Arts& culture
A look at upcoming arts and entertainment events in the Annappolis Valley:
Fundy Cinema film screenings
Fundy Cinema screens Meditation Park. Mina Shum directs an all-star cast — including Cheng Pei Pei and Sandra Oh — in a tender and charming drama about a devoted wife and mother who is forced to reassess her reverence for her husband after she finds another woman’s undergarment in his laundry.
Meditation Park will be shown March 11 at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Al Whittle Theatre, 450 Main St., Wolfville.
Fundy Cinema will also screen Spettacolo, which is an engaging documentary about the tiny Tuscan village of Montichiello and the remarkable way its population devised to confront their issues, by creating and performing an original piece of theatre every year, which has kept their thei town together since 1967 19 but is now threatened by an aging population and more modern leisure activities.
Spettacolo will be shown March 14 at 7 p.m. at the Al Whittle Theatre.
Tickets are $9 for each show and are available 30 minutes before screening.
Go To: fundycinema.ca
Go To: facebook.com/FundyCinema-1692183731024542
Contact 902-542-1050
King’s Film Society screening
King’s Film Society screens The Post on March 16 at 7 p.m. and March 18 at 2 p.m. at King’s Theatre in Annapolis Royal.
In this Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, Steven Spielberg directs Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in a thrilling drama about the unlikely partnership between The Washington Post’s Katharine Graham (Streep), the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), as they race to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spanned three decades and four U.S. presidents.
Tickets: $10 for adults, $9 with a Film Buff card, $8 for youth. General admission seating. Doors open 45 minutes before show time.
Acadia Performing Arts series presents Inside/Out
The Acadia Performing Arts Series presents Inside/Out, a prison memoir by Patrick Keating at the Festival Theatre in Wolfville on March 17 at 7:30 p.m. It’s a production by Neworld Theatre in association with Main Street Theatre and Urban Crawl.
Keating is kind, soft-spoken and sincere. Inside/Out is his real-life story of years spent in and out of Canada’s penitentiary system. And that’s the thing — you look at Keating and think, ‘this guy robbed a bank?’ Keating’s honest and engaging delivery of his funny, sad, and stirring true story helps dismantle our ideas of what a ‘criminal’ looks like — and helps us better understand how language, race and class play a very real part in our lives as Canadians. It’s about a man’s search for community: the community of the street, the community of prison, and of the theatre.
Inside/Out was written and performed by Keating.
Tickets: $26 adults, $20 students. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the Acadia University Box Office in person, by phone at 902-542-5500 or 1-800-542TICK(8425), or online at http:// boxoffice.acadiau.ca
Apocalyptic Quartet at Acadia
Performed for the first time some 77 years ago in a prisoner-of-war camp near Breslau, Germany, the quartet for violin, clarinet, cello, and piano — the instruments and players available in the camp to French composer, and prisoner, Olivier Messiaen — Quartet for the End of Time — will be heard on the Acadia campus on March 11, at 2 p.m. in the Garden Room of the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre.
This is the first program of 2018 in the Sunday Music in the Garden Room series, and is a rare opportunity to experience, live, Messiaen’s overpowering Quartet for the End of Time. It will be performed by Gillian Smith (violin), Eileen Walsh (clarinet), Benjamin Marmen (cello), and Simon Docking (piano). The quartet has been described by American music critic Alex Ross as “the most ethereally beautiful music of the 20th century.”
Admission is free.
Go online: https://artsacadia. acadiau. ca/ Sunday_ Music_ in_ the_Garden_Room.html
At Jack’s Gallery
Acadia University Studio Art and Jack’s Gallery at 450 Main St., in Wolfville, presents Haydon Ali: The Garden until April 29.
Ali is a fourth-year sociology student at Acadia University who is minoring in studio art. This exhibition represents a culmination of his participation in an independent study course, with his professor Judith Leidl.
The Garden was inspired by flowers discovered in the various countries Ali lived in growing up. These florals aim to convey a sense of the textures, colours, and fragrances from his memories as an expat youth overseas.
Rumors at Centre Stage
CentreStage Theatre takes the edge off the winter blahs with Neil Simon’s farce Rumors.
At a large, tastefully appointed Sneden’s Landing townhouse, the deputy mayor of New York City has shot himself on the night of his 10th wedding anniversary party. Though only a flesh wound, the four couples invited experience a severe attack of farcical ‘cover-up’.
Lawyer Ken and his wife Chris arrive to find the deputy mayor bleeding in another room and no sign of his wife. They must get the “story” straight before the other guests arrive. As the confusions and miscommunications mount, the evening spins off into hilarity... and that’s even before the cops arrive!
