HicksBiz Blog
Category: Citadel Theatre
Citadel Theatre
Crazy For You
Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
March 4-26, 2017
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, Hicksbiz.com
It was an audacious daring experiment, even as Momma Mia was being awkwardly built around a framework of ABBA songs.
In 1992, playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me A Tenor) took the classic hits of George and Ira Gershwin from the 1920s and 1930s, stitching them into a successful new Broadway “jukebox” comedy musical that utterly captured the spirit and humour of the songs and their era, and, at the same time, had a strong story line – not just a series of sketches hung between songs.
The Citadel’s version of Crazy For You, in partnership with Theatre Calgary, works like a damn.
It’s big, boisterous, full of fun, silliness, and word-play groaners. The plot is pure fluff, but it’s fun fluff – show girls, dreams, cow pokes, crazy impresarios, veering in locale from New York City to Deadrock, Nevada.
The dancing is vaudeville tap-dancing ...
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Commentary on the Citadel Theatre's unveiling of its 2017/18 season
by GRAHAM HICKS, Hicksbiz.com
Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
February 13, 2017
The sigh of relief was audible last week among seasoned Citadel Theatre fans in Edmonton, as, play by play, new artistic director Daryl Cloran unveiled the 2017/18 season.
This kid, the grizzled veterans of Edmonton theatre thought to themselves, is for real.
Until the 2017/18 season announcement, we didn’t know quite what to think of Cloran.
The Citadel board search committee had plenty of time, almost a full year, to find a replacement for past artistic director Bob Baker. Baker had announced his retirement after 17 excellent years at the helm of the theatre. He continues an association with The Citadel as artistic director emeritus.
The board was excited about Cloran, who during six seasons as director of Kamloops’ innovative Western Canada Theatre had built a national reputation for both innovation and aud ...
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Disgraced
Hope & Hell Theatre Company
Citadel Theatre, Shoctor Stage, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Jan. 21, 2017 to Feb. 5, 201
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, HicksBiz.com
Tickets
Disgraced is a damned fine play, with its current production at the Citadel Theatre being good, but not great. It is part of the Citadel’s season, but is produced by the Toronto-based Hope and Hell Theatre Company. In other words, nobody from the Citadel Theatre had any input into what’s on stage.
If one of the Citadel’s past cadre of directors – artistic director emeritus Bob Baker, former associate directors James MacDonald and Tom Wood – had been at the artistic reins, this would likely have been a great show. All three directors are masters of this particular style of play. (I can’t yet include new Citadel artistic director Daryl Cloran. His directorial debut won’t come until the 2017/18 season.)
Disgraced is one of those relentlessly contemporary dramas that ticks off all ...
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Fortune Falls
Book by Jonathan Christenson and Beth Graham
Music and Lyrics by Jonathan Christenson
A Catalyst Theatre Production, presented in association with the Citadel Theatre
At the Citadel Theatre’s Maclab Stage (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
Ticket information
January 17, 2017 to February 5, 2017
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, Hicksbiz.com
What, I wondered as the house lights came back up, was that all about?
How could the taut, focused scripts of the Jonathan Christenson we know and love have dissolved into the muddle that had unfolded before our eyes?
Christenson is an extraordinary story teller. In his best work, style, music, movement, sets, costumes and attitude relentlessly focus on telling that story.
Christenson’s best shows start with alienation, usually taking famous outliers of literature - Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe, the hunchback of Notre Dame, Vigilante’s Donnelly family - re-telling their stories through his creative process, turb ...
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A Christmas Carol
Adapted for the stage by Tom Wood
Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Nov. 26, 2016 to Dec. 23, 2016
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, Hicksbiz.com
Tickets at www.citadeltheatre.com, $25 to $110
Parking: Downtown Library Parkade, $10 evening
Nobody does old/miserable/crotchety/irritated in Canadian theatre better than Tom Wood.
So what a treat to have Wood back, after a seven-year absence, to play Scrooge in the 17th annual production of A Christmas Carol at the Citadel Theatre.
No slight on the other Scrooges in the intervening years, they’ve all brought much to the role.
But Wood is a living, breathing, real Scrooge. He is Scrooge incarnate, and his transformation through miserable, to regret, to despair and finally redemptive joy is an intense, rich, emotional experience.
