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Lively City: Up Close recital series returns

New West audiences have another chance to get up close and personal with top-notch musicians. The Up Close Recital Society is continuing its recital series with a second performance on Thursday, March 30 at Old Crow Coffee.

New West audiences have another chance to get up close and personal with top-notch musicians.

The Up Close Recital Society is continuing its recital series with a second performance on Thursday, March 30 at Old Crow Coffee.

The show features guitarist Paul Pigat and Boxcar Campfire.

“From solos raw enough to melt the door off an old Cadillac to delicate etudes written for the crows to fly home to, he is a guitarist who can truly play it all,” says a press release about the concert.

He’s by bassist Jeff Gammon and drummer Barry Mirochnick for a program of music that leans toward acoustic country and Delta blues.

Interested? You can catch them at 7:30p.m. at Old Crow Coffee, 655 Front St. Tickets are $20 in advance at www.brownpapertickets.com (search for Paul Pigat), or $25 at the door.

You can find out more about the series at www.facebook.com/upcloserecitalsociety.

 

OPENING NIGHT

A New West performer is onstage in the Royal Canadian Theatre Company’s next outing.

Ellie King directs Opening Night, onstage March 17 and 18 at the Surrey Arts Centre and March 24 and 25 at the ACT Arts Centre in Maple Ridge.

Gina Raye Young is in the cast for Norm Foster’s comedy – which tells the story of what happens when Ruth Tisdale, a theatre lover, wins a pair of tickets for an opening night performance of a new Canadian play, and who drags along her husband, Jack, for a 25th anniversary celebration. But he’d rather be home watching the World Series, and mayhem ensues when the two mingle in the VIP lounge and Jack spots someone he knows from TV.

Evening shows are on all four nights at 7:30 p.m., with 3:30 matinees on both Sundays (March 18 and 25). For Surrey tickets, see tickets.surrey.ca. For ACT tickets, see tickets.theactmapleridge.org. For more on the production, check out www.rctheatreco.com.

 

POETIC JUSTICE

Poetry fans, don’t forget about this month’s Poetic Justice session.

The reading is set for Sunday, March 19 at 11:30 a.m. at Boston Pizza at Columbia Square. Featured poets this month are Bernice Lever and Russell Thornton, who both come with impressive resumés.

Lever is the founder of Waves, a literary magazine that ran from 1972 to 1987. Her latest book, Small Acts, is her 11th poetry collection. She’s now retired from Toronto’s Seneca College department of English and lives on Bowen Island.

Thornton, meanwhile, has earned acclaim for a number of his works: The Hundred Lives was shortlisted for the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize, and Birds, Metals, Stones & Rain was shortlisted for the 2013 Governor General’s Award for Poetry, the Raymond Souster Award and the Dorothy Livesay B.C. Book Prize.

You can hear both of these impressive poets – or read your own work during the open mike session – on Sunday. Check out www.poeticjusticenewwest.org for all the details.

 

CLASSICAL CROSSOVER

Here’s a heads-up for fans of classical crossover music.

Gerphil Flores will be performing on Saturday, March 18 at the Anvil Centre, offering up a repertoire of soft classics that blend classical with pop, rock, Latin and other genres.

She’ll be joined by Attila Dobak, another classical crossover artist who has become known as one of the “barihunks” – for the uninitiated, that billing is used to describe a group of the sexiest baritone singers from the world of opera.

You can get tickets for $50, or VIP tickets (including a glass of wine) for $100.

See www.anvilcentre.com for all the details.

 

POETRY CELEBRATION

World Poetry New West is marking International Women’s Day and ushering in spring with a new evening of poetry on Wednesday, March 22.

Everyone is invited out to the session, which runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at New Westminster Public Library (716 Sixth Ave.).

Alan Hill, the city’s new poet laureate, will be featured, along with past poets laureate Candice James and Don Benson, plus Evelyn Benson, Tony Antonias, Janet Kvammen, Chris Williamson Ronney and Nazreen Pejvack. Lavana La Brey is the featured musician.

The evening will be hosted by Ariadne Sawyer and James Mullin, and it also includes an open mike, plus a raffle and refreshments. Call 604-526-4729 or see www.worldpoetry.ca for more details.

 

GOLDEN AGE THEATRE

If that park bench could talk …

The stories of everyday life, as seen through the life of one park bench, are the centrepiece of a new one-act comedy by Golden Age Theatre. The seniors’ acting group from Century House is putting on the play, written and directed by Carla Krens, on Friday and Saturday, March 24 and 25.

The Park Bench is onstage Friday night at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 1:30 p.m., with refreshments one-half hour in advance each time.

The play stars Michael Anthony, George Bosnick, Claudette Campbell, Georgie Cole, Joan Duffy, Marlene Enns, Pat Gerbrandt, Marian Grandy, Lloyd Grandy, Mildred Johnson, Maria Kollar and Eileen Mackenzie.

In seven scenes, it traces stories from 1969, when three hippies are coming back from Woodstock, up to 2007, when the park bench is slated for demolition.

Tickets are $8 for members, $10 for non-members, available at the front desk at Century House, 620 Eighth St., or at the door. Century House can be reached at 604-519-1066.

 

 

HONG KONG EXILE 

Remy Siu has been fascinated by the interplay of sound and dance for years. Now, his work is front and centre at a new show playing at the Firehall Arts Centre in April.

Siu, who grew up in New Westminster, is responsible for sound composition and media design for Room 2048, a production created by the interdisciplinary arts company Hong Kong Exile.

The company – made up of Siu, Milton Lim and Natalie Tin Yin Gan – also has ties to New Westminster, with a residency at River Market in 2012 and support from the Anvil Centre for this latest work.

Room 2048 is a multimedia dance theatre piece that explores the sociopolitical realities surrounding Hong Kong, which was handed over from the British back to Mainland China on July 1, 1997. At the time, the declaration stipulated a 50-year period of “one country, two systems,” during which time Hong Kong could retain its language and identity. The year after this period is 2048.

“Room 2048 is an imaginary site of refuge and of celebration for the Cantonese diaspora,” explains Tin Yin Gan, the choreographer, in a statement.  “By revealing the homeland we do not have and the history we do not know, I seek to honour what we, as first and second generation, are losing and have lost. What do we choose to hold on to? This work celebrates our collective communal longing.”

The work is performed by Lim, Michelle Lui and Alex Tam.

It’s onstage April 11 to 15, Tuesday to Saturday at the Firehall Arts Centre, 280 East Cordova St., Vancouver. See www.firehallartscentre.ca or call 604-689-0926 for information and tickets.

 

If you have an item for Lively City, send it to Julie, jmaclellan@newwestrecord.ca. You can also find her on Twitter @juliemaclellan.