universe; and there is the importance of the friendship between the longtime artistic collaborators.

There are also attempts to explain the concept of “the end of greatness”—a term that refers to a vast cosmological scale where the universe begins to look the same in all directions, and differences dissolve. Yamamoto stumbled upon the term while doing research into deep time, and thought it captured something profound about existing in the world right now.

“It makes me feel comforted,” Yamamoto offers. “I feel like the meaning of why we’re here is connected to a longer trajectory.”

Joining Yamamoto on a Zoom call, Hille adds: “I like the way it’s said in one of the explanations in the show, which is that everything is unique and everything is the same. If you could pull back far enough to the point that the scientists call the end of greatness, you would be able to see that the laws of the universe are finite and consistent, and that everything has a certain amount of homogeneity, because it is all in this universe. 

“In the show,” she continues, “we also zoom in really close and see the incredible diversity of details in the world. We concentrate a lot on moss and lichens, but then we also go into Voyager 1 and 2. There’s a lot of branches of inquiry that make it seem like everything is wildly detailed and distinct, but then there’s also the pulling back, so that we can see that it’s all the same and connected.”

In tackling these ideas from multiple inventive angles in End of Greatness, the pair brought in a beyond-eclectic team of artist-friends. Renowned visual artist Geoffrey Farmer designed an environmental landscape that audiences will move through, while textile designer Hitoko Okada created wearable fabric objects as well as a larger set piece. And Deb Chachra, an engineering professor and author of How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World, has a role as “theatre scientist”. 

“Basically she’s there to explain anything to us whenever we don’t understand it,” Yamamoto says. 

And then there’s Keely O’Brien’s responsibilities, listed as “Ephemera and Cake”. 

“Well, cake is a big part of this,” Yamamoto hints. “We use analogy a lot in the show to try to explain these bigger concepts because it’s the way that we came to understand them.” 

While all these artists, scientists, and musicians converge in this Theatre Replacement project, the origins of the show are rooted squarely in Yamamoto and Hille’s own relationship.

It traces back almost three decades, when Yamamoto, a rising theatre artist, and Hille, a beloved, internationally touring singer-songwriter, both found themselves working on a production for Vancouver’s circus/theatre/cabaret–mashing Leaky Heaven Performance. 

“When I found out Veda was in that show, I was very excited and starstruck,” Yamamoto says. “I had a strategy to become Veda’s friend through driving her to rehearsal—and I needled my way into Veda’s life!”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Hille deadpans. “I love people doing me favours.”

In addition to friends, the pair would become close colleagues at Theatre Replacement, which Yamamoto cofounded in 2003. Most famously, they played a major role in launching the East Van Panto—the wildly popular, hyperlocal holiday tradition, with Hille a famous fixture at the keyboards. 

End of Greatness takes a vastly different form than Panto, drawing on the duo’s unique ties. 

“I think it started with us exploring the things that we had in common and things that we had that were different,” Yamamoto begins. “In some ways, I think Veda and I are very different, but we’re also the same person. I think that just came from us feeling very close to each other and feeling like we were entangled in each other’s lives. In some ways, some of the best experiences I’ve had in life and in art have been with Veda.” 

End of Greatness also evolved naturally out of some of the two artists’ past creations. It has the same tangible play with art objects as Yamamoto’s Best Life—a Theatre Replacement show where audience members interacted with everyday domestic machines, exploring themes of suburbia and memory. And in many ways, it’s a direct outgrowth of Hille’s form-pushing Little Volcano, the 2020 musical memoir that blended concert and true-life storytelling.

Some of the songs in End of Greatness were written specifically for the show, while others are drawn from Hille’s substantial back catalogue. For the music, Hille learned to play an iconic 1984 Roland Juno-106 synthesizer for the first time. 

“It’s a very different playing style for me, because I’m primarily an acoustic piano player,” she says. “So, yeah. I’ve had to expand my own universe quite a bit.”

