Tennis buffs might want to check out the UBC Coast Indoor Tennis Centre (6160 Thunderbird Boulevard, UBC, 604-822-2505).
At the Jericho Arts Centre (1675 Discovery Street, off Northwest Marine Drive, Westside), you’ll find the United Players (604-224-8007, www.unitedplayers.com), a longtime company employing emerging and professional actors, directors, and technicians in frequently good, challenging productions. Thank tireless artistic director Andrée Karas, who may well be standing by the door when you step from the hail into the (occasionally) starlit setting of Jericho Beach Park and English Bay.
Performance Works is an artsy, minimalist space — all wood beams and corrugated iron (1218 Cartwright Street, Granville Island, 604-687-3020). Just about everything happens here during a year, from off—the-wall opera to progressive jazz.
The Firehall Arts Centre (280 East Cordova Street, East Vancouver, 604-689-0926), in a 1906 heritage fire hall, includes a small pro-scenium theater and upstairs bar, though it’s all pretty basic. It mounts contemporary theater and dance from across Canada — always topical, sometimes controversial. The Havana (1212 Commercial Drive, East Vancouver, 604-253-9119) is a sixty-seat theater adjoining the restau¬rant of the same name. Very Commercial Drive.
A consistent deliverer of intelligent, avant-garde theater is Studio 58 at Langara College (100 West 49th Avenue, South Vancouver, 604-323-5227). Although it’s closed during summer, for the remainder of the year drama students do exceptional work under hand-picked directors.
On to the egregious: Tina and Tony’s Wedding (Downtown, 604-280-4444) is one of those interactive Italian weddings that apparently never ends. Vows are exchanged at the chapel of St. Andrew’s¬Wesley Church (1012 Nelson Street, Downtown, 604-683-4574), followed by a romp of a reception next door at the Century Plaza Hotel.
Unbeknownst to just about everybody, the 3,000-seat Queen Eliza¬beth Theatre, one of three city-owned theaters (the others are the Vancouver Playhouse in the same complex, and Orpheum Theatre), won a 2001 Governor General’s Award for architecture and interior design for three new “salons.” These glitzy rooms, nestled between the two theaters, are intended for corporate gatherings but can be rented by anyone. Treat your friends — the rents are modest (Vancouver Civic Theatres, 649 Cambie Street, Downtown, 604-665-3050, or go to www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/theatres). The Cathedral Centre for the Arts, operated by Christ Church Cathedral (690 Burrard Street, Downtown, 604-682 -3848 , www.cathedral.vancouver.bc.ca) stages productions in a wonderful woodsy nave, where English country meets coastal rainforest. A sophisticated congregation, some of whom are noted arts professionals, organizes and participates in the plays, operas, and musical events.
This is a bare beginning: for more on theater and other arts-related happenings, contact the Alliance for Arts and Culture (604-684-2787, www.allianceforarts.com) or visit www.ticketstonight.ca.
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