Andrew MacDonald-Smith and Alexander Ariate in The Odd Couple, Teatro Live! Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.
The Lion King, Broadway Across Canada. Photo by Matthew Murphy
By Liz Nicholls, .ca
“There’s more to be seen than can ever be seen.” OK, Rafiki the shaman baboon isn’t singing about the week in Edmonton theatre at the start of The Lion King. But, heck, he could have been; you have choices.
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Among them, movies magically transformed into stage productions, a mysterious experiment in connecting with the dead, a classic stage comedy, a comedy about the classics….
•The return to these parts today, after nearly a decade, of Julie Taymor’s 1997 musical, a non-pareil triumph in conjuring an imaginary world. The Lion King, which magically transforms the 1994 Disney Corp movie animation into a stage musical with exclusively animal characters, has been here before, a couple of times, under the Broadway Across Canadian banner. The stagecraft is magical: rod puppets, stunningly inventive headgear and appendages that transform human actors into animals. And they come to life in a Shakespearean coming-of-age story of usurpation, dispossession, exile, restoration. It runs on the Jube stage till July 27. Tickets: ticketmaster.ca.
•At the Citadel, pink rules, in a Broadway musical fuelled by an anthem to empowerment and self-belief. Pink-powered Legally Blonde, which started as a novel, became a hit movie and then arrived onstage singing and dancing, tells a tale of the California sorority girl who surprises everyone by going to Harvard Law School. The Citadel-Theatre Calgary co-production directed by Stephanie Graham officially opens Thursday and runs through August. 3. Tickets: citadeltheatre.com, 780-425-1820.
•The classic mismatched roommate comedy is at hand. Neil Simon’s 1965 gem The Odd Couple, which hasn’t been seen onstage in these parts for a couple of decades, is the season finale at Teatro Live!. Belinda Cornish’s production has an all-star cast led by Andrew MacDonald-Smith as the fastidious up-tight Felix and Alexander Ariate as the imperturbably slovenly Oscar. It runs at the Varscona through July 27.
Louise Casemore in Lucky Charm, Found Festival 2025. Photo by Brianne Jang
•Found, the festival of unexpected encounters with art and artists, is back. Surprise! You could find yourself in a grand Masonic hall, or a bedroom, or a “secret residential location.” And the mainstage presentation is, alluringly, an encounter with the greatest mystery of all. Is there life after death? Louise Casemore’s Lucky Charm, the feature presentation at the festival, invites you to the home of Bess Houdini, the widow of the most famous magician in the world, as she attempts to make contact beyond the Great Veil. Have a peek at ’s festival preview. And meet Louise Casemore, the creator and star of Lucky Charm, which runs through July 20 in a house in the Hazeldean neighbourhood, in this interview. The full schedule of Found Fest events, descriptions, and tickets: commongroundarts.ca.
•At Walterdale, Edmonton’s venerable community theatre, Shakespeare In Love, opening tonight at the company’s ex-firehall home in Strathcona, is a backstage pass to the fractious, competitive world of Elizabethan theatre in the 1590s. The stage version of the delightful 1998 Marc Norman/ Tom Stoppard movie rightfully claims its space in the live theatre, since that’s what it’s about. You’ll meet a promising young upstart, Will Shakespeare, who’s promised a beleaguered theatre manager a comedy “with a love story, and a dog.” C’mon, anyone could get writer’s block. Anne Marie Szucs’ production runs through July 19. Tickets: showpass.com.
