Other entertainment in Canada
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Martello Tower 2
Martello Tower 2 is open to the public only during staged events, like the Convict’s Last Drink. This lively interactive theater (in English) gives a taste of 19th-century justice. It features a mock trial of a soldier accused of a crime, and the audience will decide his fate while – and this is the important part – sampling homemade beers. Because alcohol is served, those under 18 must be accompanied by an adult; reserve through the Discovery Pavilion or by phone. A French-language version (La Dernier Verre) takes place at 6:30pm daily (mid-July to early September). Other shows include an ‘1814, council-of-war-style’ feast (adult/child $35/32), during which diners must…
reviewed
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Orpheum Theatre
If you’re lucky enough to catch a show at the Orpheum Theatre, be prepared to gasp when you enter the auditorium. Built in 1927 and now designated a national heritage site, the sumptuous Spanish baroque interior of multiple arches topped by an ornate painted dome harkens back to a time when theaters offered a fantasy escape from reality. But the beautiful old gal isn’t just a well-preserved relic. In fact, she’s steeped in theatrical history. Originally part of a Chicago-headquartered chain of vaudeville houses, stars who have hit the boards before the near-3,000 seats here have included Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine and Harry Belafonte – check out the commemorative wall p…
reviewed
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Rogers Arena (GM Place)
With a new corporate sponsor officially renaming what everyone still calls GM Place in 2010, you’ll likely hear both names bandied around. Whatever the moniker, the newer of Vancouver’s two downtown stadiums hosts the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League. Game nights, when the 20,000-capacity venue heaves with fervent fans, are the city’s most exciting sporting events – you’ll enjoy the atmosphere even if the rules are a mystery. The main hockey venue during the 2010 Winter Olympics and the home of a large Canucks team shop, this is also a favored arena for money-spinning stadium rock acts. Behind-the-scenes tours take you into the hospitality suites …
reviewed
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Cultch (Vancouver East Cultural Centre)
This once-abandoned 1909 church near Commercial Dr has been a gathering place for performers and audiences since being officially designated as a cultural space in 1973. But following a comprehensive $14 million renovation that was completed in 2009, the Cultch (as everyone calls it) has become one of the city’s best performance spaces and the performance jewel of the Eastside. Appearing on the charming Historic Theatre main stage is an ever-eclectic roster of local and visiting drama plus music and dance troupes. After the show, hang around in the lobby wine bar to mull over the show and chat with the locals.
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Celluloid Social Club
Visiting movie nuts with a penchant for making their own flicks – or just chewing the fat with those who do – should unspool their film over at one of Vancouver’s coolest underground hangouts. Held every month at the community hall ANZA Club, the Celluloid Social Club is a drop-in for local filmmakers and video artists who want to show their shorts to anyone who happens to turn up. The results – seven mini-epics are shown over the course of a couple of hours – are always interesting, and the screenings are followed by a few beers and a chance to rub shoulders and chat with the local auteurs.
reviewed
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Rio Theatre
A recently restored 1980s movie house with very comfy seats, the one-screen Rio shows one Hollywood blockbuster every night. Even better are its extras: there’s a baby-friendly screening for parents and their mewling progeny every other Wednesday, while Friday night brings a midnight double bill of classics like A Clockwork Orange, Back to the Future and, of course, the Rocky Horror Picture Show – there’s a $2 discount if you arrive in costume. Check the website for additional special events. All matinees are $7, as are all Tuesday shows.
reviewed
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Pacific Cinémathèque
This beloved nonprofit repertory cinema operates like an eclectic ongoing film festival with a daily-changing program of movies. A $3 annual membership is required – pick it up at the door – before you can skulk in the dark with the chin-stroking movie buffs, who would name their children after Fellini and Bergman if they ever averted their gaze from the screen long enough to have relationships. Although it’s $9.50 to catch a flick here, you can watch two movies a night for just $11.50. The high point of the year is August’s annual classic film noir season.
