Skip to content

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • JI@88! video
Scribe Quarterly arrives - big box

Search

Follow @JewishIndie

Recent Posts

  • חוזרים בחזרה לישראל
  • Jews support Filipinos
  • Chim’s photos at the Zack
  • Get involved to change
  • Shattering city’s rosy views
  • Jewish MPs headed to Parliament
  • A childhood spent on the run
  • Honouring Israel’s fallen
  • Deep belief in Courage
  • Emergency medicine at work
  • Join Jewish culture festival
  • A funny look at death
  • OrSh open house
  • Theatre from a Jewish lens
  • Ancient as modern
  • Finding hope through science
  • Mastering menopause
  • Don’t miss Jewish film fest
  • A wordless language
  • It’s important to vote
  • Flying camels still don’t exist
  • Productive collaboration
  • Candidates share views
  • Art Vancouver underway
  • Guns & Moses to thrill at VJFF 
  • Spark honours Siegels
  • An almost great movie 
  • 20 years on Willow Street
  • Students are resilient
  • Reinvigorating Peretz
  • Different kind of seder
  • Beckman gets his third FU
  • הדמוקרטיה בישראל נחלשת בזמן שהציבור אדיש
  • Healing from trauma of Oct. 7
  • Film Fest starts soon
  • Test of Bill 22 a failure

Archives

Tag: Massey Theatre

Oktopus tours province

Oktopus tours province

Oktopus performs at Massey Theatre Oct. 21. (photo © Emmanuel Crombez)

Juno-nominated klezmer group Oktopus brings their unique sound and high energy performance to Massey Theatre on Oct. 21. The New Westminster concert is the culmination of a BC tour that includes Oliver, Quadra Island, Duncan, Nanaimo, Salt Spring Island and Victoria.

Oktopus’s eight virtuoso musicians meld various components of classical, Quebecois and jazz repertoires. Their distinctive music is undeniably rooted in the klezmer tradition, reflecting the rich history of a thousand-year-old community, its persecutions and celebrations, tears and laughter, or both at the same time. Musicians of yesteryear incorporated in their repertoire the music they encountered on their journeys and, just like them, the members of Oktopus are inspired by the music they hear throughout their own travels.

The Montreal-based Oktopus octet was formed in 2010 at the initiative of clarinetist Gabriel Paquin-Buki, creator of musical arrangements and several original compositions. (See jewishindependent.ca/blues-klezmer-at-mission.)

After releasing its debut album, Lever l’encre, in 2014, Oktopus released Hapax in 2017, which earned nominations as Instrumental Album of the Year at the Juno Awards and World Music Group of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. For more on the ensemble, visit oktopus.ca. For tickets to the Oct. 21 concert, go to masseytheatre.com/event/massey-presents-oktopus.

– Courtesy Rona Goodman Music & Publicity

Format ImagePosted on October 12, 2023October 12, 2023Author Rona Goodman Music & PublicityCategories MusicTags Gabriel Paquin-Buki, klezmer, Massey Theatre, Oktopus
Cabaret a timely show

Cabaret a timely show

Michael Wilkinson, left, and Kurtis D’Aoust in Royal City Musical Theatre’s Cabaret, which plays at Massey Theatre until April 29. (photo by Emily Cooper)

The musical Cabaret is a classic in the English-speaking world. Since its Broadway première in 1966, it’s been staged multiple times in many countries, and its acclaimed movie version of 1972 won eight Oscars. This April, Royal City Musical Theatre (RCMT) brings the show to New Westminster’s Massey Theatre.

“I saw the Cabaret movie many years ago, but it’s quite different from the stage musical, which I saw for the first time on Broadway in New York, starring Alan Cumming, in 2015,” actor Michael Wilkinson told the Independent. “The Broadway production was spectacular; not only is the show filled with great songs and dance numbers, but the various storylines were, and are, timely to current events that we’re seeing around the world today.”

With music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, the show is loosely based on the book Cabaret, written by Christopher Isherwood.

