Simon Abbott, Cameron Kneteman, Mhairi Berg, Maureen Rooney in Morningside Road, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

It’s a week of bounty in Edmonton theatre (your biggest problem is choice). Much-awaited new plays are premiering and so is a full-bodied multi-generational dance/theatre extravaganza. A gem of a new musical continues its run. Continuing too is an involving, heart-warming and funny show invites us to think about the stuff we just can’t throw away. A Canuck classic lands once more. And, hey, stories from our own dark history return from the grave, as cues in improv.

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The theatre, my friends, can be a magical place. And you should be there.

Michele Fleiger and Maralyn Ryan in Wildcat, Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre. Photo supplied.

•Wildcat, Nicole Moeller’s much-anticipated new crime caper (an intriguing pairing of playwright and genre in itself), finally opens at Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre.

The premiere at the Gateway Theatre comes after an eerie and mysterious chain of theatre technology breakdowns. Not only that, opening night happens in an appalling week in Alberta labour history. Which gives Moeller’s caper (lighter than usual for her, she tells 12thnight) an added edge, you’d think, since the protagonist Dot (Michele Fleiger) has a personal history in the labour movement, the strikes and protests of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The heavy-hitter cast of Heather Inglis’s production is led by veteran theatre stars Fleiger and Maralyn Ryan, with Melissa Thingelstad and Graham Mothersill. Have a peek at the 12thnight interview with the playwright here. It runs through Nov. 9 at the Gateway (8529 Gateway Blvd), Tickets (all pay-what-you-will): workshopwest.org.

Cast of Tough Guy by Hayley Moorhouse, Persistent Myth Productions at Edmonton Fringe Theatre. Photo supplied

•The ignition of Hayley Moorhouse’s new play Tough Guy, premiering in the Fringe Theatre season Thursday (a Persistent Myth production) is a tragedy: a shooting at a queer nightclub. In a world that’s tough and getting tougher all the time, it chronicles the lives of a circle of queer friends, and the amazing resilience of queer joy as they grapple with the emotional fallout. Brett Dahl’s production at the Backstage Theatre in the Fringe Arts Barns (10330 84 Ave.) runs Thursday through Nov. 8. Meet the playwright in a 12thnight preview here.

Elisa Marina-Sanchez, Ecos, Diaspora Diaries Productions. Photo supplied.

•It’s a big week for Common Ground Arts. Tough Guy was developed there, in the RISER initiative. And so was Ecos (formerly El Funeral), a journey from the Found Festivals of 2021 and 2023 to their new Prairie mainstage Series. It’s the work of Edmonton playwright Elisa Marina-Sánchez. The Diaspora Diaries Collective production directed, in both Spanish and English, by Andrés F. Moreno and Jenna Rogers, features a seven-artist cast of Latin-American heritage: Tatiana Duque, Victor Snaith Hernandez, Alexandra Lainfiesta, Ana Mulion, Phany Peña, Fernando Garcia Reyes, and Jason Romero. Ecos, a co-presentation of Common Ground and Mile Zero Dance, runs at the latter’s headquarters (9931 78 Ave.) Thursday through Nov. 9. Tickets: fringetheatre.ca.

Naomi Snieckus and Matt Baram in Big Stuff, Baram and Snieckus at Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

•Ever since I saw Big Stuff in the Citadel’s Rice Theatre I can’t stop thinking about it. The married comedy duo Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus with director/co-creator Kat Sandler have created something irresistibly funny and touching — and entirely original in the way the show wraps around their own unfolding love story and embraces, in a specially welcoming kind of improv with us, our own stories of people we’ve lost and the connections we value, through toasters we don’t need and oddball objets d’art … you know, stuff. Theatre is full of stories of people who arrive in relationships with “baggage.” Big Stuff, though, is about … stuff, the stuff we accumulate, the stuff, no matter how small and useless we can’t bear to part with because it’s embedded in memory and wrapped in emotional connection. What are we supposed to do with all our stuff? 

It’s a lovely show, funny, warm-hearted, insightful, and I loved it. Read the 12thnight review here. And 12thnight talked to the pair in a preview here. It continues through Nov. 9. Tickets: citadeltheatre.com.

Mhairi Berg and Maureen Rooney in Morningside Road, Shadow Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.

•There’s a “new Canadian Celtic musical” at Shadow Theatre. And if you haven’t seen Morningside Road yet, you really should. By Mhairi Berg with music by Simon Abbott, it takes a cast (and a live band) of three into a story about stories, and a kind of haunting. A Canadian girl (Berg) is fascinated by the romance of her grandmother’s stories about growing up in Edinburgh on that road, before, during, and after the war. And gradually, as Granny’s memory gets eroded by dementia the layers of her story multiply.

The ways the past inhabits the present, as remembered and as imagined, are intricate, and surprising. And Lana Michelle Hughes’ production, starring Berg, Maureen Rooney, and Cameron Kneteman, weaves a spell. The music by Berg and Abbott is terrific. The 12thnight review is here. And a preview interview with Mhairi Berg is here. Morningside Road runs through Sunday at the Varscona (10329 83 Ave.). Tickets: shadowtheatre.org.  

Steven Greenfield in Billy Bishop Goes To War, Edmonton Repertory Theatre. Photo supplied.

•A new company, Edmonton Repertory Theatre, launches its first season with a production of a Canadian classic, the 1978 two-hander musical Billy Bishop Goes To War, by John MacLachlan Gray in collaboration with actor Eric Peterson. Its wry view of what “hero” means in Canadian terms, is built into its chronicle of the young, self-deprecating, accident-prone underachiever who becomes a World War I flying ace, his quixotic relationship with his colonial masters across the sea, and his darkening views of what war is all about. Gerry Potter’s production, starring Steven Greenfield and Cathy Derkach, lands the musical at a moment when this country is under siege. Have a look at the 12thnight preview with the director here, and the review here. You’ll find the show at a newly discovered theatre, the Biederman, in the Lifestyles Options Retirement Community (17203 99 Ave.). Tickets: eventbrite.com.

•Speaking as we are of phantoms and the thin veil that separates us from the Great Beyond, it’s the last week (Thursday through Saturday) for Ha-Ha-Haunting. Rapid Fire Theatre’s highly original seasonal co-opting of horror stories from the dark vault of our own history (researched by Dead Centre of Town resident playwright Megan Dart) lets a crack cast of improvisers loose on them. A nefarious comic agenda, am I right?  Who would do that (unnecessary question of the week)? Opening night was riotous (read about it here). Tickets: rapidfiretheatre.com.