Hille will play and sing the music in the show alongside Thom Gill on guitar and keyboards and Julia Chien on percussion and vibraphone—adding up to a sound she describes as “small and intricate, and large and spacey”.

In part because of its future-retro synths and its expansive ideas, the pair have lately been dubbing End of Greatness a “theatre-music-lecture”. The production does wrestle with darkness, but anyone who has caught a Panto or watched one of these artists’ other creations knows there will be plenty of laughter too.  

“We ask the audience to be with us inside of spell-casting a little bit, but also there’s hope,” Yamamoto says. “There’s beauty inside of it, and I really feel that when I’m onstage with Veda and doing the show, I feel closer to myself and closer to the state of the world….And I think when we’re doing the show, we’re so connected to that. And we’re inviting the audience to also be connected with us inside that, for the moment.”

Sound heavy? Possibly. But as you might expect from two longtime friends, fun is the goal.

“That’s certainly one of my aspirations: to make people laugh,” adds Hille. “It’s a laugh-cry fest!”  

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The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts presents Solidaridad Tango’s Tango Fantasia on April 18 at 7:30 pm

IT’S CERTAINLY A striking sight, and an even more impressive sound: five musicians onstage, playing tango with the rigour of a chamber ensemble and the fluidity of the old Argentine masters. The striking part is that every member of Solidaridad Tango is a woman.

All-female combos aren’t uncommon across various spheres of music—think of the unapologetic badasses in L7, for example, or Vancouver’s own Allegra Chamber Orchestra—but in tango it is very much a rarity. In fact, Solidaridad Tango is the only one in North America.

The group’s founder, Aparna Halpé, tells Stir that a COVID-imposed break in 2021 got her thinking of the behind-the-scenes misogyny that is unfortunately still prevalent in the music industry, where a woman may shine in the spotlight but face disrespect from male peers backstage.

“In the pandemic, when we lost all our gigs and everything shut down, women started talking to each other and we started sharing our stories,” Halpé says over the phone from her home base of Toronto. “It’s the kind of stuff that sets your hair on fire. Someone said, ‘You know, Aparna, you’re really good at putting people together and organizing things, so why don’t you start a band?’ So I did.”

Today, that band includes Halpé on violin, vocalist Valeria Matzner, bandoneón player Shinjoo Cho, pianist Yolanda Tapia, and bassist Sarah Lahasky. (An all-strings sextet and a more intimately scaled trio also operate under the Solidaridad umbrella.)

Halpé acknowledges that, historically, the world of tango is a “deeply patriarchal” one, a reality that even in 2026 can lead to friction as old attitudes brush up against changing cultural norms.

“Just two weeks ago in Buenos Aires, for example, at a social dance event, two women got up to dance together toward the end of the evening, and the organizer of the event came up to them, verbally abused them, forcibly separated them, and actually physically attacked one of the women,” Halpé says. “He pushed her. Of course, it’s denounced by the whole international tango community, but these things are still going on.”

On the other hand, Halpé happily notes that her being a woman—a Sri Lankan-born Canadian one, at that, with a background in classical repertoire—has never prevented her from finding acceptance and mentorship within the world of Argentine tango. It’s only closer to home that questions about her supposed outsider status come up.

“Here in Canada, and in the U.S.,” she notes, “I’ve heard people say to me ‘Women can’t write tango. Women can’t play tango. Women can’t sing tango. Tango can’t be in English.’ I’ve heard all of those things over here. I never hear that in Argentina.”

Released in late 2023, Solidaridad Tango’s debut album, DISTANCIA, is strong enough to hush any naysayers. The lithe ensemble proves itself a force to be reckoned with. DISTANCIA is made up mostly of Halpé’s own compositions, but Solidaridad also reaches back to 1936 for the classic “El Adiós”, and even takes on Rush’s 1981 prog-rock instrumental “YYZ”.

