Alana Bridgewater in Trouble in Mind, Citadel Theatre/ Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Photo by Nanc Price

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

On World Theatre Day, your thoughts naturally drift to the exciting prospect of the human connection of live theatre. Hey, it’s a theatre town, and there are choices.

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•Trouble in Mind, the play that opens Thursday at the Citadel takes us backstage in a theatre, where rehearsals are underway for a melodrama about lynching in the Jim Crow South. By the Black playwright Alice Childress, Trouble In Mind is about racism in the theatre, and it has a strange and troubling history of its own. Following its 1955 premiere in Greenwich Village, it was en route to a Broadway opening, and would have been the first-ever play by a Black woman to arrive on the Great White Way. But the playwright refused to make the changes demanded by white producers. And so it lingered in obscurity for the next 66 years, until revivals at the Shaw Festival and on Broadway happened in 2021.

The Citadel/ Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre co-production directed by Cherissa Richards arrives onstage here after a Winnipeg run. Tickets: 780-0425-1820, citadeltheatre.com.

•At Festival Place in Sherwood Park Wednesday and Thursday, in The Story of Linda Ronstadt, singer-actor Andrea House, a creative force field of a performer, is bringing the story and music of the music star to life.

Andrea House in The Story of Linda Ronstadt, Festival Place. Photo by Pam Lasuita

The show is an evocation of Ronstadt’s wide-ranging career, which embraces a startling musical versatility and political activism. You can expect to hear her timeless hits, Blue Bayou, You’re No Good, When Will I Be Loved among them, brought to life by House and a full band, with multi media trimmings too. The Thursday performance offers a pre-show dinner package, in support of The Parkinson’s Association of Alberta.

Tickets: 780-449-3378, festivalplace.ca.

•At the Citadel, Thursday through Sunday, Going Solo is “a celebration of singers who left the band to find success on their own,”  In country, rock R&B. You may perhaps have heard of Sting, or Paul Simon, or Paul McCartney, or Diana Ross (just for starters). The show is created by (and stars) theatre artists who were in the cast of hit Citadel production of Jersey Boys: Farren Timoteo, Daniela Fernandez, Steven Greenfield, Christina Nguyen. Tickets: 780-425-1820, citadeltheatre.com.

•The seventh annual SOUND OFF Festival of Deaf Theatre returns Tuesday for six days of adventurous shows, staged readings, workshops, panel discussions, for both Deaf and hearing audiences together. This year, as founder and artistic director Chris Dodd explains in a 12thnight.ca PREVIEW, the special focus is on dance. Tickets: fringetheatre.ca.

CONTINUING….

Fragmented Journeys by Fragmented Journey Collective/ Sandra Olarte, at Expanse Festival 2023. Photo supplied.

Azimuth Theatre’s Expanse movement arts festival continues this week, through Sunday. Azimuth’s co-artistic producer Morgan Yamada talks to 12thnight about the 2023 lineup in this PREVIEW. Tickets and full schedule: azimuththeatre.com.

Pride and Prejudice, a funny, physically rambunctious version of Jane Austen’s 1813 sparkler, continues on the Citadel MainStage through Sunday. 12thnight.ca talked to Gianna Vacirca, who plays the spirited Elizabeth Bennet, in this PREVIEW. And here’s the 12thnight.ca REVIEW. Tickets: 7980-425-1820, citadeltheatre.com. 

•At Shadow Theatre Karen Hines’ sharp-eyed satire All The Little Animals I Have Eaten continues through Sunday, in a production directed by Alexandra Dawkins. 12thnight.ca talked to the playwright in this PREVIEW. Here’s the 12thnight REVIEW.