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Featuring independent film/DVD (feature, documentary, shorts - from Amadeus to Romeo and Juliet to Bowling for Columbine) classical/jazz CD productions and books as well as outstanding work from global performing arts companies (orchestra, chamber music, theatre & dance)!


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47th season is
all in the family

With the first frantic week of openings just behind us, it’s safe to say that the 47th season will be a vintage year.  Like the master vintners at the wineries which surround Niagara-on-the Lake, artistic director Jackie Maxwell has lovingly acquired the ingredients (scripts, directors, actors, designers and musicians) in the off season, mixed them carefully during rehearsals, let them ferment and mature during the oh-so-necessary previews before bottling the relationship-rich productions into the trio of venues that are as diverse as the plays within.

With the details below, those who admire the thrust-and-parry of cross examination will enjoy J.B. Priestly’s An Inspector Calls.  George Bernard Shaw’s Getting Married has as much if not more to say today than at its première at the Haymarket Theatre, London a century ago—not even a case of viral laryngitis could dampen the first night enthusiasm.

The North American première of Githa Sowerby’s recently discovered The Stepmother had Maxwell’s instincts and intuition firing on all cylinders.  In the must-see category comes Lillian Hellman’s master pillory of greed, chauvinism and racism in the South; The Little Foxes.  Sharry Flett’s performance is a gem.

continued...

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Quote of the Month

"A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience."

- John Updike
(1932-)
American novelist and short-story writer

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July 2008

John Updike

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