Abigail McDougall, Hayley Moorhouse, Larissah Lashley, Jayce McKenzie in Robot Girls, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.

The Theory of Relativity, Concordia University. Photo by Mat Simpson.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Wheee. It’s the weekend, and your entertainment on Edmonton theatre stages awaits. Check out some possibilities.

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In a cross-company pooling of talent, Trevor Schmidt’s new comedy Robot Girls premieres at Shadow Theatre. Four teenage girls at a charter school join the science club, and undertake building a robot together for an international competition. It’s a comedy, yes, but for Schmidt comedy always has darker undertones or top notes. Schmidt, the artistic director of Northern Light Theatre, has compared Robot Girls in tone to Kathryn Walat’s Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen, a play about a girl changing the boy culture at her school that Northern Light Theatre, under Schmidt, staged a few seasons ago.

Robot Girls runs at the Varscona Theatre through March 31. A 12thnight review is coming up shortly. Tickets: shadowtheatre.org.  And while you’re at it, have a peek at 12thnight’s preview of the upcoming Northern Light season, Making A Monster, announced 10 days ago.  

The Sound of Music (Priya Narine with guitar), Citadel Theatre/ Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Photo by Nanc Price.

•At the Citadel, the halls are alive with The Sound of Music. Check out the 12thnight review of this musical theatre classic, a shared Citadel/ Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production directed by Rachel Peake (The Garneau Block, 9 to 5). It runs through March 31 on the Shoctor stage.

•Darrin Hagen directs a cast of 24 —“20-year-olds playing 20-year-olds” — in The Theory of Relativity at at Concordia University. He calls the unconventional musical cum song cycle “a love letter from 20-year-olds to all the people who got them to this point. And it’s beautiful! So full of positivity!” In this it reminds Hagen of the spirit infusing Fame.

The 2014 song and monologue cycle by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill, commissioned by the Canadian Musical Theatre Project at Sheridan College (a theatre school specializing in musical theatre), was a suggestion from musical director Cathy Derkach. “It’s full of lead roles,” Hagen says of “a smart musical” that’s ideal for young actors. “Everyone gets a song!”

It doesn’t have a plot per se, but themes weave in and out and characters recur. Hagen, a songwriter himself (as well as an actor/ playwright/ sound designer/ composer/ activist), admires the way the musical touches on love and loss, home and childhood, relationships, disappointment, divergent paths through life, all the issues of that pivotal moment of life — from the immigrant experience to diversity — “but touches down lightly.” Apples and Oranges, for example, is “all about being queer,” but without leaning on it, says Hagen.   

“And I got to do girl group choreography for the first time in 20 years!”

The Theory of Relativity runs at Concordia University’s Al and Trish Huehn Theatre March 15 to 24. Tickets: concordia.ab.ca.

•Continuing at the Mayfield: One Night With the King runs through March 31. Tickets: mayfieldtheatre.ca.

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