Ride The Cyclone
On the snowiest day of March, I arrive at the Guild Hall to meet part of the talented team staging the Guild’s next production…
The Guild Society / Theatre
The Guild Society in a non-profit charitable society which has been producing community theatre productions in Whitehorse for three decades.
Mustard Is A Must-see!
Brian Fidler, artistic director for the Guild Hall Theatre, has a knack for choosing plays that everybody wants to be part of.
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The Guild Hall
When the Guild Hall pivots from one show to the next, there’s often quite a bit of overlap. As artistic director Brian Fidler
…
The Wolves At The Guild
The play itself is written for female-identifying characters which was a huge draw for Pritchard, Clark and Sinclair…
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Young Frankenstein At The Guild
Young Frankenstein, based on the book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, with music and lyrics by Mel Brooks, is coming to Whitehorse.
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Preparing for the Apocalypse (and being misunderstood): the Guild Hall’s ‘WROL’
WROL (Without Rule of Law) at the Guild is an all youth cast with no adult characters in this play about 7 girls preparing for the apocalypse
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A dinner party: The Guild brings a new play to town for its first show this year
A Dinner Party at The Guild. “I love Whitehorse audiences, there’s an eagerness & openness to absurdity … and this play gets really weird.”
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Welcome back… to the Round Back
With an improved ‘Round Back venue in place, the Guild Hall unveils a new series of performances. Music, theatre, comedy and more.
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Dreary and Izzy at the Guild
This May, Whitehorse’s Guild Hall is presenting Dreary and Izzy, a play by Tara Beagan which centres on a pair of sisters who have lost their parents in a car accident.
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Every Brilliant Thing
Every Brilliant Thing is a delightfully funny play about depression, but it’s not depressing. It’s also no surprise that the Guild theatre’s first indoor play of the season is about connection.
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Bringing live performance back to the Yukon
The Guild Hall is getting creative. Of course, that’s pretty standard for the Whitehorse theatre, but COVID-19 is forcing a different kind of creativity.
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The shows must go on!
Yukon theatre companies are finding creative ways to present work. Adapting shows and developing unique formats to fit with our new reality.
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Anger and innocence
Claire Ness was only six (or maybe seven) when she first saw the dark Canadian comedy called The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine. Still, it left a lasting impression, in part, because that Nakai Theatre production in the early 1990s starred her father, Roy Ness, and fellow Whitehorse actor/musician Trish Barclay in the title roles.
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Shakespeare in hiding
Sir Tom Stoppard is one of Britain’s best-loved playwrights and screenwriters, known for rapid-fire dialogue that also carries deep philosophical truths. Apart from his screenplay for Shakespeare
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Subversive and sexy
After an absence of two decades, eight low-rent vaudevillians trying to evade the secret police in their homeland have returned to Whitehorse. The Guild Theatre opens
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Musical time travel
[two_third] With the stage still in darkness, a disembodied voice expresses the speaker’s dislike for plays that require theatre-goers to interact with performers who break
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Unexpected Paths
When the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Brian Fidler, invited her to direct Durang’s wildly successful 2012 comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, McLean leapt at the opportunity.
Searching for a way out
Genevieve Fleming is counting on Whitehorse audiences to take in the upcoming Guild Theatre production, even if just to indulge in some cold-weather Schadenfreude. In
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Paris Pick: Are you feeling the love?
There hardly seems to be a local show these days singer, musician, songwriter and enthusiast of all things tack, Paris Pick.
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Downfall of a Salesman
The Guild Theatre will launch its 2018–19 season this week with Lawrence and Holloman, a darkly hilarious two-hander by award-winning Canadian playwright Morris Panych. First
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Serving laughs straight from the oven
The Whitehorse comedy scene is on a roll as of late. One of the events that has helped cultivate this resurgence has been Baked Laughs, the stand-up nights presented monthly at Baked Café.
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Spelling it out
Mary Sloan was only vaguely aware of the 2005 smash Broadway musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, when she learned that the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Brian Fidler, had picked it as this year’s season finale.
