by JAMES GARTLER for Rover Arts
If you’re used to seeing long line-ups outside Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen on The Main, prepare to see them at Centaur Theatre’s box office as well. The love-letter to Montreal that is Schwartz’s The Musical will surely be drawing in crowds both meat-loving and vegetarian, local and visiting, and young and old for one reason and one reason alone: this city’s long overdue for a love-in.
Leading the musical charge are Bowser and Blue, the legendary local duo who have made a career out of poking fun at our political situation and cultural quirks. Along with Director Roy Surette, they’ve adapted Bill Brownstein’s book on the beloved restaurant into a two-act celebration of everything that’s note-worthy about its on-going success. But does it all go down as easy as a smoked meat sandwich and a Cott Black Cherry Soda?
That depends on your tastes (…)
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Montreal, after all, is in her blood. For Auf der Maur, who now calls upstate New York home, the city will always be a roadmap of her career in the making. Ruelle Nick-Auf der Maur is a reminder of the larger-than-life Montreal figure she knew simply as her father. Close by is Concordia, where she graduated with a degree in photography. Over on The Main: Bifteck, where she worked five days a week to pay for said degree. Just a tad south is Foufounes Électriques; there, she saw the Smashing Pumpkins play for $1. It changed her life. A few years later, her band Tinker would be opening for them. Through Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, she met Courtney Love. Soon she was playing to huge crowds as a member of Hole. Six years after the Foufounes concert, she joined Smashing Pumpkins herself.
Neville Tranter: A friend of mine, a puppeteer from Austria, was doing a small festival to do with the traditional kind of show. In Germany, it’s called Kaspar; in France, Guignol, and in England, Punch and Judy. He asked me if I wanted to make a Kaspar show and I said, “I will, but the English version, Punch and Judy.” I’ve never made it easy for myself and I’ve never dealt with a modern theme, so I placed everything in Afghanistan because I was curious. I really wanted to know, for myself, if it is possible to make a theatre performance of Afghanistan.
According to organizers of the annual Montreal puppetry festival, les Trois Jours de Casteliers, in the ’70s there was a kind of puppetry renaissance in Quebec. The momentum has continued until today and there are now over 30 professional puppet theatre companies in the province, performing for adult and all-ages audiences. Encouraged by the quality and dynamism of such companies here and abroad, the Casteliers event was founded in 2005 to further encourage excellence in the art of puppetry, locally and around the world.
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