As Justice John Gomery explains, the questions raised by Sexy béton are as relevant as ever. To support Mireille Reid and Claude Goyette in their quest for justice, please sign the “viaduc de la Concorde” petition on the National Assembly’s Website. Please spread the message by sending this link to all your friends and contacts:
https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-1317/index.html
Sexy béton: as relevant as ever
Porte Parole Invites You to a Decadent Poker Night
Porte Parole invites you to SPEAKeasy a decadent, swanky, 1920s poker party featuring drinks, light hors d’oeuvres, raffle prizes, dancing to the jazzy stylings of DJ Myles Hainsworth and of course…. poker!
There will be two tiers of poker playing: you can play casually with professional dealers (we’ll even have a “Teach Table” if you want to learn the basics) and the top grosser at the end of the night will win a beautiful painting by Kai McCall! For the high rollers out there, we’ll have limited spots at 3 Tournament Tables, where you’ll be competing for the Grand Prize – 2 tickets behind the bench at an early 2011/12 Habs game – hosted by the Molson Brothers!
At the end of the poker playing, you can buy raffle tickets with your leftover chips. A few of the raffle prizes so far:
- Photography by Serge Clément
- Gym membership at Club Mansfield
- Tickets to a concert, accompanied by former Gazette music critic (now film critic) T’Cha Dunlevy
- Sommelier-extraordinaire Bill Zacharkiw to host a wine tasting event in your home
- “Tastes of Montreal” guided city bike tour for 2 with My Bicyclette
- Gift certificate at Lola & Emily
- Gift certificate for Cosabella Lingerie
- 2 spots at the Living Foods (Cuisine Vivante) workshop offered by Restaurant Crudessence
- Gift certificate for Tavan & Mitto
- Gift certificate from ALDO Group
7pm Thursday February 24, 2011 • Poker begins promptly at 8pm
Le Lion D’Or, 1676 Ontario St. E., corner Papineau
Regular ticket: $100 • High Roller ticket: $200
Tax receipts for 75% of the ticket price will be issued.
Appropriate attire from the Roaring ‘20s is strongly encouraged
For more information, or to reserve your ticket, please email stephblanshay@hotmail.com
Sexy béton, l’intégrale at the TDP
Sexy béton, among the Mirror’s Top 10 plays of 2010, is presented in French at TDP’s Salle Fred-Barry, February 9th to 26th. Reserve now! Ticket office: 514-253-8954
Good news for Porte Parole!
Since Porte Parole marked its 10th anniversary at the Sala Rossa on November 1st, we have much good news to report:
The successful presentation of our Seeds workshop at CINARS PLUS
Sexy béton, l’intégrale accepted for a coveted presentation slot at the Bourse RIDEAU 2011
Annabel Soutar and Porte Parole having received the 2010 MECCA’s Myron Galloway Award for Distinction. Our good friend Chip Chuipka, who plays Percy in Seeds, accepted the Best Actor Award for his work in the Tableau d’hôte production of A Line in the Sand.
Ten Years of Porte Parole
Reading from the play Sexy béton
Monday, November 1, Porte Parole celebrated its 10th birthday. It was my pleasure to be in attendance at La Sala Rosa, watching the entertainment, nibbling on snacks, drinking beer, renewing old acquaintances and making new ones. Porte Parole is a big family — a unique family in Montreal’s theatre community. Just watching the video Annabel made in which she interviewed Montrealers about their knowledge of the documentary art form, it became clear that Porte Parole still has lots more work to do to raise awareness of the genre. But as somebody once told me — I forgot who — “anything worthwhile doing is hard.” And documentary theatre is very worthwhile doing indeed, even if it remains a mystery to most people! Read More »
Infrastructure is the Face Cities Present to the World
Another fallen bridge...
The 2010 Commonwealth Games, which end today, almost didn’t happen. Three weeks ago, news stories began to surface about major infrastructure problems: the collapse of a pedestrian bridge that injured 23 workers as well as dirty and unsafe athlete living quarters. The Guardian live-blogged about the crisis. Read More »
It only took us 4 years to forget
A bouquet of flowers left at the site of the broken overpass in 2006.
On this day in 2006, the de la Concorde overpass collapsed onto Highway 19 killing Mathieu Goyette, his pregnant girlfriend Véronique Binette, Jean-Pierre Hamel and his wife Sylive Beaudet, and his brother Gilles Hamel. 6 other people driving over the bridge were badly injured in the incident: Mohamed Ashraff Umberthambi, Louise Bédard, Paul Cousineau, Robert Hotte, Anne Leblanc, and Claude Bastien.
As far as I can see, not one major newspaper in Montreal or the English CBC has mentioned this important anniversary today. Sept 30th will therefore pass Montreal by without a moment of reflection about de la Concorde.
Concorde, September 30th: what deserves commemoration?
Photo by shmilblick
So September 30th is coming up again, this will be the fourth year since the fatal Concorde overpass collapse. What have we learned in four years? What is being done? What has changed? I regret to say that these pressing questions have gotten a bit dusty. While the Concorde victims and families will remember September 30th as a sad day, the end of a life or the end of the hope of pursuing justice in the legal realm, will Quebec citizens even remember the date? With the flurry of things happening in our world, it’s not surprising that this type of anniversary gets overlooked especially when the media seems to want to make sure there is nothing left to say about it. For example, last October, La Presse came out with an article to close the debate: “Concorde Overpass: The Victims Will Not Pursue”. That’s it, there’s nothing else to say except maybe that it’s the Prime Minister’s prerogative now to give the victims more money. So hopefully he’ll be thinking about Concorde on September 30th…
Can art help us become better citizens?
Annabel Soutar's play 2000 Questions puts stock market investing on trial.
Next Thursday, August 12th I will be participating in a round table discussion at the Institut du Nouveau Monde’s 2nd edition of its Festival de l’Expression Citoyenne (FEC). Along with two other panelists (from Wapikoni Mobile and Jeunes musiciens du monde) I will debate the merits of using art to engage in social dialogue. The round table is free, open to the public and promises to provoke an inspiring conversation about how to trigger potent democratic dialogue through image-making, storytelling and music. What do you say?
Thursday, August 12th at 7:30pm
The John Molson School of Business, Concordia University
Room MB 1.210 1455 de Maisonneuve West
Do we live in a no-trust society?
In his recent op-ed, published today in the Montreal Gazette about the BP oil spill, New York Times editorialist David Brooks argues that the current global political struggle today is between ‘democratic capitalism’ and ’state capitalism’. Democratic capitalism, Brooks explains, allows private companies to exploit and manage important resources like oil with the state playing a marginal, regulatory role. State capitalism (like that practiced in China, Venezuela, Iran, etc…) keeps wealth creation firmly in the control of governement and directs it according to the political needs of the State. Why is this discussion of democratic versus state capitalism important and how is it relevant to Quebec?
