When I recently attended the charming Burnaby Lyric Opera performance of La Bohème at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, the afternoon brought back memories of many lovely productions of the popular Puccini opera. Surprisingly, considering how familiar I was
Reflections on a State Dinner – The times they are a changin!
Back in 1986, when my husband was involved on a variety of boards and community associations, we were invited to a State dinner for Vice President, George H. W. Bush, which was hosted by the Honorable Pat Carney, then Minister
From play to mystery story —Shadow of Murder and “Mary Poppins, Where are you?”
My third play was another murder mystery. The idea came to me years ago when I was home with a dose of flu. I was too ill to concentrate on a book so I resorted to browsing through the want
Celebrating the Festive Season at the Burnaby Village Museum
The Burnaby Village Museum is a wonderful place to visit during Heritage Christmas. For us, the village has special significance, since we have performed there annually since 1994. Our first gig was a single-day booking when we were eager new
Reversing the process—how Renovations became “Sisters in Crime”.
My comedy, Renovations, was a play that I had no intention of duplicating in another form. However, when I was assembling stories for my book, A Black Tie Affair and Other Mystery Stories, I needed something short and light-hearted to
Story to play: how “To Catch an Actress” became Casting for Murder.
My first attempt at adapting a story from one form to another resulted from my husband’s reading my short story, “To Catch an Actress”. He thought it would make a good play, and I decided to rise to the challenge.
Tribute to a wonderful cat: Minx the Manx
Over the past few months, I spent little time on the Internet, partly because I was working on a new manuscript, but mainly due to the fact that our little cat, Minx, at nineteen years of age, was ailing and
Play or story? Which presents the most challenges?
People often ask me whether I prefer writing plays, stories or marionette musicals. It’s hard to answer that question and I always end up saying that I most enjoy whichever I am doing at the particular moment. Writing a story
Remembering a very special lady
I was very sad to receive the winter edition of the Puppetry Arts Institute newsletter and see that their long-time director, Diane Houk, had passed away last November. Diane was a charming and talented lady who, with her husband and
Standing in.
One often hears tales of actors falling ill and, in the absence of a proper understudy, some poor individual being handed a script and forced to step in. However, in all my years of theatre, I had never actually experienced