That latter number was famously inspired by Rush’s many travels through Toronto Pearson International Airport, and it’s fair to say that Halpé and her cohorts have also spent their fair share of time there, departing for cross-Canada tours, and even to the heart of tango itself, Buenos Aires.

“We were the first Canadian ensemble invited to participate in the World Tango Festival last year,” Halpé says. “And we were invited specifically because we were women, and because the new project that we just recorded there has tango written in English about our Canadian multicultural context. They loved that, and they invited us to be a part of it because we’re doing our own thing with tango.”

As a child in Kandy, Sri Lanka, Halpé had no inkling that she would grow up to become one of Canada’s leading proponents of Argentina’s national art form. That was definitely not the career path that certain members of her family had mapped out for her.

“It took a while for my mom to forgive me,” she says. “My mom was my first teacher, and she was a concert pianist. The plan all along was for me to go to conservatoire and all that.” In Sri Lanka, Halpé successfully balanced academic work with a career as a professional musician in an orchestra—at 17, she joined the Lanka Philharmonic as assistant concertmaster.

Upon moving to this country, the aspiring young violinist found making inroads into the Canadian classical world more difficult than she had anticipated. She abandoned her musical ambitions and devoted herself to teaching English at a community college.

Then she discovered tango, but not as a musician. Not at first.

“I started dancing, and the music was so compelling,” she remembers. “Without realizing that this is what every tango composer does, I started out by transcribing music and then pulling out my violin to play pieces that I would transcribe and arrange for solo violin. Just for myself, for the fun of it. And then it became this thing that became more compelling. I got obsessed with it, basically, and then started finding out how to get myself trained and was lucky enough to meet the right people.”

Fast forward to 2026, and Halpé and Solidaridad are getting ready to bring their show Tango Fantasia to B.C. in a tour that includes stops in Vernon, Oliver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Pender Island, Sidney, and Tofino.

The first half of Tango Fantasia, Halpé says, showcases tango as chamber music, as worthy of serious consideration as any classical compositions. The second half focuses on tango as music to move to, featuring performances by dancers Tarek Marroushi and Estie Spivakov.

Halpé’s intention is to convey to audiences that there’s far more to tango than the snapshots that tourists might bring home from Buenos Aires.

“I hope they take away a love of tango as a living art form,” she says. “I’m really trying to push against this idea that it is something of the past, and that there was a Golden Age of tango and that was it. I disagree. I think that tango is very much a living art form, and that’s really what we’re trying to do with Solidaridad.”  

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For three decades, Welsh singer-songwriter Martin Harley has captivated audiences worldwide with his spellbinding slide-guitar style and unique talent for melding Americana, blues, and folk. At his BlueShore at CapU concert on May 10 at 7:30 pm, audience members can expect Harley to create music that is both intimate and engaging.

Harley was influenced for life by his 2007 travels through West Africa, where he played with Malian desert-blues singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Touré. Then, spending time in the U.S., he collaborated with Carlos Santana and Steve Winwood on his 2012 record Mojo Fix.

Harley’s latest release, 2024’s Morning Sun, features percussionist Michael Blair (Tom Waits) and pedal steel guitarist CJ Hillman (Billy Bragg). He toured the album last summer with Bonnie Raitt. To date, he has been nominated for two Americana Music Awards and two UK Blues Awards.

Tickets to Harley’s upcoming concert are available through BlueShore at CapU.

Post sponsored by BlueShore at CapU.

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PUPPETRY AND MASKS meet opera, Greek myth, and standup, as Upintheair Theatre unveils the lineup for rEvolver Festival 2026.

Expect the experimental and multidisciplinary as the celebration of Canadian live theatre arts by emerging and early-to-mid-career artists runs over two weekends—May 22 to May 31—at The Cultch.

Programmed by resident curator Argel Monte de Ramos, festival director Sarah Roa, and Upintheair Theatre managing and artistic director David Mott, this year’s rEvolver features six mainstage productions.

Scarlet Chen’s Citizen Chen blends standup and true storytelling in a comedy about immigration and identity.