A weekend of laughs
The Yukon stand-up comedy scene can be fickle. Some years comics will perform to packed houses that turn people away at the door. Other years,
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Stand up for Stephen McGovern
On March 9, Yukon comic Stephen McGovern will be gearing up to take the stage at the Just for Laughs Northwest comedy festival in Vancouver. The
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Hand to God
Lust, grief, denial and repression (not to mention demonic possession) in the bible-belt town of Cypress, Texas. Oh, yes. Don’t forget the puppets. These are
Chance or choice?
Is it character, circumstance, or the choices we make that determines our lot in life?
This is the conundrum that lies at the heart of Good People.
Debaters Bound
Whitehorse comedian Jenny Hamilton will be performing live on the CBC Radio One show The Debaters in North Vancouver on Nov. 22
All the world’s a stage
Morris, an improv teacher and artistic director of The Paper Street Theatre company in Victoria, B.C. was giving a talk at a TedX event in 2012 about “The way of Improv,” much to the audience’s delight. In the crowd that evening was Shahin Mohammadi.
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The fear is real…
If you’re the kind of person who enjoys creepy strolls through dark spaces with ghouls and goblins festering around every corner, perhaps it’s time to
Good Night, Good Morning
Ann-Marie MacDonald’s award-winning comedy Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) has been around for almost 30 years, but Brian Fidler and Clare Preuss are convinced it
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Is she or isn’t she?
We all wear our identities in various ways to show the world what tribe we belong to. Go to Toronto and you will see the
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Splattering Comedy
Whitehorse, it seems, has such an insatiable appetite for high-camp horror that the Guild Theatre has added another week to its run of Evil Dead:
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Hang on, George
Christmas Eve, 1946. Several actors huddle around their microphones, live-broadcasting a radio station’s seasonal drama, complete with commercial intervals and a touch of Yuletide music.
Roller Coaster
From Beirut to Buffalo, then Whitehorse. That’s how Clare Preuss sums up the summer of 2016 from her standpoint as an itinerant stage director. The
Who’s Line is it Anyway?
Expect the unexpected. This is good advice for both performers and audience at a typical improv event. Mind you, “typical” is a misnomer for a
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New Artistic Director used to couch surf at The Guild Hall
One of Brian Fidler’s first memories of the Yukon is sleeping on the couch at The Guild Hall. He had just arrived in town and
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Gearing Up for Yukomicon 2017
A comic-con is an annual event where sci-fi lovers congregate to pay homage to super heroes/villains/authors/actors/producers who help bring this genre to life on the
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It’s Not Off Script If There Isn’t A Script
Theatre-goers, is your relationship with plays getting a little humdrum? Are you looking for more spontaneity in your live-performances? Are you tired of rehearsed scripts,
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A New Theatre Company in Town
As winter carries on, theatre lovers will have the opportunity to warm their cold bodies with laughter in a brand new black box theatre when
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The Twelfth Night, Lumbersexualized
Attention all lovers, poets and dreamers: this holiday season The Bard is returning to the Whitehorse stage. The Guild Hall will launch its second show
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Duncan Sinclair – Instrument of Change
Your first perception of Duncan Sinclair may be of a reserved, buttoned-down guy – a civil servant, most likely. You wouldn’t be wrong. Sinclair
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How did Charlie Brown and his friends make out?
On October 1st The Guild Hall Society will kick off its 2015/16 season with Bert V. Royal’s dark comedy Dog Sees God: Confessions of a
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Dramaturgy
Last Friday I met with David Skelton, the artistic director of Nakai Theatre, and DD Kugler, a renowned Canadian dramaturge. A dramaturge, which is an
Puppets, Comedy, and Gore
Whitehorse has an awesome art scene. This month, The Guild will try to make it more awesome when its production of Cannibal! The Musical hits
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Gearing up for Cannibal
Am I excited. In April I’ll be acting in the Guild Society’s newest play, Cannibal the Musical written by Trey Parker of South Park fame.
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Sibling Revelry
Brigitte and Caroline Desjardins-Allatt were well into elementary school before learning about their father’s musical past — and the instruments stashed in the family garage.
