Local Arts

Art Beat

This year, Heritage Playhouse will be benefiting from community sponsorship at Tim Hortons/Wendy’s 23rd annual Festival of Lights.

Why is tiny Opera Island for sale? As the four young characters in M.A. (Michael) Wilson’s latest mystery soon discover, it’s because there’s much more on the island than seals, seagulls and an old abandoned lighthouse.

Dressed as their alter egos, local rockers Playback took the stage at the Gibsons Legion #109 providing classic rock and dance music for a packed house of appreciative dancers and listeners.

“A lavish production of The Nutcracker will once again be provided,” promises Kathleen Holmes, artistic director of Coast Along Theatre Society, which produces the iconic Christmas-season ballet at Raven’s Cry Theatre in Sechelt.

“It takes a certain type of hardiness for a creative person to share their works with the public,” wrote author E.A. Bucchianeri.

A busy little corner of show business is quietly humming away on the Gibsons waterfront, creating unique accessories for stage and screen, and an international clientele.

Improvisational South African multi-instrumentalist François le Roux, aka The HA-Man, left, along with Belgian partner and poet Jokë Debaere, dazzled the full-house audience in a performance at St. John’s United Church in Davis Bay on Nov. 4.

Another sellout crowd filled Heritage Playhouse on the second of four evenings of standup comedy with local host Toby Hargrave.

In the Name of Aloha