Openings We're Tracking This Week, October 10-16, 2011

Nancy Palk

The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre is either lucking into a really good thing this week, with a new musical adaptation of the movie Grumpy Old Men, or is going to be the butt of a lot of "where careers go to die" jokes. Starring in the show are three American actors: Susan (Goldengirl) Anton, Conrad John (McMillan and Wife) Schuck and John (the doctor who delivered Chandler and Monica's babies in Friends) Rubenstein.

We like Nancy Palk and we like Ibsen and we really like Morris Panych. So the combination of Panych as translator/adaptor/director of Ibsen's dark and wondrous Ghosts featuring Mme Palk sure seems like a sure thing. At Soulpepper in repertory.

Artists from across the county can tell you stories of Walterdale Playhouse, in Edmonton. It is the birthplace of so many careers - we can thank them for George Ryga's and Brad Fraser's. This week the little (amateur) theatre that could is taking on another doozy: Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty.  The New York Times' Ben Brantley said of it, "The play begins with what is probably the most intense, expletive-driven, flesh-searing argument in the fiery LaBute canon..." Lordie...