“Taking place in Berlin [in 1931] just before the Nazis came to power, Cabaret demonstrates how there was an increasing presence of far-right wing politics, which is not dissimilar to some of the political movements we’re seeing in the United States,” said Wilkinson, who is a member of the Jewish community. “It provides a stark reminder of how we need to stand up for those who are most vulnerable in society.”

In the RCMT production, Wilkinson plays Victor, one of the performers at the cabaret. Victor is a dancer, singer and waiter, Wilkinson explained. “As Victor, I spend most of the play singing and dancing in the ensemble numbers, as well as serving and fooling around with the patrons. It’s a fun role, and many dance numbers are very energetic.”

Unlike most members of the cast, Wilkinson doesn’t see his professional life revolving around theatre. “I actually am not studying acting,” he said. “I did study theatre for one year right after high school in New York at NYU. However, after an amazing year, I decided that theatre school was not for me, so I returned to Vancouver. I’m currently one year away from graduating with a bachelor of arts from UBC’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. I would love to work in arts marketing or management, but I am also very passionate about youth education.”

For him, theatre is a beloved hobby, although he did want to be an actor as a child. “I grew up taking theatre and music classes, which I loved. I went to the fine arts theatre program at Lord Byng Secondary School,” he said. “I participated in school plays. I also participated throughout high school in many community and professional theatre productions across the Lower Mainland. And I’ve continued to do so into adulthood. I love to do theatre in my spare time, and companies like RCMT provide a great opportunity for this.”

Being in a musical is ideal for the young performer.

“I started playing violin when I was 5 and I played oboe in my high school band, so music has always been a part of my life,” he said. “Musicals just seemed like a natural genre for me to fall into when I became interested in theatre. I love being in big musicals, like Cabaret. RCMT is a great company because they present big musicals every year, which is not something that every theatre company is able to do. This is my fourth show with RCMT. With them, I’ve had lots of fun in the smaller featured roles or as part of the ensemble.”

Over the past several years, Wilkinson has performed with many theatrical companies in Vancouver. In addition to RCMT, he has played in shows put on by Theatre Under the Stars, Awkward Stage Productions, Gateway Theatre, Bard on the Beach, and Footlight Theatre.

“Most of them have been non-paying [roles], which was fine growing up and going through high school,” he said. “I never expected to get paid at that age. However, this year, RCMT introduced an actor honoraria, which is very helpful to offset transportation costs. While this is certainly not the case for many other cast members, I’m not at a point where I’m looking to make a living from doing theatre. I have two other part-time jobs, my UBC classes and rehearsals, so [being in] shows that do not pay, or at least not very much, works for me.”

The timing of a show is more important to him than the financial side, because he has to juggle his schedule. This is why he doesn’t go to auditions very often. “I only audition for productions that I would really want to be in and that I know I can commit to, in terms of rehearsals and performance dates,” he said.

He enjoys everything involved in putting on a show. “I love the rehearsal process,” he said, “because it is so exciting to watch a production come to life with all its elements: music, choreography, scene work, props, costumes, sets and lights, and eventually the audience. It is also great to get to know a new group of actors as we come together to work on a production. The Vancouver theatre community is quite small, so there are usually some familiar faces, but every cast kind of becomes a family for the duration of a show – some of my best friends I’ve met through theatre. And, of course, performing the final product in front of the audience is always very exciting.”

Wilkinson is not sure yet what his future holds, or even where he will be after graduation. “I’ve lived in Vancouver my whole life, minus my one year in New York,” he said. “Vancouver is home, but if a really great job presented itself outside of Vancouver, I would never say no. I’m also interested in doing my master’s degree at some point, so that may involve a move, as well. I think it’s important to be happy in whatever we’re doing, so that’s how I try to guide my education, work and theatre to balance in my life.”

Cabaret opened at Massey Theatre April 12 and runs until April 29. For tickets and information, visit royalcitymusicaltheatre.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.