reviewed
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Scotiabank Theatre
Downtown’s shiny nine-screener was big enough to attract its own corporate sponsor when it opened in 2005, but it’s actually the city’s Cineplex chain flagship. It’s the most likely theater to be screening the latest must-see Harry Potter sequel or in-your-face comic-strip action flick. In contrast, it also shows occasional live broadcast performances from major cultural institutions like London’s National Theatre and New York’s Metropolitan Opera. For 3-D movies, add an extra $3 to your ticket price. There are no matinee or Tuesday discounts here.
reviewed
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Vancity Theatre
The state-of-the-art headquarters of the Vancouver International Film Festival screens a wide array of movies throughout the year in the kind of auditorium that cinephiles dream of: think generous legroom, wide arm rests and great sight lines from each of its 175 seats. It’s a place where you can watch a four-hour subtitled epic about a dripping tap and still feel comfortable. Check the ever-changing schedule for shows and special events, and remember that a $2 annual membership is mandatory. Double bills are available most nights (adult/student $13/11).
reviewed
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Monsters in the Meadow
It’s hard to beat Stanley Park for a movie backdrop. Which is just as well, since Monsters in the Meadow screens scary B-movie classics in its Creperly Meadow area near Second Beach every August. The free-entry movies often include the scream-triggering likes of Godzilla,King Kong or Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’ll be chilly once the sun goes down (although you may be trembling in fright), so bring a sweater. Flashlights are also recommended so you can find your way back out of the park after the show.
reviewed
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Fifth Avenue Cinemas
The popular Fifth Avenue screens indie, foreign flicks and blockbuster Hollywood schlock (those Kitsilano locals might look like intellectuals but they enjoy Iron Man as much as anyone else). Moviegoers can belly up to the lobby cappuccino bar for above-par baked goods before the show. A non-mandatory $12.50 annual membership provides about 15% savings on tickets throughout the year, while on Tuesday seats are $8 for everyone. Also check out the loveseats, where you can lift the padded divider and snuggle up with your movie buddy.
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Dance Centre
Vancouver’s dance headquarters, this cleverly reinvented old bank building offers a kaleidoscopic array of activities that arguably makes it Canada’s foremost dance center. Home to resident companies – Ballet BC is based here – it also houses classes, workshops, performances and events throughout the year. For visiting dance nuts, there’s almost always something on worth seeing (check the website). If you’re really lucky the biennial Dance in Vancouver showcase of British Columbia’s best contemporary offerings will be on during your visit.
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Cinemark Tinseltown333
A Vancouver favorite, Tinseltown – incongruously located on the 3rd floor of a usually empty Chinatown shopping mall – combines blockbuster and art-house offerings, screened in a convivial but high-tech multiplex setting. Comfy, stadium seating is the norm here and it’s the ideal place to shelter on a rainy Vancouver day, especially with its bottomless-coffee-cup policy. Drop by for the first showing of each movie on any day when all tickets are $8, or hit the crowded all-day-Tuesday discount day ($8.75).
reviewed
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Performing Arts Lodge Theatre
If you want to hang out at the other end of the age range, check out the Performing Arts Lodge Theatre, located in a swanky new Coal Harbour condominium block reserved for retired performance artists. While the building’s smashing upper-floor studio space hosts an eclectic array of visiting, sometimes-challenging shows throughout the year, the audience is often full of old luvvies who look like they might have a few good stories to tell about the profession during the interval.
reviewed
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Rickshaw Theatre
This recently renovated old venue has been completely revamped from its grungy old self (it used to be called the Shaw), showing that Eastside gentrification can be positive. In fact, the Rickshaw has quickly become the stage of choice for local and visiting punk and metal bands – acts like Propagandhi and Dillinger Escape Plan, plus BC lads 3 Inches of Blood – that are more used to playing in dive-bar hellholes when they hit Vancouver. Expect a mega moshpit experience with plenty of action.
reviewed
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Experimental Dance & Music
Formed by dancers in 1982, this challenging contemporary troupe adopts a creative multimedia approach that may mix film, music and/or art into its athletic and expressive works, many created through an improvisational process for which EDAM has become famous. If you’re lucky, the Echo Case – the company’s longest-established improvisational ensemble – will be performing during your visit. With its own on-site studio, EDAM also performs at venues around the city.
