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Dance
Dancing to the White Stripes, and a little bit of Alice
National Ballent of Canada's next season features the big three choreographers, Wheeldon, McGregor and Ratmansky
Theatre Review
Mad, monstrous and very good
Assassins, the 1991 musical currently getting a low-budget but high-calibre revival in Toronto, takes a sardonic look at the dark side of the American Dream.
Shaw Festival could face strike
Union says festival is failing to negotiate
London Theatre
Enron: Subtlety isn’t its strong suit
A complex and believable portrait of the connivers behind one of the worst frauds in corporate history
Theatre
Winter showcase gives Fringe hits a second life
Some of the productions get picked up by larger theatres, proving the festival's worth as a springboard
Theatre
Legally Blonde in London: infectious fun
Broadway dumped her, but Legally Blonde turns heads in London
Theatre
Sex, politics and thesps on wild stage romp
Simplistic politics enlivened by complex performances
Puppetry
Jeff Dunham: ‘My goal is to make people laugh'
Even the ventriloquist himself is surprised to be one of top stand-ups in North America
THEATRE
Setting the stage for England's other Churchill
Why Caryl Churchill is the greatest living U.K. playwright
Theatre Review
Brian Dennehy is two sad old men
The two-time Tony winner has relaxed into the role and is less hesitant to clown around
Billy the kid steps closer to Toronto
The Elton John-composed musical, based on the 2000 film about a British working-class boy who dreams of being a ballet dancer, has already been a hit in London, Australia and New York.
Arts
‘Spirits at play’ in creation of Haida rock musical
After a long gestation, Bruce Ruddell’s haunting theatre piece, inspired by a 1957 expedition, has come to the stage in Vancouver
An intervention into native identity leads to more questions
90 minutes of soul-searching. That’s the stage version of The Edward Curtis Project.
Spice Girls songs get stage show
A stage production based on the songs of the Spice Girls is to be created by Judy Craymor, the woman behind the Abba-inspired musical Mamma Mia!
Arts listings
The week in theatre
Beyond Eden Bruce Ruddell's new rock musical is being premiered, with John Mann (of Spirit of the West fame) bringing his inimitable, melancholic voice to the project. Mann stars as anthropologist Lewis Wilson, who journeys to the Haida village of Ninstints in an attempt to save a set of waterlogged, beetle-infested totem poles. Inspired by the 1957 expedition made by local anthropologists and the legendary Haida artist Bill Reid to "save" totem poles from their ancestral island home and preserve them in an urban museum.
Canucks on short list for drama prize
Two Canadians are on the short list for the $20,000 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, given out annually to an English-language woman playwright.