Gunnar Blodgett

Jane Austen meets Gentleman Jack fot a witty and whimsical romp on the moors. A charming, delightful divertissement.

Yeah, so this one's a roller coaster. Elena and Stephen start light, then lift you up ... and then pull a Marvelous Mrs Maisel on you. I mean it's not like we weren't warned. Elena does ask Stephen why she needs to sing about sadness. Wham. 3 hanky 9-11 personal tragedy song. Most of the repertoire will be new to those of us not up on recent Broadway, but it's gorgeous and exquisite and so worth it.

Holy Trinity has a history of featuring singers who have found their songbook and love singing from it. Mathew is a case in point. From Annie to ABBA he shares his passion and drags us along. In cabaret, he says, there is no fourth wall. This is me you're getting. Well, Mathew and a few chaming and talented guests. You will leave this show will your cheeks hurting because you've been grinning for almost an hour. So much fun.

School is tough, and it's more tough if you're a girl who's been body shamed and it's worse if you've been shamed into messing up your face trying to get rid of unwanted hair. It's embarrassing enough when your alpha siblings lock horns on how to fix the problem, and it just gets worse when your Italian born single Mom finds out. Funny, fierce and sad in turns. Great script, wonderfully performed.

I have to agree about the mic problems. Seriously, dude, get them fixed. If not for that, another star. Funny, brutally honest and sexy as hell: 3 mothers and one first timer explore the joys and tribulations of motherhood in story and song in an impromptu baby shower. As a not father uncle of seven, I laughed my butt off. And maybe cried a bit. Great performance.

Doors open to a purple-lit pirate bar, 3 figures slumped over wooden cable spools. As the play opens, the figures are revealed to be Hook, Tinkerbell and Smee, trapped in the Never. As if in a mixed instrument jazz trio, the script allows each to establish their timbre and tempo, their guilts and fears and dreams unfulfillled. Smee, somewhat worse for wear due to a dust habit, keeps referring to the return of Peter Pan and Mother Wendy. Hook and Tinkerbell don't think much of this. Until the chimes ring out and Peter arrives. Peter the no longer child, metamorhosed into a esponsible adult. And he's here to persuade his old friends to join him and achieve their dreams by giving them up. Yeah, no. So Peter becomes the new timbre and tempo, engaging the other three separately and together until his timbre is dominant and one by one the others drop away and Peter is free to explain why. As evocative and more troubling than Who's Afriad of Winnie The Pooh, The Peter Pan Cometh is a paen to the importance of dreams. Do you believe in fairies?

Greek tragedy is not for the faint of heart. It's bloody and violent and subject to the whims of wanton gods. A Kind of Electra is Greek tragedy for the 21st century. Exiled from her murdered father's palace and married to a farmer, the mad Electra plots revenge by invoking the gods. Her murdered sister Iphigenia accompanies Electra quietly. A visitor arrives, purporting to be a messenger from the dead brother Orestes. When Electra declares her desire for revenge, the visitor admits he is in fact the not so dead Orestes. Plans are laid and executed. Blood flows. When the train wreck can get no worse, Deus ex machina ensues. Superb acting and direction from this Los Angeles trio on their first trip to Edmonton. This is why we have Fringe.

Ah the joys of University year's. Especially when you realize your family is falling apart or you're oceans away from home and can't seem to make friends. And especially when you finally make a few friends, go to a party and hammer back the liquid courage before messing up the pick-up line with the cute person in your physics class and end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning and your well-meaning roommate ... okay you get the picture. Piya Banik Ghosh fires up every scene she enters.

Tymisha Harris is an accomplished international performer and a repeat guest at the Edmonton Fringe. Her rendition of Josephine Baker (singer, spy and mother) is a classic and last year's production of Cabaret of Legends was a history of black women singers from Lady Day to Whitney Houston that rocked the third floor at Cite Francophone. This year's production was emotionally more fraugt; Strange Fruit and Mississippi God Damn reflected darker times in her native USA. Her rally through Tina Turner to Whitney and Beyonce sent us home recharged. What an amazing voice and stage presence.

Pop Goes The Opera has a history of excellent productions and this was no exception. Upon finding out that their show has been canceled, a group of singers responds in the traditional fashion: milling about, complaining, eating dummies, drinking and singing their favourite arias. La Traviata, Nessun Dorma, a preview of their 2026 Valentine's Day co-production Merry Widow and more. Holy Trinity's Sanctuary Stage is a great venue of spectacular singers. An hour very well spent.