The Guild presents Dedication
Terrence McNally’s Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams, playing at the Guild Hall until December 6, is a love letter to theatre in an era
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Terror and Terpsichore
Don’t say you haven’t been warned. From October 28 to November 1, the Guild Hall will be chockablock with fire, brimstone, and all kinds of
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The Shape of all Sorts of Things
The Shape of Things, which runs every night at the Guild Hall in Porter Creek until October 11, continues playwright Neil Labute’s reputation for blunt
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Taxicab Theatre
Gab in a cab, do time in the hole, or ponder what lies behind schoolyard shootings. These are just some of the options available to
Strangely Funny, but True
Anthony Trombetta’s first act as new artistic director at the Guild Theatre was to throw out the rule book. Instead of a conventional play, the
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Family, Change, and Acceptance
Torontonian Clinton Walker has flown into the Yukon to direct another play at The Guild Hall. The new production The Book of Esther, by Leanna
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Spooky Noises are Okay, but No More Showing Up in the Flesh
Imagine working alone in an older building where, on occasion, people have seen ghosts, heard them walking around, and had them messing with their stuff.
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Syphilis Spreads like Wildfire: Peter Jickling’s Play Syphilis: A Love Story wins comedy award
It’s difficult to resist making puns about the title of the award-winning play Syphilis: A Love Story by Whitehorse playwright, and What’s Up Yukon assistant
Staging local talent
As the sunshine creeps into the evening and temperatures slowly rise toward double-digits, some art organizations’ seasons are winding down. One of the final accomplishments
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Comedy from a Sleep-Depraved Mind
I’m finally getting some good sleep these days. Recently, I was stage-managing the incredible Varietease show at the Guild: a cavalcade of comedy, song and,
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A sex farce well told
Colin Heath was chatting online with Eric Epstein, the artistic director of The Guild. They were playing Scrabulous at the time because they both love
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Varietease is so baaaad, it’s good
Burlesque cabaret uses psychology in such a delicious way: it is a naughty place and we feel naughty being there. So we throw decorum to
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We get the theatre we deserve
When you think of plays, you think of The Guild and Nakai Theatre. More and more people are thinking of Music Arts and Drama at
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If a drag queen falls in the forest …
Last year’s Nakai Theatre Pivot Festival was not well-received. It featured a blind comic who portrayed cancer. It had a snow-shovelling demonstration. A sexualized Betty
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One actor, 37 characters
“I don’t want someone who can do 37 voices,” says director David Mackay. “I want 37 characters.” Therein lies the magic he hopes to capture
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Brian Fidler did it!
There is a moment in Becky Mode’s Fully Committed when Brian Fidler’s character, Sam, gives his father some disappointing news over the telephone. The entire
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Chicago Comes North
The longest running American musical in Broadway history opens this week at the Guild Hall’s Black Box Theatre in Porter Creek, where it will play
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Get Out and Guild
Imagine you are sitting at your computer at home, one evening. Despite the fact that it’s minus 27 outside, it’s snowing – again. As if
Cabaret plods between great musical numbers
There are actually two stage shows at the Guild Hall: Cabaret, the variety show and Cabaret, the play. The variety show is a blast with
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Bold, dark theatre returns
After a decade of collecting dust in the Guild Society office, the script for Cabaret is finally being used and will be presented at the
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Bring the funny … or else
After intense immersion in comedy last winter in Toronto, George Maratos has returned with a program that is making its second appearance Thursday night. The
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Supporting the art of dance
As far as this paper’s mandate reaches – arts, culture, entertainment and recreation – the biggest news of the week is the creation of the
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Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue
With both the Nakai and Moving Parts theatres scaling back on productions for a season of development, Eric Epstein sees the role of the Guild
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No one can shock with such delight
In 1962, it was shocking and titillating. Though the Pulitzer Prize committee handed it a Pulitzer, it was revoked for language, for sexual situations. When
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Round 1 goes to the Guild, and what a fight
4 out of 5 Stars The Guild pulled no punches with its first production of the season, dragging Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
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Romantic Christmas comedy had a long journey
Patti Flather is sitting at a coffee shop talking about how much fun it is to write strong roles for actors over 40. “There’s just
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A play without boundaries
After presenting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, one of the most well-known plays of the post-modern era, the Guild Theatre follows with the world premiere
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Queer Coffee is a community saying hello