Megan Milton’s Free Kittens, meanwhile, explores life as the resolutely pro-choice eldest daughter of a Catholic teenage mother; it had a sold-out run at Vancouver Fringe Festival. 

Plastik Theatriks presents the physical-theatre piece Popurrí, throwing clowning, puppetry, masks, and opera into a mix of surreal, short vignettes; it won Volunteer Pick at the Victoria Fringe Festival.

Regarding Antigone, by Banafsheh Hassani, The Sky is the Limit Theatre, and Sort of Productions, is a new play inspired by a true story and the ancient Greek myth. 

Also on the mainstage, William Rubel and Golgonoozans’ Robin Redbreast in a Cage looks at a post-collapse world where AI takes over, raising questions around eco responsibility and survival.

And The Human Cat Experience, by Hilary Fillier & ira cooper of Spec Theatre & Catsco, employs handmade puppets, songs, and more in its comedy about two felines high on catnip that have to make an emergency road trip to Catsco for kitty litter.

Elsewhere at the fest, check out readings and works in progress, as well as two special presentations: Aunt Harriet, HAUI™ and Public Domain Theatre’s award-winning film installation that’s a visual elegy about overlooked Black history in Canada; and BEE, Jessica Hood’s mixed-media animated short film about a wild bee’s search for pollen as she encounters various landscapes affected by climate change.

rEvolver passes and tickets are available now at thecultch.com/event/revolver. 

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Chor Leoni’s The Big Roar takes the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts stage this spring, louder and grander than ever before.

On May 8 at 7:30 pm and May 9 at 1 pm, two unforgettable concerts offer something for everyone, from the polished harmonies of just nine voices to the thrilling, inimitable roar of 350 singers. Audiences can witness the magic of The Leonids—the choir’s professional ensemble of world-class singers—then experience the warmth of Chor Leoni’s soaring voices as each group performs a set.

Then, Chor Leoni and The Leonids will be joined by the MYVoice youth choirs, the young PRÉLUDE singers, and the participants of the Emerging Choral Artist Program, along with two of B.C.’s finest high-school choirs.

The program includes two world premieres by this year’s Amplify Artist in Residence, Northern Indigenous multidisciplinary artist Miranda Currie.

Tickets and more details are available through Chor Leoni.

Post sponsored by Chor Leoni.

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VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL has just announced a lineup that includes acts from around the world as well as across Canada for the annual celebration, which takes place July 17 to 19 at ʔəy̓alməxʷ Jericho Beach Park.

International names include England’s Billy Bragg, whose heart-on-sleeve anthems have roused the socially conscious for over four decades, and Brazilian singer-songwriter Bia Ferreira, whose songs deal with feminism and antiracism.

Other international standouts include Hazlett (Australia), Joshua Burnside (Northern Ireland), Sauljaljui (Pingtung, Taiwan), Tina Dico (Denmark), Yagódy (Ukraine), Maruja Limón (Spain), Mitsune (Japan/Germany), and Sahra Halgan (Somaliland).

From south of the 49th parallel, expect stellar sets from Tennessee’s Valerie June—who ranges between soul, blues-rock, and Appalachian folk—along with Anna Tivel (Portland, Oregon) and the border-hopping Ruby Singh and the Future Ancestors featuring Arthur Flowers (Vancouver/New York).

This city will be well-represented by the rockabilly roots of guitarist Paul Pigat’s Cousin Harley, the psychedelic salsa of Empanadas Ilegales, and the confessional indie-pop of Hailey Blais.

From elsewhere across Canada come Ontario-based Aysanabee, Edmonton’s Brianna Lizotte, Montreal’s El Balcón, Toronto’s Kazdoura, and Terrace, B.C.’s Gamksimoon.

Find the full lineup, as well as Early Bird weekend passes and tickets, at the website.