Remaining shows are March 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, and 24, with doors opening for the evening performances at 6:45 p.m. Matinees will be held March 11, 18 and 25, with doors opening at 1:15 p.m.
Tickets are: adults $15; seniors/ students $12; children age 12 and under, $5. CentreStage takes cash or cheques only. Reservations are held until 15 minutes before show time.
Please note there is a coarse language advisory for this show.
Call 902-678-8040 for reservations.
Go online: www.centrestagetheatre.ca
Shannon Quinn at Kentville Ceilidh
Halifax fiddler Shannon Quinn performs at the St. Patrick’s Ceilidh Dance on March 16 at the Tir na nOg Irish Dance Academy upstairs from the school’s studio in the ballroom of the newly refurbished Cornwallis Inn.
Quinn is known for her recent work with Nova Scotia legend Joel Plaskett; as a soloist with Symphony Nova Scotia; and also for numerous awards she has won and been nominated for through Music Nova Scotia and the Canadian Folk Awards.
Performances further afield include sharing the stage with megastar acts such as Cirque de Soleil, The Chieftains and even acclaimed rock band, Down With Webster.
Tickets are on sale in advance from Wilson’s Phamasave in Kentville for $10. Kids aged five and under can go for free. Tickets at the door are $15.
Hillsburn at Mermaid Theatre
East Coast Music Award-winning Hillsburn performs March 10 at 8 p.m. at Mermaid Theatre, 106 Gerrish St. in Windsor.
Hillsburn was formed in 2014 through a chance meeting of four musician friends who hit it off when they first played together. What began as a string band now decidedly is not. Synths and electric guitar replaced banjo and mandolin, and the addition of a full drum kit helped push things more in the direction of pop and rock. Hillsburn has, in other words, come into its own.
Tickets are $23 advance; $25 at the door. They are available at Ticketpro.ca; by phone at 888-3119090 or in person at Windsor Home Hardware or at any other Ticketpro outlet.
Rachel Beck at Union Street March 16
East Coast songstress Rachel Beck, known for her work with sister Amy in the Beck Sisters, debuts her self-titled first solo album March 2 and is supporting its release with a Maritime tour that includes a stop at Union Street in Berwick on March 16.
The album is described as ‘super beautiful’ and Beck’s voice as ‘incredibly captivating.’ If you hit Union Street on March 16 note a trio of songs off the new album — Reckless Heart, Hearts on Fire, and Nothing In Between.
Reckless Heart entered CBC Radio 2’s Top 20 countdown the first of February. The album is produced and recorded by Daniel Ledwell (Jenn Grant, David Myles, Fortunate Ones).
Rachel Beck with Adyn Townes on March 16. Doors open at 6 p.m. and show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets at https://theunionstreet.com
Rose Cousins at Evergreen
Rose Cousins is back, and on March 17 performs at Evergreen Theatre in East Margaretsville where they are thrilled to host the show which will feature songs from her new album Natural Conclusion. Phone: 902-825-6834
Go online: www.evergreentheatre.ca
Quick As A Wink does Mousetrap
Mike Butler, theatre-go-toguy, tells us that Quick as a Wink Theatre Society, Windsor’s local theatre company, brings their production of the world’s longest running play to the stage. Quick as a Wink presents Dame Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery, The Mousetrap, a thriller which blends dark humour, a serpentine plot and an ending which has been heralded as the “biggest secret in theatre.”
Performances will take place at the Fountain Performing Arts Centre of King’s-Edgehill School in Windsor March 16, 17, 23 and 24, at 7 p.m. with special matinees March 17, 18 and 24 at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at QAAW.ca, at The Box of Delights Bookshop in Wolfville, and at Mosaic Market in Windsor.
Smokin’ Blues Fest
If you’re making your summer plans, here’s one that should make your list. The Smokin’ Blues Fest at the Hants County Exhibition Grounds in Windsor July 6 and 7 boasts a lineup of great blues and rockin’ blues talent including the Christine Campbell Band, John Campbelljohn, Beauwater, the Kendra Gale Band, the Dan Doiron Band, Ced, Martyy & Dave, Curtis Matheson, amd the Logan Richard Band — and that’s just for starters. More acts are being added.
The event, dubbed ‘A Beacon of East Coast Blues’ is open to all ages, includes and after-hours acoustic jam, has free parking, on-site camping, and food and artisan vendors. Kids 12 and under get in free.
Go to www.smokinbluesfest.ca for day and weekend passes that start at $20.