If you were to look solely at the Arden Theatre’s ticket sales for its first concerts, you would never guess Alberta’s economy is in a tailspin.
Connie Kaldor, a Juno Award winning folk-country recording artist who returned to the Arden after nearly a 10-year absence, opened the season with close to 400 tickets sold. The Arden Theatre has 500 seats.
Her warm stage presence, engaging repartee and pride in the prairies make her a concert favourite as she sang tunes from her new album, Love Sask.
There are fewer than 50 tickets left for the double bill of vocalist Tim Tamashiro and pianist Tommy Banks. Although from different eras, they blend mellow jazz styles tonight while performing influential hits from the Great American Songbook.
Banks, a larger-than-life figure throughout Canada, has spent six decades on the music scene as a pianist, bandleader and radio host. Tamashiro, the nightly host of Tonic, a jazz radio show on CBC Radio 2, spins the hits and through intimate stories reminds us how cool jazz is.
Radical Reels from the Banff Mountain Film Festival on Oct. 1 is all but sold out except for 30 tickets. Since it first screened at the Arden five years ago, the film series has attracted an ever-increasing number of adrenalin junkies.
The films combine some of the world’s most daring photography capturing fearless athletes in a variety of heart pumping stunts. As an example, they raft and crash through white water, fly over peaks of snow-covered rock and parachute upside down.
The Arden’s professional programming presenter Caitlyn North also debuts a Cinema Series tomorrow – Sept. 20 – with The Comedy of Errors filmed at the Globe Theatre.
Intended to provide a greater variety of options for audiences, the film series also includes the Royal Opera House’s La Boheme on Oct. 18, a Vincent Van Gogh documentary on Jan. 31 and the Royal Opera House’s ballet Romeo and Juliet on March 20.
Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors is a farce built around two sets of estranged twin brothers, scurrilous sorcery, furious slapstick and violent cross-purposes.
Judging by the heart-warming reviews from London’s elite newspapers, audiences left the Globe Theatre with broad grins splitting their faces.
For more information on all Arden Theatre shows visit stalbert.ca/experience/arden-theatre/.