It helps that Wood has a certain intimacy with the role. He wrote it! Wood created the Citadel’s stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol, originally w ...
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Million Dollar Quartet
Citadel Theatre, Shoctor Stage, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Oct. 22 to Nov. 6, 2016
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, hicksbiz.com
Tickets
Holy moly, Lord have mercy, great balls of fire, it’s a miracle!
Well, not quite. But damn near.
Somehow, the Citadel Theatre found the perfect four actors for its production of Million Dollar Quartet, running through November 13, 2016 on the Shoctor Stage.
Piano virtuoso, singer and madcap actor Christo Graham embodies the spirit, cheekiness and looks of Jerry Lee Lewis.
Guitarist, singer and actor Kale Penny plays every complex Carl Perkins’ guitar lick as if were his own.
Singer/actor Christopher Fordinal’s reincarnation of the young Elvis Presley will be a life-long meal ticket.
Singer/actor Greg Gale impersonates (in the best sense of the word) Johnny Cash’s mannerisms plus possesses a melodious baritone that is uncannily Cash-like.
The context of the ...
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Playing at the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
September 17, 2016 to October 9, 2016
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, Hicksbiz.com
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, at the Citadel Theatre through October 9, 2016, is one of the most interesting, multi-layered and thoughtful plays to have come along in a long, long time.
Ostensibly, it’s about a high-functioning autistic young teenager, Christopher, trying to find out who killed his neighbour’s dog.
Boil down the plot and the swirling collage of scenes and characters: In a compelling sub-text, author Mark Haddon (and, one presumes, stage adapter Simon Stephens) shakes his head at the inability of modern adults to sustain deep, loving life-long relationships, especially in the context of children and their needs.
Curious Incident is a subtle meditation upon (and a magnificent creative illustration of) the emotional effects of parental break-up on c ...
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West Side Story,
Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
April 23 to May 22, 2016
Featuring the participants of the 2016 Citadel/Banff Centre Professional Theatre Program
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, www.hicksbiz.com
Eight years ago, The Citadel Theatre and the Banff Centre embarked upon a professional theatre training program for young-ish actors well into their acting careers but taking time out to refresh their skills.
It’s been highly, highly successful, both for the actors and especially for Citadel Theatre audiences. Because after a month of general theatre training in Banff, the 20-or-so actors descend on Edmonton to continue their training within the context of rehearsing and performing a major show as a finale to the current Citadel Theatre’s season.
I couldn’t tell you how the economics work, but the fact is with the Professional Theatre Program, the Citadel has at its disposal some 20 fine young actors, full of vim and vigour and renewed enthusiasm, with the capacit ...
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Other Desert Cities
Playing at the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta Canada
April 9 to May 1, 2016
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, hicksbiz.com
In a 50th anniversary Citadel Theatre season that has exploded with so much theatrical brilliance - Boom, Evangeline, Christmas Carol, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Alice Through the Looking-Glass and the upcoming West Side Story, Other Desert Cities ranks as the season's only dud.
There are a handful of great American dramas dealing with family dysfunction - heck, American playwrights aren’t comfortable unless they are hurling grenades at the All-American family.
But Other Desert Cities, playing at the Citadel Theatre through May 1, 2016, isn’t one of them.
This is a lightweight play delusionally convinced it’s a heavyweight.
Other Desert Cities has universal themes, dwelling deeply on the right, or downright need, of writers to express their beliefs and opinions no matter the emotional damage to others. It's e ...
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Alice Through The Looking Glass
Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Feb. 27 to March 20, 2016
Adapted for the stage by James Reaney, from the Lewis Carroll classic.
Tickets
Review by GRAHAM HICKS, Hicksbiz.com
To truly enjoy the Citadel’s frothy, Cirque de Soleil-like production of Alice Through the Looking-Glass, look not for underlying philosophy, ideology or theology. Relax, sit back, and simply enjoy the theatrical feast laid before your very eyes.
This is a production of non-stop delightful moments, showing off the ability of professional theatre to create illusion at its very finest. It’s about costume and colour, superb team-work and great comedy – mostly of the physical variety. When this stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic tones down to serious, or at least explanatory, it stumbles and goes cold as was the case in Act. 1.
Once Alice (Ellie Heath) has popped through the looking glass into her dream world (or is it the Red Kin ...
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