“Whatever folk music means to you, we have something that will appeal to everyone,” Vancouver Folk Music Festival artistic director Fiona Black said in yesterday’s announcement. “During the day we have three stages to visit and at night our Mainstage comes alive where everyone gathers to dance in one of Vancouver’s most beautiful outdoor spaces. We will be announcing the detailed schedule in the next few weeks.”  

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The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts is hosting Eliades Ochoa, one of the most celebrated Cuban “soneros” of all time, on May 9 at 7:30 pm.

In 1997, Ochoa gained international recognition as part of the legendary Buena Vista Social Club with Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer, winning a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album.

Ochoa grew up in the Cuban countryside, where his parents taught him to play the tres, a type of guitar native to the island. His latest album Guajiro features collaborations with blues and indie-rock artists like Charlie Musselwhite and Joan Wasser. He weaves the threads of his life into compelling, ambitious music, honouring the beauty of nature and humble country traditions.

For this concert, a quartet will join Ochoa to perform a mix of classics and new pieces, resulting in a joyous evening full of Latin rhythms and vibrant tunes.

Tickets are available through the Chan Centre.

Post sponsored by Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

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Vancouver Writers Fest presents Ibram X. Kendi in conversation with Terri Givens at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on April 13 at 7:30 pm

IT’S NOT JUST about Donald Trump. As tempting as it is to lay the blame for the concerning swing towards authoritarianism we’re seeing in a number of places around the globe, the ideas at play actually predate the current POTUS’s ascendance to power.

As he argues in his latest nonfiction book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age, Ibram X. Kendi places much of the blame on the rise of the “great replacement theory”, which posits that Black and Brown immigrants are “invading” places like Europe and the United States, upsetting the status quo of white domination and destroying great societies in the process.

Kendi traces the ways in which the great replacement theory has been seized upon by populist politicians around the world to chip away at democratic norms.

At an event hosted by Vancouver Writers Fest, Kendi—founder of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, D.C. and author of the National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning—will discuss Chain of Ideas with UBC political-science professor Terri Givens.

The author of the bestseller Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides, Givens is an in-demand consultant and speaker on issues related to leadership and inclusion—and a powerhouse of ideas in her own right.  

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DanceHouse and Vancouver New Music present Stephanie Lake Company’s Manifesto at the Vancouver Playhouse from April 16 to 18

IT TURNS OUT THE FIRST big challenge of creating a work that features nine drummers, each sitting at their own drum kit, and nine dancers is finding a rehearsal space. 

A regular studio was simply out of the question when Stephanie Lake Company began the process to make the show Manifesto; the wall of sound would instantly draw complaints. And so the Melbourne choreographer Lake and her partner in life and art, musician and audiovisial artist Robin Fox, finally settled upon a factory-filled industrial area on the edges of the Aussie cultural capital.

“We were rehearsing essentially in a tin shed,” Lake recounts with a good-natured laugh to Stir, just off a gruelling 40-hour flight to Virginia before bringing the drum-driven Manifesto to the Vancouver Playhouse. “Oh my god, it was so loud. It's almost indescribable, the complete immersion. It was so ear-splittingly loud in the most exciting way! You just can't get that kind of impact through playback—well, maybe on the dance floor at a really hardcore techno gig or something like that. That feeling where your body's actually thumping a bit.”

Adding to the creative energy was the fact that the drummers—who rarely get the chance to play with their fellow timekeepers—were eager to build off each other’s beats. Says Lake: “There was an electricity in that as well. They were just getting so buzzed from being in a room full of drum nerds. It was just the best. It led to such exciting outcomes because the dancers were so inspired and excited by what was coming out of the instruments. 

“Robin wouldn't mind me describing him this way: he says he's a failed heavy metal drummer who became a composer,” she adds of her celebrated partner. “His teenage dream was to be a heavy metal drummer and be in, like, Metallica or something. And so for him, just the glee of getting to put nine of his favourite drummers in the room and get them to make noise and improvise—it was just a teenage dream come true.”

