So far, I've seen 19 shows that are playing the Vancouver Fringe Festival. (I saw ten of 'em in Victoria.) Kathleen Oliver, my pal and colleague at the Straight, also saw 10 in Victoria and she has seen another five here. KO's top pick so far is Bookworm. I'm a big...

Okay, I want to join the Die Roten Punkte fanclub. The Cultch opened its 2012/2013 season last night with Die Roten Punkte's new show, Eurosmash. Die Roten Punkte, which translates as The Red Dots, is a two-person parody band. Its German members Astrid and Otto Rot...

            Stories are about struggles—successful or not—to grow in wisdom and understanding. In a HAPPY story, the hero starts from a position of relative weakness or vulnerability, decides to face his fear, struggles to overcome his...

A strong story hangs from the clear, simple spine of a consistent, though deepening goal. The protagonist refines his goal and his understanding of his goal changes, but he does not shift his focus from one distinct goal to another. To say this another way: the Act 3...

Titanic, which I saw at Malkin Bowl the other night, is an oddly non-flashy musical. There's virtually no dancing and there are no big show tunes. Still, it's a very satisfying work and director Max Reimer gives it an extraordinarily handsome production. On one level,...

SFU's Praxis Centre for Screenwriters is a terrific resource. They have just announced a workshop that might be of interest to some of you. Here's the info: West Coast Screenwriting principals, Keith Digby (Young Alexander, Time Exposures) and Brian Paisley (Lies Like...

I got back from Mexico City on Friday. Despite dire warnings from nearly every Canadian I talked to, I am still alive and I had a fantastic trip. The people are warm, the museums are unbelievable and EcoBici, the city bike system, is liberation itself. My pal Luis and...

I saw Peter Birnie at Xanadu last night. It's the last show that Peter will review; like a lot of other writers at the Sun and Province, he has accepted an early retirement package. Pete tells me that the Sun will fill the position with somebody who's already on...

  The most common problem that I run into is passive protagonists. It's also one of the easiest and most rewarding problems to fix. I have read drafts that were full of beautiful descriptive prose and almost no action. These manuscripts seduce at first, but very...