Wellington Oracle

The team behind last summer’s smash hit “Countries Shaped Like Stars” at the Ottawa Fringe are set to take scenes from their next project — “Tales from the Belly of a Whale” — to  Hintonburg this upcoming Saturday as part of a salon evening at Cube Gallery on Hamilton Avenue.

We’ve discussed the amazing creative force of MiCasa Theatre before in these pages; and this time around we’ve got audio from both of the MiCasas –Emily Pearlman and Nick Di Gaetano – as they discuss the  the way the take artistic inspiration from the concept of “not being wasteful”.

The evening will also feature music from Ottawa songwriter John Gillies and spoken voice artist Kel Parsons.

Image by Johnathan Marshall

The construction crews given the task of the long-awaited revamp of the Parkdale Market broke ground this week, and with their reconstruction under way, and a new emphasis on local growers and more space for vendors, the 2010 season is already shaping to be the most anticipated the venerable open-air market has seen in decades.

Paolo Copelli is the new market manager for the city, and in the audio link below he takes us through the time line for the physical changes we can expect to see over the next few months, culminating in a much larger L-shaped market area, with more room for shoppers better facilities for vendors. (more…)

 

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Following on a walking tour held earlier in the the month, a community workshop was held this past week at the Urban Element on Parkdale Avenue that brought together local residents and planners from McGill University to come up with ideas to make Parkdale a more pedestrian-friendly and livable street.

In the 1980s Parkdale was treated by regional road planners as little more than an off ramp for the Queensway, and the legacy of that mindset is a two-lane neighbourhood street choked with heavy traffic especially in the area between Scott and the Queensway.

Longtime residents of the street were in attendance at the workshop, and told of their frustrations in trying to get the city to implement traffic diversion schemes  that would ease  pressure on the notorious bottleneck. (more…)

 

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We’ve grown accustomed to it to the point where we hardly talk about it anymore, and with that silence we may be giving something up that will be impossible to get back.

But the quiet acceptance of ever-more-invasive security measures as we travel is precisely what a local theatre company will be running its own scanner over, starting with a public workshopping of a challenging new production called, appropriately, “Airport Security”.

Well-known actor Kris Joseph has been part of the project from the outset, and we caught up with him between rehearsals of summer Shakespeare in Prescott.

Check the audio link below to hear Kris reveal just what kind of experience audiences can expect to be part of at the Irving Greenberg next week.

A workshop performance of “Airport Security” will be performed by Gruppo Rubato in the studio of the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre on July 19 at 7.30 p.m; admission is on a “pay what you can” basis.

 

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Photo: Hintonburg Park will hosting two theatre productions in early July

And how did you get to be who you are?

The nature/nurture debate has been going for decades but after this upcoming Tuesday you just might come around to a new point of view; playwright and performer Eleanor Crowder claims that we are each the sum total of all the stories we have been told, starting with the ones we hear about our own families as we grew up.

That’s the premise of “Family Album” a performance booked to take place in Hintonburg Park on July 7, at 7.00 P.M. Click on the audio link below to hear Eleanor describe the kind of story that just might be revealed from her own past.

The show starts with stories from the performers’s own background using a “rehearsed improv” format and in the second, the stories are suggested by  audience members themselves. Perfect for children 6 and up, the play is the first of two coming to Hintonburg Park in the next fortnight. Company of Fools will be presenting their “Shakespeare in the Park” experience  with Much Ado about Nothing on the 15th, again at 7.00 P.M.

Both shows are free at the gate, but a hat is passed after the performance.

UPDATE: “Family Album” will also be featured in a backyard theatre performance on July 26, at 244 Northwestern Avenue, in Champlain Park. The show starts at 2.00 P.M. Tickets are available on-site at $10 for adults and $5 for children; proceeds go to the local charity “Achillea Endeavours”

 

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That’s the upside for  Hintonburg businesses and customers as they consider the effects of “Phase Two” of the Wellington Street West road reconstruction currently underway from Parkdale eastbound to Hilda.

The downside is a little scarier. Listen as Nat Myles from the Elmdale House explains just what is at stake for many of her neighbouring mechants who depend on daytime trade along the strip.

 

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Photo: Tree without its twin in front of Cube Gallery

Gallery owner Don Monet was in a despondent mood. Overnight, another one of the Cube’s trademark bonsai trees had gone missing, the thieves leaving a dirty trail of potting earth along the street in front of the well-known art and performance space.

Click below to hear Monet share the way the thieves — or vandals — left him feeling over the recent incident.

 

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Photo: Monique Lachappelle lines up a shot of her outdoor screen

For the past six years, Hintonburg has been at the heart of the Ottawa contribution to the movement to bring back outdoor movie-going after the demise of the drive-ins.

In conjunction with the Hintonburg Committee Association, Monique Lachappelle of the community centre at 1064 Wellington has been employing the wall of the adjacent building as a movie screen for summer-time film buffs since 2002.

The outdoor part of this summer’s series kicks off with a 9.00 PM showing of Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday, June 20.

Check the audio link below to hear Monique explain just how it came to be that Hintonburg’s only remaining cinema is in a parking lot beside a Subway sandwich bar.

 

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WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Our Roman spies tipped us off to the location of dangerous agitator H.R. Britton of Jesus Rant, and, imagine the cheek of it, the scandalous heretic was found proselytizing on the very steps of the auditorium!

Hear his testimony below, as the Oracle gives him a one last chance to account for his actions, and repent publicly. After that, we wash our hands of the whole business.

TUESDAY UPDATE: Like a Virgin, Leastest Flops, and total Chaotica– from Jimmy Hogg, Jem Rolls, and Christel Bartelse

MONDAY UPDATE: A tantalizing excerpt from Beverly Wolfe’s one-woman show “Jump”

SUNDAY UPDATE: Kel Parsons pitches Beer Tent – the show with a script so scandalous the author can no longer afford to show her face in public!

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It happened this past Sunday, three doors down from Parkdale Park. The screaming could be heard across the street — so loud a concerned business owner threatened to call the police. After closer investigation he realised there was already an officer on the scene.

As blood curdling as the cries were, it was quickly apparent to passers-by that perhaps the blood wasn’t quite real, the knives were props, and the screams were all in a day’s work for a company of actors rehearsing out of impresario Alan Dean’s studio space on Hamilton Street.

The play they were working on is called Satanic Panic (Or the Death of Al Pacino) and it makes its debut in during the Ottawa Fringe Festival this upcoming weekend.

(more…)

 

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