The resulting energy in the room—the thundering beats driving the dance, and vice versa, in a kind of visceral, symbiotic process—was unlike anything Lake and Fox, who have worked in performance and concert settings around the world, had ever seen. And it’s still palpable in the work that finally hits the West Coast in a DanceHouse and Vancouver New Music presentation this month. In Manifesto, the nine drummers sit in a row, high above the dancers, on pink-silk-draped risers, the dancers contorting below them on the stage floor. 

The unexpected, heightened look of the piece was something Lake says she had almost fully formed before she went into the creation process.

“I really wanted the audience to be able to see the drummers, because, well, drummers typically are at the back, if they're part of a band, they're at the back and you kind of have to look around the lead singer just to see them,” Lake says. “And I just absolutely love the physicality of drummers and the choreography of their playing. It’s so dynamic and interesting. And so I wanted their movement to be part of the overall picture and not just a backdrop. And for the audience's eye to be able to take in everything at once. 

“I wanted there to be real clear human connection between the dancers and the drummers, and for us, as the audience, to be allowed to see that as well,” she adds.

Lake doesn’t just prominently display the drummers, but does so with an almost surreal, stylized vintage-show-biz flourish. She tells Stir she was inspired by old Hollywood staging and the perfect symmetry of old Busby Berkeley productions. Lake wanted to play with how unexpected it was to put the drum kit—more associated with grungy, dark clubs—in a perfectly lit, lavish set. 

As for the movement language? At times the dancers hit an exhilarating unison driven by the percussion; at others they work in tension with, or apart from, it. Lake draws her performers from a wide range of styles—from hip-hop to contemporary ballet, just as Fox has recruited drummers from everything from jazz to punk backgrounds. 

Those varying techniques mean you’ll see a range of influences in her choreography, as well. But you can also chalk Lake’s form-mashing dance up to her own, far-flung background—one that began in Saskatchewan, where she grew up skating in the winter and playing baseball in the summer. From there her family moved across the globe to Tasmania, where she first trained in contemporary dance and stayed until she was 17; then she travelled the world until she came back to Melbourne to study. And Melbourne, with its thriving arts scene, has since fed a career that’s led to the founding of Stephanie Lake Company, a role as resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet, a term as artist-in-residence at Dresden’s Semperoper Ballett, and stints as a director of massive-scale public works for more than 1,500 participants, including Pop Up Project, Moving 100, and Multiply. 

Living in th city has also, of course, led to her relationship with Fox, and the creation of many works in partnership with him. Their lives today take them, separately, criss-crossing the globe, Fox touring with major immersive 3-D laser shows for his sound compositions.

“He collaborates in lots of other fields, and he also runs a museum of antique synthesizers in Melbourne called MESS,” she relates. “So, he's a busy boy. And then I, of course, have Stephanie Lake Company, but I also do commissions with ballet companies around the world. I have the role at the Australian Ballet, the Dresden ballet, and so, yeah: I think there's a healthy amount of doing other things and then coming back together and collaborating—bringing things that we've learned from other experiences back into the collaboration.

“Somehow we've made it work so far, in a really great way, and we've continued to make shows, and we're definitely not sick of it yet. So it's actually wonderful,” she adds. “I love collaborating with Robin.”

Of all the large-scale works they’ve created, it says something that Manifesto continues to be a favourite—one of the most fun, both in the “ear-splittingly loud” creation process, and for taking on the road to perform. It makes the dancers and drummers feel good, and by all accounts, it’s a blast for audiences too.

Best of all, those audiences stretch far beyond the usual contemporary-dance crowd.

“That’s really been my mission since I started making work: just to attract a much broader audience to dance, because I really believe it's an incredible art form that can be enjoyed by everyone,” Lake enthuses. “I know that there are a lot of audiences that are just coming to watch those drummers. And then likewise, there are the dance people who are coming for the show, but then get exposed to this amazing live composition. So, I think that's a lovely part of it: that people get surprised and introduced to something that they might not normally see.” And they might even find their own body thumping a bit.  

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