Format ImagePosted on April 13, 2018April 13, 2018Author Olga LivshinCategories Performing ArtsTags Cabaret, Holocaust, Massey Theatre, Michael Wilkinson, musical theatre
My Fair Lady fantastic

My Fair Lady fantastic

Tracy Neff (Eliza Doolittle) and Warren Kimmel (Henry Higgins) before the phonetics lessons start. (photo by Tim Matheson)

It was hard not to sing along. In fact, the couple in the row behind me couldn’t stop themselves on more than one occasion. So wonderfully witty and familiar are all of the songs in My Fair Lady, which is playing at Massey Theatre until April 26.

Directed by Max Reimer, the Royal City Musical Theatre production is well worth the trip to New Westminster. If you’re like me, the proposition is daunting. I made an afternoon and evening of it, heading out from Vancouver before rush hour, enjoying a walk along the quay and dinner with friends before heading to the theatre for the 7:30 p.m. show. While it took almost an hour to get to New West, I made it back in about 25 minutes. Granted, that’s about 15 minutes longer than if I had been coming from downtown, but the parking was plentiful and free – and I had longer to sing in the car on the way home, which made the drive seem that must faster.

I had forgotten just how funny are the book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner – even 50ish years after they premièred on Broadway! With the stellar cast enunciating brilliantly, nary a word was lost, and the 22-piece live orchestra and 30-plus cast also gave justice to Frederick Loewe’s music.

Of course, the musical’s origins go back further, more than 100 years, to George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. Phonetics professor Henry Higgins bets phonetics enthusiast Colonel Pickering that he can take Eliza Doolittle, a street seller of flowers, and transform her: “You see this creature with her curbstone English that’ll keep her in the gutter till the end of her days? In six months, I could pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball. I could even get her a job as a lady’s maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English.” (In Shaw’s version, the bet is three months to “pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.”)

photo - Jewish community members Kathryn Palmer and Jonathan Boudin in the ensemble of Royal City Musical Theatre's My Fair Lady.
Jewish community members Kathryn Palmer and Jonathan Boudin in the ensemble of Royal City Musical Theatre’s My Fair Lady. (photo by David Cooper)

Led by Warren Kimmel as Prof. Higgins and Tracy Neff as Eliza, there are many standouts in the Royal City production, including John Payne as the charming scoundrel Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza’s father, and tenor Thomas Lamont as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, who falls for Eliza at the Ascot (her test run as a lady) when she cheers on the horse Dover to win, hollering, “Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ arse!” In addition to Kimmel, other Jewish community members involved in the show are Jonathan Boudin and Kathryn Palmer in the ensemble. Both do very well, but Palmer is particularly expressive, standing out as both a flower seller and a maid, very much at ease on stage.

The entire cast seemed to be having a great time on the preview night I attended, good-humoredly negotiating through a couple of technical glitches, including a tough-to-light candle. And the main two sets, which go from being two sides of a London street corner to Higgins’ study when they are turned around and pushed together, are fabulously detailed and necessarily sturdy (the actors must travel to a balcony on one side, a landing on the other), but they must be quite heavy – every time the halves of it slowly came together to form the study, I released a small sigh of relief.

None of this detracted from the performance. In fact, these instances made it seem more intimate, and reminded me of one of the reasons live theatre is so fun to watch. It was a great show. I got lost in the words, music, sets, costumes (gorgeous!). The cast, crew and musicians all deserve kudos – as Pickering says to Higgins after the ball, “Absolutely fantastic.… You did it!”

For tickets ($26-$47) to My Fair Lady at Massey Theatre through April 26, visit masseytheatre.com or call 604-521-5050.

Format ImagePosted on April 17, 2015April 16, 2015Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Performing ArtsTags Eliza Doolittle, Henry Higgins, Jonathan Boudin, Kathryn Palmer, Massey Theatre, Royal City Musical Theatre, Tracy Neff, Warren Kimmel
Proudly powered by WordPress