Latest news with #NeptuneTheatre
CTV News
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Award-winning filmmaker and playwright Michael Melski dies at 56
Award-winning playwright and filmmaker Michael Melski, from Sydney, N.S., is pictured. (Source: IMDB) Family and friends of award-winning playwright and filmmaker Michael Melski, from Sydney, N.S., have shared news of his death and messages of condolence on social media after he died Friday. He was 56. Melski's plays were featured on stages across Canada, including his 2001 Merritt and Dora-nominated play, 'Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad', which was named one of Canada's top 10 plays of the year by the Toronto Star. His award-winning films included 'The Child Remains', 'Charlie Zone', and the documentary 'Perfume War'. He served as an artist-in-residence at the Shaw Festival, Neptune Theatre and Eastern Front Theatre, where his play 'Creepy and Little Manson' debuted in 2016. In addition to his other achievements in film, television and theatre, Melski received the Halifax Mayor's Award for Achievement in Theatre in 2006. Family members said they were surprised and saddened by his passing and that funeral arrangements will be announced soon. Michael Melski Award-winning playwright and filmmaker Michael Melski from Sydny, N.S., is pictured performing outside with a guitar and a microphone. (Source: Facebook) For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
CBC
13-07-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Q&A: Organizer talks planning Halifax Pride in light of rising discrimination, pulled funding
Halifax Pride kicks off next week and dozens of events are scheduled across the city, including the Pride parade on Saturday. This week, Fiona Kerr, the organizer of Halifax Pride, sat down with Information Morning Nova Scotia host Portia Clark to discuss what's on the radar for Pride this year. Their conversation touched on the effects of rising anti-queer rhetoric, political involvement and what's coming for Halifax Pride in the future. The following interview has been edited for clarity and length. What can people expect from Halifax Pride this year, aside from the parade? There's a ton of new events. I think we're doing 33 events this year, and about a third of them are new. We're hosting a 'gaylidh,' which is a gay ceilidh, at Neptune Theatre. There's new educational programming with the Wabanaki Two-Spirit Alliance. They're going to be hosting some programming on the festival site that's open to the public. So folks can come learn about the two-spirit identity and some of their Indigenous cultural practices. You left the Halifax Pride organization and came back. What do you think of the health of the organization now, Fiona? I think we're doing really great. Not to toot my own horn, but I've seen our organization go through a lot in the last 10 years and I think this is the best place we've ever been in. I think our board is really great and has done a lot of work over the last year to restabilize us. If anyone wants to join the board, there's a great foundation now. Our staff team is growing — things are really looking up. Our premier, Tim Houston, skipped the parade last year and said the RCMP told him it could be a security concern for him. Other provincial leaders attended. Are you expecting Mr. Houston this year? Not as far as I know. I will say the PC party did apply to be in the parade, but they missed our parade deadline. We filled out pretty quickly this year, so whether or not he intended to be there, I don't know. But they're on the waitlist with quite a few other groups who missed the deadline. There's a waitlist? Yeah. We usually get quite a few people who missed the deadline. We have a certain length for the parade, 2.5 kilometres. We know about how many entries, floats, people we can fit in those 2.5 kilometres. And, usually, we try to move queer groups up to the top of the waitlist because we do want to prioritize their presence. So there's quite a few in front of them, unfortunately. This year we had more interest than we've ever had in the parade and unfortunately the size of our parade can't grow very much because the size of the streets of Halifax are not growing. It's really great to see how much support people are showing. I think as things are shifting in the South very rapidly, more groups, people and companies are thinking about how they can show support. Some companies like Home Depot, Nissan, Clorox, Google have pulled funding for Toronto Pride and that's led to a $900,000 shortfall. Is there anything like that happening with Halifax Pride? We lost two longtime sponsors this year. They didn't give us an explicit reason, but we made the assumption because they're both American-owned. I won't name them because they didn't put their reason in writing. But I think we can read the room at this point. It wasn't a huge impact. Most of our sponsorships are not the same amount of money that some bigger Prides are bringing in. In total it was about $12,000 [lost]. Are you worried other American-owned sponsors will do the same? It's definitely a conversation we've been having, but it really hasn't come to fruition in the way we were worried about. We don't do business with a lot of companies who work over the border. Most of our sponsors are local or regional. A lot of them are small businesses. We have seen posts on social media from rural Pride organizers reminding people how to stay safe during Pride because anti-queer hate is on the rise. Is safety a concern for Pride events here in Halifax? I think it's a concern for everybody. We're very lucky here in Halifax that it is a relatively safe place. Our events are usually safe. We haven't encountered a lot of anti-queer rhetoric around our events. But it's something that's on everyone's minds, with anti-queer hate rising in the South and in bigger cities here. It's something everyone is talking about, but I wouldn't say it's a particularly large concern for us. The federal government announced $1.5 million for a community safety fund to help support 2SLGBTQ+ organizations such as Halifax Pride. How are you using that money? We mainly use it towards the increased costs of our existing safety measures, so we have some increased security. We've increased our first-aid presence at a lot of our events. And, the cost of everything is going up. So the funding is really great help with things like traffic control for our parade. It's mainly covering the cost of inflation. Halifax Pride is going to host Canada Pride, the national event, in 2027. What's that looking like? It's going to be amazing. We bid on that event last year after Vancouver hosted it, and we're just really excited to see it come to the East Coast. It's never been farther east than Montreal. We've got, tentatively, 50 events planned for it. So people will see some of our festival-standard events and lots of new partnerships. Lots of events are for tourists because we want to bring people here. We want people to come see Pride on the East Coast. So there will be something for everybody. How are you reflecting on the spirit and purpose of pride this year? I don't think pride has one single purpose. I think we all kind of struggle narrowing it down to one thing. Because when we narrow it down to 'just a party,' 'just a protest' or 'just educational,' we're only serving one faction of our community. Pride is very multifaceted. But it's rooted in political protest and we want everyone to remember that. I think creating queer spaces, wherever you are, is radical no matter what. Our city is gaining more queer spaces, more queer businesses. Creating space for queer people is what is most important.
