As establishing shots go, Jon Lachlan Stewart has crafted a beauty. Big Shot, his one-man show, opens with a shooting on Vancouver’s SkyTrain that is witnessed by a 12-year-old who is a big fan of action movies. Once the scene is set, Lachlan Stewart, who also performs Big Shot, puts himself through a series of jump cuts as he flits backwards and forwards in time and between characters. It’s a 75-minute physical tour de force during which the 26-year-old makes a somewhat contradictory point. Namely, that we have become passive consumers of tragedy. Lachlan Stewart sat still long enough to talk to Bruce Weir about these and other matters. 
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The ubiquitous blues-rockers take on the widely loathed (and loved) pop-rockers in a stadium-rock smackdown more
Being a mind-reader is a heck of a way to make a living—especially when you put your money where your mouth is. Mentalist The Amazing Kreskin, appearing Monday at Stage West, regularly performs a trick at the end of the show where he asks the audience to hide his cheque while he’s out of the room. When he returns, if he doesn’t find the cheque with no help from the audience, then he doesn’t get paid. He usually finds it, but one time it cost him a $50,000 payout.
Monday, May 14 at Stage West, 727 42nd Ave. S.E. , 403-243-6642.
Calling John Prine a country singer is like calling Veuve Clicquot grape juice. Here’s what you need to know to appreciate Bob Dylan’s favourite songwriter.
1. Near Miss Born and raised in Illinois, John Prine had a short career as a gymnast in high school before joining the army in the mid-’60s and serving in Germany for a couple of years. He returned to Chicago to work as a mail carrier for several years before taking the mic on a dare at the Fifth Peg folk club in the late 1960s. He quickly became a regular at the club’s open-mic night. more
Writing is writing, says Kirstie McLellan Day, but the bestselling author of Playing With Fire: The Theo Fleury Story still had a lot to learn when it came to adapting her work for the stage. But, as she tells Jon Roe, she was surrounded by good help from Alberta Theatre Projects, and she learned a lot throughout the process. Day discusses her first playwriting experience and the difficulty of dealing with Fleury’s story. more
The theories of community-minded urban thinker Jane Jacobs have endured far past the 1960s, when they were first developed, and the author’s death in 2006. However, urban planning theory isn’t exactly common knowledge, so a poseur can be forgiven for being a little clueless on the subject. Thankfully, there’s a fantastic Jacobs learning opportunity this Saturday with nearly 40 Jane’s Walks in her honour taking place all over the city. Swerve’s also here, as always, to give you a head start.
It’s that time of year again, when those who work at magazines begin checking their e-mail with even greater frequency. Award season is upon us.
This morning, we learned that Swerve has picked up four nominations for the National Magazine Awards. As always, the recognition confirms the talents of our freelance contributors.
Without further ado, the nominees are:
Bruce McCullough for The Mouse & I: A Love Story (Humour),
Malwina Gudowska for One & Done (Service: Health & Family),
Jeremy Klaszus for For the Love of God (Society),
Scott Penny for The Kid is the Man (Sports & Recreation).
To say that Young Jean Lee challenged herself in the creation of We’re Gonna Die is a bit of an understatement. The New York-based playwright made the leap from non-performer to star of her own one-woman cabaret show, which combines pop music, dancing and storytelling. Jon Roe chatted with Lee about the challenges of the show prior to Theatre Junction’s presentation of it at the Grand. more
Vincent Lam’s short-story collection Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures won the 2006 Giller Prize. Lam followed that up with The Flu Pandemic and You, a non-fiction work that served to remind readers that the author is also a doctor. Fans of his fiction will be glad to hear that his latest, The Headmaster’s Wager, is not a scientific examination of problem gambling but rather a novel centred on Percival Chen, a womanizer who takes excessive risks in Vietnam during the 1960s.
Tuesday, May 1 at the Central Library, 616 Macleod Tr. S.E. 7 p.m. $30 (includes copy of book). calgarybookstore.ca/tickets.
THE STORY: According to founder Tommy Gunns (um, not his real name), BrokenToyz is three dudes from L.A. (Gunns, plus Likki Stixx and Johnny Emaxx. Quite possibly not their real names either) and one from Vegas (Dannii Lee Damage), who came to Calgary years ago and never left. “Last week, we told the crowd it was because one of us got a girl here pregnant; before that, it was that we’re old draft dodgers.” more
He writes, he sings, he doodles. The latter is the focus of a retrospective at Axis Contemporary Art where “The Art of Leonard Cohen” will be on exhibit until mid-May. Many of the artist’s 40-years’ worth of sketches and paintings of women, urban landscapes, objects and, often, his own weathered face, are from Cohen’s private journals and were first published in his 2006 poetry book, Book of Longing.Now you can purchase your very own limited edition print, signed and stamped by Cohen himself. Hallelujah, indeed.
Thursday, April 26 to Monday, May 14 at Axis Contemporary Art, 100 7th Ave. S.W. axisart.ca.
Though in recent years Sting has become better known for his tantric escapades, once upon a time he was part of the legendary new wave outfit The Police. The trio (comprised of Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland) sold more than 50 million albums worldwide and built a song library to turn most musicians green with envy. In case you were too young or distracted in the ’80s, however, here’s a primer with everything you need to know before the CPO’s nod to their greatest hits, Every Breath You Take: A Tribute to Sting & The Police. more
With the closing of the theatre season upon us, theatre companies are already busy whetting our appetite for the start of a new season in the fall. Alberta Theatre Projects and Theatre Calgary have previously announced theirs, and now Lunchbox Theatre is opening up next season’s tin to show everyone what’s on the menu. more
The ninth edition of the annual festival features the best and brightest young international poets. more
Can the nightmarish fictional serial killer take down Coldplay’s squeaky clean frontman? It may come down to what frightens you more: deadly dream stalking or unabashed earnestness. more
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