More films offered more frequently than ever before will screen at the winter/ spring Coast Cinematheque series at the Raven's Cry Theatre in Sechelt. The season opens with Lost in Translation, an acclaimed comedy/drama starring Bill Murray as a jaded, melancholy actor who meets a fellow insomniac in a luxury Tokyo hotel bar - two very different people united by language and loneliness. It screens on Feb. 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m. and again on Sunday, Feb. 8, at 4 p.m. Eleven more films run in the weeks to follow, including a film about the life of poet Sylvia Plath whose character is played by Gwyneth Paltrow, on Feb. 11, 12 and 15, and an animated French-language film that audiences everywhere have been talking about, The Triplets of Belleville. Get your super-sized tickets that admit you to your choice of eight of the 12 films by offering up $50 at Coast Books, Talewind Books or at the Raven's Cry box office. Single admission prices are $8 for adults, $7 youth. Dance recital Dancers from the Coast Academy of Dance are preparing for their annual exhibition and competition performance which will be presented at the Raven's Cry Theatre in Sechelt on Sunday, Feb. 1. The public is invited to two performances, at 2 and 5 p.m. Tickets are $12 and are available at the academy (5645 Wharf Road) between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the box office. Black deedsin Whitehorse Barbara Robertson writes about a forthcoming audition for dinner theatre.
The Peninsula Players are calling for a dastardly villain, a stouthearted Mountie, an innocent maiden pure as the driven snow, a landlady with a heart of gold, brawling lumberjacks and the seductive Lil and "les girls." If you're a ham at heart, sing a bit, can kick up your heels or enjoy having a go at slapstick, you can strut your stuff at the audition for the Peninsula Players melodrama, Black Deeds in Whitehorse at 7 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 25 at Pebbles Restaurant meeting room in Sechelt. Performance dates will be at the end of March and early April. The audition is open for those age 25 and over. Call 604-885-8947 for information. Music Festival The Sunshine Coast Festival of the Performing Arts, also known as the Music Festival, is gearing up for the season. A new festival category this year is Amplified-Electronic Music, which includes rock, punk, pop, midi, experimental and jazz. Musicians performing solo or in a group are encouraged to enter. Several of last year's performers may surprise audiences with their previously unheard music. For example, 17-year-old Corina Ho, who won the piano duet category last year with friend and fellow-musician, Miranda Kocher, also plays guitar in a band with three other teens. Ho's band plays punk and some hard rock. A future venue might include the new Café Jam at the old Gibsons' library Marine Room, which is being developed as a youth drop-in through a joint venture between the Gibsons-Elphinstone Community School and Sunshine Coast Regional District Parks and Recreation. So far, her band has played at school talent shows. She will be taking her Grade 8 piano exam this year, with plans to pursue a career in music. This year, each competition day at the festival will have one Patron of the Arts who will be recognized for a $500 donation with a certificate, as well as an announcement on the local radio station and in the Music Festival Program. Donations will go toward bursaries. Application forms are currently being distributed in the community. Call board chairperson Dorothy Fraser at 604-885-7637 for more details, or view: www.coastfestival.com for useful information which includes the contents of the syllabus.