I don’t know what I was looking for when I walked into Baked Café for the Queer Coffee, advertised on ArtsNet. I knew I was
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Looking Forward
I recently attended the Gay and Lesbian Alliance AGM. It was the first meeting in a year. The turnout was really promising and a new
Walker’s Laramie Project shows the triumph of community
Clinton Walker, the director brought up from Toronto for The Laramie Project, has made me chili. Little triangles of toasted bread sit next to the
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Just a big wacky musical about corruption
”It’s a huge show,” Todd Duckworth the director tells me. Twenty people in the cast, four in the band. “When you see 20 people stretched
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Comics Can’t Take a Joke
There’s been a bit of drama going on in the comedy world I now live in. A certain headlining comic was caught red-handed (mouthed?) stealing
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Giant Rat finally treated as honoured citizen (psst … go see this musical)
Everyone loves a “lovable rogue”. In the Guild Society’s musical comedy, The Man From the Capital, you get 20 rogues to pick from. The plot
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The Men Behind The Boys
The Guild will open its season this week with the Canadian premiere of The Boys, written by Kris Elgstrand. Elgstrand and Brad Dryborough, the play’s
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Epstein leaves, stage right
Eric Epstein and I are sitting in the black box — the creative centre of the Guild Theatre — the room that can become anything,
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The brutal, relentless comedy of The Boys
The Quickie: The Boys is not a feel-good drama, an easy date night play, or a relaxing evening. However, it is outstanding acting and thought-provoking
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Laramie Project delivers stunning ensemble work
I gave Justine Davidson, the theatre reviewer for the Whitehorse Star, a long hug at the end of The Laramie Project, the Guild Society/GALA play.
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Artistic transitions: McCallum enters, stage left
Katherine McCallum is sitting on the couches of the Guild Hall, the place the audience gathers before a show begins, that place of anticipation. She’s
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Gay community sees hope in The Laramie
Then I was at the Big Band Dessert and Dance Saturday night, I saw a handsome man across the crowded room. Fat chance that I
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Seriously Hilarious
Margaret Thatcher. Genocide. Venereal disease. Personal betrayal. These are not the standard fare of romantic comedy. But in the deft hands of Whitehorse playwright Peter
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Turning Hollywood Upside Down
It’s 6:05 on a Sunday morning, and she has a play opening in only six days. So why is Sarah Rodgers sitting in the airport
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Guild goes ‘Into the Woods’ and gets its wish: Magic
Just in time for spring, the Guild brings us Into the Woods. Thank you. It’s a refreshing, colourful splash after a long, cold winter. This
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Honest Talk Cafe
How can one person transform herself into many people? How can one location turn into several without changing a thing? Go and see Café Daughter and you’ll
Into the Playground
Director Gerald Isaac thinks a playground makes an ideal setting for the Guild Theatre’s production of the musical comedy Into the Woods, which opens next
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Venality vs Purity in Tinseltown
The strength of most plays by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mamet lies in his characters, the moral murk in which they often exist and, above all,
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A Different Face of Mamet
In graduate school, Stephen Drover “dabbled” with the work of American playwright David Mamet, but he had never directed a full Mamet play. So when
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Loaded for Laughs
It’s the night of the first big snowfall, and that sound you’re hearing is the explosion of standup comedy in Whitehorse. At the Jarvis Street
A Little Off the Top: Comedy of Manners
They mean well, and the evening starts on a good footing. But throw in some sumptuous art books and a bottle of rum and, voilà.
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Young man of many parts
It’s not always easy for a 19-year-old to decide what to do next; especially a 19-year-old like Graham Rudge. Should an award-winning year at art
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Review: Bubbles of Self-Delusion
Don’t expect deep truths about the human condition from the Guild Theatre’s latest offering, The Food Chain. Don’t expect a plot that’s more than paper-thin.
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Step this way for hilarity
We meet our Canadian protagonist, Richard Hannay, played by George Maratos, in his West End London flat. It’s the mid-Thirties and he’s bored. So he
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A Comedy of Obsession
When the Guild Theatre’s artistic director, Katherine McCallum, was choosing this year’s season, she may not have known playwright Nicky Silver was about to hit
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Comedy Dominates in Venus
The play is new. The book that inspired it is 142 years old. The song dates back to the Summer of Love. The kinky proclivity
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Spying on the Neighbours
When Martin McDonagh’s play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, first emerged in 1996, the 23-year-old playwright was quickly caught up in a storm of controversy.
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A Christmas wish for stability, sanity and love
PLEASE NOTE: Leaving town for two weeks, I was grateful to be able to review a non-public dress rehearsal of The Soul Menders, on Nov.
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