CTV News
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Halifax Pride to host first ‘Gaylidh,' brings back active living events
Crystal Garrett speaks with the executive director of Halifax Pride about this year's celebration. Halifax Pride will kick off July 17 this year, with 11 days of events to celebrate the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. The Halifax Pride Parade will take place July 19 at noon along with other events such as the Back to Our Roots Picnic and Market at the Garrison Grounds on July 17, the Halifax Naked Peace Protest Ride and March on July 20 and Aqua Drag Fitness on July 21. Executive Director of Halifax Pride Fiona Kerr said the 'Gaylidh' – a gay Ceilidh – has been in the works for a few years but will take place for the first time at this year's event. 'Finally, this year we're partnering with Neptune Theatre, and we have some really great performers, a few from Cape Breton, a few from here,' Kerr told CTV Morning Live host Crystal Garrett. 'It's going to be a really fun night.' Halifax Pride features over 150 community and Pride organized events. The Halifax Pride Society engages with several queer groups and individuals throughout the year to help plan events that best support and celebrate the community at large. This year is also bringing back active living events for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic, Kerr said. Some events such as Aqua Drag Fitness and Zumba Drag Fitness are in partnership with the John W. Lindsay YMCA. 'There's something for everybody,' Kerr said. The Halifax Pride Parade is the main event and features several accessibility sections. 'Our parade has multiple accessible viewing areas,' Kerr said. 'We have a described viewing area for folks who are blind, we have a low sensor viewing area inside the YMCA for folks who want a bit of a quieter space, we also have a masked viewing area if anyone wants to be specifically with other masked folks.' The event will also be lived-streamed for anyone who wants to watch from home. Kerr also said Pride is especially important this year, to not only celebrate, but to create more safe spaces for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. 'Now it's a little bit less about celebrating and more about showing up and creating spaces because as the spaces become more unsafe for our community, we have to continue to grow so those people do have space where they can be with each other,' Kerr said. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
CBC
30-05-2025
- General
- CBC
CBC IDEAS explores the rise of hate and how to dismantle it, free conversation June 12
On June 12, Join CBC IDEAS producer Mary Lynk in conversation with a prestigious panel at a free discussion entitled "10 Reasons to Hate Others—And what to do about it". The event takes place at 7 p.m. at Neptune Theatre's Scotiabank Stage. Around the world today, we are witnessing a troubling rise in hatred of the other. Scholars have come up with 10 key reasons why one group may hate members of another group. If left unchecked, this hatred only intensifies, dehumanizing our perceived enemies and allowing us to justify mistreatment and even violence. The conversation is a co-production between CIFAR and CBC IDEAS and includes: The conversation will be recorded for CBC IDEAS and is scheduled to air in June.
CBC
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Come From Away to join Anne on mainstage of 2026 Charlottetown Festival
Social Sharing The first Charlottetown Festival shows of 2025 haven't hit the stage yet, but plans for next year's edition are already in the works. And a decade after it debuted, the Tony-nominated musical Come From Away will finally make its way to P.E.I. in the form of a co-production with Neptune Theatre in Halifax, the festival announced Monday. It will join the ever-popular standard Anne of Green Gables — The Musical, which is now presented in Charlottetown every two summers, to headline the 2026 festival. Anne will be first up at the Sobey Family Theatre at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, running from June 25 to Aug. 29. Come From Away will be staged from July 2 until Sept. 26. "Next summer will be a historic doubleheader featuring two of the most successful Canadian musicals ever written," Adam Brazier, the artistic director of performing arts at the Confederation Centre, was quoted as saying in a news release. "Since its premiere in 2015, Come From Away has been the most-requested show by Islanders and we are so excited to finally present it at the festival." Anne of Green Gables — The Musical is based on the classic 1908 novel by Island author L.M. Montgomery, and was first staged in Charlottetown back in 1965. After a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the show returned in 2022 with the festival saying it would be presented only every second year from then. Come From Away is based on the true story about what took place in the central Newfoundland town of Gander on Sept. 11, 2001, and the days immediately after. People from the town and surrounding communities opened their hearts and homes to about 7,000 passengers from 38 flights that were diverted from U.S. airspace to Gander's international airport, built in the days when overseas flights needed to stop for refueling before and after crossing the Atlantic. The musical's Broadway version was nominated for seven Tony Awards and won one, with later productions staged in Toronto and around the world. "At a time of increasing divisiveness, this show resonates more than ever," Brazier was quoted as saying in the news release. "It is a story that reminds Canadians who we are in the world and what it means to be a good neighbour." I cannot wait to bring the entire show across the Confederation Bridge and see the festival audiences experience Come From Away,created here in Atlantic Canada. Jeremy Webb is the artistic director at Neptune Theatre. "It has long been a dream of mine to have Neptune Theatre and the Charlottetown Festival to join creative forces on a show, and I can't think of a better title to see that happen," Webb was quoted as saying. "It's an honour to work with Adam and his team on creating an East Coast production of this theatrical phenomenon. I cannot wait to bring the entire show across the Confederation Bridge and see the festival audiences experience Come From Away, created here in Atlantic Canada."
