STUDENT PLAYWRIGHTS

NEW WORK STATE OF MIND

The annual New Works Festival—featuring premieres of one-act plays by U of A drama students—runs until February 16 at the Second Playing Space in the Timms Centre. Here are the shows we’re anticipating the most: Joel Crichton’s A Political Drama, about the murder of the leading candidate in a municipal election; Scott Garland’s Half a League, an end-of-innocence drama in the vein of Mark Twain’s “The Mysterious Stranger”; and David Johnston’s Snow Patrol, a gritty road-trip drama inspired by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin and not the wussy band whose music keeps turning up on Grey’s Anatomy.

FRANCOPHONE THEATRE

THE SHAPE OF A FILLE

Even if you factor in such Shakespearean perennials as Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night, it’s hard to think of a play that’s been performed more often in Edmonton over the last eight years than Joan MacLeod’s The Shape of a Girl. And with good reason: this one-woman show loosely inspired by the Reena Virk case is the rare “issue play” that refuses to condescend to its teen audiences or supply easy answers to the moral questions it raises. A French translation of the show, now called Cette fille-là, and starring Stéphanie Kym Tougas, plays La Cité francophone from February 14-16.

GALLERY FUNDRAISER

’80s AND GENTLEMEN

If you read the “50 Buck” column in last week’s issue of SEE, you know all about how Ashley Andel spent an entire day combing through the dusty bins of Edmonton’s many used-record stores, trying to find enough vintage LPs to last an entire night DJing an ’80s-themed dance party. Well, if you attend Latitude 53’s 53 Ways to Leave Your Lover fundraiser on February 16, you can see if that half-a-hundred was well-spent. And if you don’t, well... see if you can do any better with your money at the silent auction.  Tickets range in price from $8-$12—a steal!—and are available at Latitude 53 (10248-106 St).