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Carousel Theatre
Performing at Granville Island’s Waterfront Theatre, this smashing child-focused theater company stages some great, wide-eyed fantasy productions that adults often enjoy just as much as their kids. Adaptations of children’s classics such as The Wind in the Willows have featured in the past, with clever versions of Shakespeare works added to the mix for older children. There’s also an excellent kids theater school in summer if you’re traveling with a young thesp.
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Malkin Bowl
Formerly used only as the summertime venue for Theatre Under the Stars musicals, this smashing Stanley Park stage has become an increasingly popular spot for alfresco live music. Elvis Costello, Franz Ferdinand and the Flaming Lips have had audiences (and those skulking around the fences outside) jumping up from the grass to punch the air…or partake of the aroma of naughty BC cigarettes wafting through the crowd. Check the website for this year’s Concerts in the Park menu and book ahead.
reviewed
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Fortune Sound Club
The city’s best club has transformed a grungy old Eastside location – formerly the legendary Ming’s Chinese Restaurant – into a slick space with the kind of genuine staff and younger, hipster-cool crowd rarely seen in Vancouver nightspots. Slide inside and you’ll find a giant dance floor bristling with party-loving locals just out to have a good time. Expect a long wait to get in on weekends: it’s worth it, though, for Happy Ending Fridays when you’ll possibly dance your ass off.
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Biltmore Cabaret
One of Vancouver’s best alt venues has only been open in its present incarnation for a few years but it’s already a firm favorite. The SoMa crowd comes for its nightly-changing smorgasbord of Vancouver and visiting indie bands that can range from the Wintermitts to Tribal Soiree and Attack in Black (what do you mean you’ve never heard of them?). When there are no bands, DJ, poetry and film nights keep things lively, as well as Sunday’s highly popular Kitty Nights burlesque show.
reviewed
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Post Modern
Despite the name, you’re more likely to be discussing Yaletown condo prices than Foucault at this sleek and comparatively pricey lounge-club. Attracting an over-25s crowd with money to burn on decadent cocktails, it’s a good pit stop between the cool bars of Gastown: this is a very popular night-out neighborhood so weekend queues can be overly long. The main light-panel dance floor is quite small, and it’s especially crowded for Friday’s rap, indie dance and classic remix night.
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Ballet British Columbia
A season from Vancouver’s favorite dance company often includes the likes of Giselle and Sleeping Beauty jostling for attention with a world premiere or two and perhaps a night of experimental short pieces. Performing at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the troupe’s season runs from September to April, when it also welcomes visiting shows from acclaimed companies including the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada.
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River Rock Show Theatre
Handily located on the new Canada Line, the River Rock Casino’s swanky on-site theater specializes in nostalgic music acts from the easy listening and older rock periods of music history. If you’re wondering where Nazareth, Chicago or Robert Cray play when they hit town, this is it. The menu here sometimes includes a few surprises, like Blondie, just to show that you’re turning into your parents. Visiting comedians including Jay Leno and Tim Allen have also appeared here.
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Robson Reading Series
This ongoing encyclopedia of readings and literary events – free-entry, with refreshments provided – is mostly held in the subterranean UBC bookstore underneath downtown’s Robson Sq (it’s near the Vancouver Art Gallery, if you need a landmark). Canadian novelists, poets and creative non-fiction writers dominate and there’s a strong emphasis on Q&A and sociable chitchat: now’s your chance to thrust that 1800-page Lord of the Rings sequel into someone’s hands.
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Bard on the Beach
Watching Shakespeare performed while the sun sets behind the North Shore mountains looming through the open back of a tented stage is a singular Vancouver highlight. An enduring favorite summer pastime for city culture hounds, there are usually three or four Bard plays on offer, and a related playwright is sometimes added to the mix. The smaller studio stage showcases slightly less mainstream fare. Free preshow talks are offered before Tuesday-night performances.
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