Some free or low-cost
events to enjoy mid-March
A wide variety of entertainment available online this month
By Byron Toben
Mid-March brings us six extended festivals or showings, as well as two one-time events. Take your pick from some selections below:
Ongoing
Colleen Curran’s Kitty Calling
Three episodes of the second season 2021 are now available at 3.2 minutes each. Bernice now has a cat and is seeking Biden’s endorsement for her new book while pandemic do-gooder Kitty keeps in touch by phone. All twelve episodes from 2020 are still available. See them one by one or pig out on them all in one sitting. Colleen’s scripts are funny, the actors are right on and the editing is snappy.
facebook.com/CCKittyCalling/videos
March 10 to 20
Hudson Film Festival
The 7th edition of this festival of Canadian films, with input from Telefilm, TIFF and Elan, offers a choice of four passes: 4 films for $50; 8 films for $80; or all films for $110. Individual films can be accessed without a pass for $15 each. You can scan the trailers and descriptions freely. Selections can be made any time during the run and viewed later, but once called for viewing, must be seen within 48 hours.
hudsonfilmsociety.ca/film-festival
March 11
At 4:30 pm
James Joyce’s Dublin
A new edition of Joyce’s classic Dubliners with intro and comments by Colm Toibin is free but reservations are required. Joyce wrote all the chapters while living abroad, but his early life in Dublin pervades. RSVP at uc.rsvp@utoronto.com
March 14 to April 10
Festival de la voix
Streaming its 8th annual festival from various West Island sites – Dorval, Beaconsfield and Pointe-Claire – and hosted by creator Kerry-Anne Kutz, it features four concerts and three workshops. Check out The Best of Broadway, Roots, Blues and Spirituals or Quartom vocal quartet. Workshops discuss vocal technique, songwriting and include a soloist’s master class.
In addition, this festival will also present excerpts from the special February 28 Handel’s Messiah at Place des Arts until March 14.
March 15 to 19
At 7:30 pm
Red Bull Theater presents another Jacobean play with contemporary aspects, namely John Lyly’s 1585 Gallathea. It features two young girls disguised as boys to protect them from bad people, but who then fall in love with each other, thinking the other is indeed masculine. Shakespeare used this gimmick also in As You Like It or Twelfth Night for instance. Live on March 15 with filmed repeats until 7 pm on March 19.
March 16
At 7:30 pm
Jewish Public Library Book Review
I Dissent: How Ruth Bader Ginsberg Became the Notorious RGB with Irin Carmon. Free.
March 16 to 28
Irish Repertory Theater’s Aran Islands
New York’s fine Irish Repertory Theater has finished its nine special streamed selections that were PWYC. However, they remain available at US $25 each.
Beginning on March 16, the IRT introduces a PWYC series of the mystic Aran Islands off its west coast, as popularized by J. M. Synge (Playboy of the Western World). This new version was specially made for digital streaming in 2021. A voluntary donation is warranted for its past, present and future shows.
irishrep.org/show/irish-rep-online-2021/the-aran-islands
39th International Festival of Films on Art
FIFA goes digital this year with a vast array of films on painting, sculpture and other art forms. Many free.
Feature image: Quartom vocal quartet, courtesy of Festival de la voix
More articles from Byron Toben
Byron Toben, a past president of The Montreal Press Club, has been WestmountMag.ca’s theatre reviewer since July 2015. Previously, he wrote for since terminated web sites Rover Arts and Charlebois Post, print weekly The Downtowner and print monthly The Senior Times. He also is an expert consultant on U.S. work permits for Canadians.
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