These are your best bets for theatregoing to start 2025
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Theatre in January always starts a little slowly as everyone recovers from the Christmas/New Year’s hangover. But there’s plenty to see this month.
The pantos at York Theatre, Metro Theatre and New West’s Massey Theatre still have a few days to run, as does Oliver! at Richmond’s Gateway.
A couple of dance-theatre pieces look juicy: Joe Laughlin’s I Remember … at the Firehall and Duck Pond, a Cirque du Soleil-style take on Swan Lake from Australia’s Circa at the Playhouse.
Conflict of interest prevents me from including The Height of the Storm at Jericho Arts Centre, a terrific play from France’s Florian Zeller about grief, love, memory and mushrooms.
Here are five other plays happening this month that you won’t want to miss:
The Three Musketeers
When: Jan. 16-Feb. 16
Where: Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage
Ease into the new year with this romp from director Daryl Cloran, who gave us the glorious Beatles’ As You Like It at Bard on the Beach. Lush period costumes and extensive swordplay mark this Arts Club co-production with Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre. Watch Scott Bellis transform from Scrooge in Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol to evil Cardinal Richelieu.
Géométrie de vies (Geometry of Lives)
When: Jan. 25-26
Where: Performance Works, Granville Island
The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival is back for its 20th year with the usual array of innovative performances. One of its most compelling offerings comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a part of the world whose theatre we rarely get to see. Intersecting stories of Congolese displaced as refugees in their own country are told through narrative, dialogue, song and dance. Also available online Jan. 25-Feb. 9.
Swim
When: Jan. 30-Feb. 2
Where: The Cultch Vancity Culture Lab
One of the joys of PuSh is being able to watch locals work alongside international theatre artists. Here, Vancouver companies Theatre Conspiracy, Pandemic Theatre, Touchstone and The Cultch collaborate to invite audiences to imagine the experience of asylum seekers swimming the eight kilometres from Turkey to the Greek island of Samos. Created by Jivesh Parasram, Tom Arthur Davis, Gavan Cheema and David Mesiha. Cheema and Mesiha direct.
Fat Joke
When: Jan. 31-Feb. 2
Where: Anvil Theatre, New Westminster
Having played last spring at The Cultch, Cheyenne Rouleau’s one-woman show makes its way to New West for a short run. Combining standup comedy, TED talk, PowerPoint lecture and autobiographical confession, Fat Joke explores the nature of fatphobia and contemporary movements to oppose it. Rouleau illustrates the challenges a woman her size faces, moderating the underlying anger with some terrific humour. A Neworld Theatre production directed by Chelsea Haberlin.
Heroes of the Fourth Turning
When: Jan. 31-Feb. 9
Where: Studio 16
Mitch and Murray Productions do only one play a year, usually something hard-hitting from the contemporary American repertoire, and they always make it matter. Will Arbery’s 2019 play, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, follows the arguments of four young Catholic conservatives a week after the 2017 Unite the Right Charlottesville riot. The play got rave reviews from both the liberal and conservative presses. The New York Times called it “astonishing.” Directed by John Murphy.