Based on a not-untrue story of blood, lust, and glory

From the creators of MainLine Theatre's sell-out smash, Johnny Canuck and the Last Burlesque, comes the Off-Broadway cult classic, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. I saw Johnny Canuck last year and had an uproariously good time. Can this show top it? I don't know but it would be well worth your time to check it out if you're in Montreal. If you get to see it, please let me know and tell me your thoughts.

Charles Busch's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom opens on January 30 - February 17, MainLine Theatre, 3997 St-Laurent.

Read an article about the show from The Hour here.

2006 Quebec Writers' Federation Awards and Louis Armstrong

Rawi Hage (shown above) took home two awards, the McAuslan First Book Prize and the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction for his novel De Niro's Game.

The A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry was awarded to Susan Elmslie for I, Nadja, and Other Poems - which I actually picked up at Chapters this afternoon before finding out she had won the prize.

Read about all the winners from the 2006 QWF Awards.

I wasn't able to make it to the awards gala, instead I was invited to see The Satchmo' Suite at the Saidye Bronfman Centre with Ryan and Josh. It was a beautiful play:

"The Satchmo' Suite" is about the relationship between a modern day black classical Cellist and the 'Father of Jazz' himself, Louis Armstrong. The Cellist, on tour with a classical symphony, summons Louis Armstrong to get help with a difficult musical passage from Bach's Six Suites for Solo Cello. The ghost of Louis Armstrong appears in the Cellist's hotel room. The lives of the major characters intermingle and resonate off each other as issues of hope, courage, family, and racism emerge in highly entertaining and powerful ways. It's about the polarities between the head and the heart, the intellect and intuition. The play is full of music, both Jazz and Classical.

"The Satchmo' Suite" opened on November 19th and runs till December 10th. If you're in Montreal, see it if you have a chance.

The Last Escape

New Haven is home to some of the finest pizzas in North America and tonight Maryn and I tried a heavenly mashed potato pizza from Bar (Bru Room). While Bar is not as historic as Frank Pepe's or Sally's, it still serves a mean pie.

I'm not leaving until next week but tomorrow Maryn is flying home for the American Thanksgiving break. While she makes her way to Nova Scotia, I'll be staying in New York to attend Bruno Schulz's "The Last Escape" performed by The Wroclaw Puppet Theatre at The Jewish Community Center.

"The Last Escape" is the story of a pensioner trapped in his room, trying to break through his own loneliness and despair by recalling his past and conjuring up a new world where time exists on many levels. Schulz, Poland's preeminent Jewish writer, has been an inspiration for such writers as Cynthia Ozick, John Updike, and Philip Roth.

Maryn and Hugh Grant

Well, not exactly. Maryn and I spent Saturday in New York and started the day off going to Madame Tussauds. We had recently seen the 1933 movie, Mystery of the Wax Museum starring Fay Wray and thought it would be a blast to see some actually wax sculptures. I've seen the Madam Tussauds in London when I was younger but Maryn had never been to one.

From contemporary pop-culture icons like Paris Hilton - with, how shall I put this, pokey nipples showing through her blouse, Brad Pitt and his baby, Oprah, and even Britney Spears with a disturbingly realistic heaving chest to artistic figures and world leaders like Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, Gandhi, Pope John Paul II, and Bill Clinton; Madame Tussauds had them all.

Later, we went to see two Vaclav Havel plays: Audience and Protest, which are being performed for the Havel Festival in honour of his 70th birthday and his current residency at Columbia University. I am performing a scene from Protest for the final project in my acting class so it was interesting to see how this performance group's take on it.