Sarah Deshaies produces the Andrew Carter Morning Show. Every Friday at 8:20am, she tells you about the big, quirky and off-the-beaten-path events happening in Montreal. Here is this week's list, with links for more information so you can get out and enjoy the city! Submit your event to sarah.deshaies@bellmedia.ca.
The Segal has just launched Selina Fillinger’s 2021 play POTUS, or Behind Every Great Dumba** Are Seven Women Trying To Keep Him Alive. It’s a fast-paced farce in which the Leader of the Free World kicks off a crisis with a four-letter-word. While the President remains (mostly) offstage, we gaze upon the constellation of women around him, including hyper-competent secretary Stephanie (Catherine Fitch), his mistress (effervescent Kayleigh Choiniere) and his sister Bernadette (comic Elvira Kurt). Make sure to listen for a very special CJAD cameo - or two! Until June 2.
Montreal’s Cinéclub - Film Society marks the 100th anniversary of The Thief of Bagdad by screening the film as it was presented a century ago: a public viewing with live music! A quintet will set the soundtrack to Dougla Fairbanks’s swashbuckling Arabian Nights adventure, making use of the venue’s church organ. Cartoons from the era will roll before the main viewing. At St. George's Anglican Church downtown, Saturday at 7pm.
The wonderful Porchfest returns to NDG, with free, daytime front-lawn and balcony performances by local groups, spread out over the neighbourhood. Follow a printable map here to schedule your journey. Saturday’s acts include folk singer Sarah Segal-Lazar, folk-punk duo Illicit Biscuit. Celtic rockers Squidjigger and “horror-themed rock ‘n roll” Screaming Demons. Sunday starts early with shows for kids, like Shawny and Joe’s Family Fun Songs, followed by Celtic choir Mouth Music and the Sofa Kings, who will pay homage to Gordon Lightfoot. Saturday and Sunday, with Monday as a rain date. The event will raise money for a local non-profit, Women on the Rise.
Confabulation presents Montrealers telling fascinating stories - all true. The theme for this edition is coincidence, with tales of “happy accidents, remarkable connections and falling out of sync.” Friday, 8pm at La Sala Rossa.
The Montreal Salsa Convention brings competitions, workshops and plenty of socializing to the DoubleTree Hilton this weekend.
Lakeshore Players Dorval are putting on their biggest show yet: Guys and Dolls! Two odd couples are at the heart of this Tony-winning musical musical: a gambler and a missionary, a showgirl and the guy who runs the games. The tales of New York’s underbelly in the 1920s and 30s were originally inspired by the short stories of Damon Runyon. The Players perform at the Louise Chalmers Theatre at John Rennie High School until Saturday.
Joseph Ste Marie uses his own story to share the pitfalls and joys of pursuing your dreams. The photographer pursued his interest in theatre by going back to school a decade ago, enrolling at John Abbott’s acting program. Joseph chronicles this journey, and other stories, in an improvised show where he relies on the audience to keep him honest. This Show is Broken is at MainLine Theatre until Sunday.
Choreographer Sonia Bustos is originally from Mexico City (now based in MOntreal) and she attempts to capture the smell, ambiance and sounds of her community in her elegiac dance performance, Je ne vais pas inonder la mer. The show starts off slow and ends in a crescendo of traditional Mexican music, singing and dance. And this is a multisensory production: you are greeted by the smell of flowers, and eventually, treated to the aroma and taste of coffee and tequila. A bonus: vibrotacticle pillows are available to patrons who are Deaf and hard of hearing. (Note the individual embroidery with flowers on each one!). At the MAI on Friday, 7:30pm and Saturday, 2 and 7:30pm.
Friday’s music picks: DC-based American progressive metal band Periphery at MTelus 7:30pm. Filipino-American R&B singer-songwriter Jeff Bernat at Le Studio TD, 8pm.
Saturday’s music picks: Comedic German metal band Electric Callboy, 7pm at Place Bell. Local “world punk” band GrimSkunk, 7:30pm at MTelus. Pop singer alexander stewart at Beanfield, 8pm. Japanese metalcore band Hanabie. at Le Studio TD, 7pm. Lusty EDM band Lords of Acid at SAT 7:30pm.
Festival Accès Asie celebrates myriad art forms by Asian artists and informed by Asian traditions. Enjoy the sounds of Bengal at a concert titled From the Land of Tagore: Folk & Baul Songs of Bengal, India. Saturday, 8pm at Le Gesu.
Sunday’s music picks: Phish co-founder and prolific singer-songwriter Trey Anastasio, 8pm at MTelus.
Violinist Isabella d'Éloize Perron performs Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, as well as Piazzolla's The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, Sunday, 3pm at Maison symphonique.
John Williams has written many of the most iconic movie scores to date. Orchestre FILMharmonique and a 100-strong choir will perform iconic selections from his canon, spanning four decades, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman, Jaws, Jurassic Park, ET, Harry Potter and Star Wars. A cinematic outing, Friday 7:30pm and Saturday, 2 and 7:30pm, at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.
District Rise 2024 is a five-hour dance party at Club Soda, Saturday at 10pm.
Canadian Drag Race Star Jimbo's Drag Circus World Tour comes to L’Olympia, Sunday, 8pm.
Johnny Beehner trained at Second City in Chicago and Upright Citizens Brigade before branching into standup. The American comic will headline with support from the likes of John Cotrocois, Carly Baker, Walter Lyng and more! Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10:30pm.
Live drawing session Dr Sketchy Montreal returns with an epic Dungeons & Dragons-inspired session, with model Infernal Temptation. Sunday 2-5pm at MainLine Theatre.
Montreal Improv in St Henri hosts a medley of shows, including Once and Floral: A Pretty Flower Show, a show with three troupes performing in the ‘pretty flower’ format, which involves slower scenes with lots of fun baked in. Friday, 8pm.
At burlesque headquarters The Wiggle Room, host and owner Frenchy Jones is hosting: Friday, 9pm is Femmes Fatales with Isa Strawberry, Madrose, Minx Arcana and Sugar Vixen. Then, Saturday, at 9pm: Disco Tease, with Roxy Torpedo, Charli Deville, Butterscotch Blondie and Yaya Havana.
On Sunday, 7pm: Sapphic Party is a queer, welcoming event with dancing, drinks and tattoos!
Our pal, legendary cartoonist Terry Mosher aka Aislin, will be signing copies of his new book looking back at the Expos. Saturday, 10am to 2pm at Clio Bookstore at Plaza Pointe Claire.
Nine neighbours in Dorval are holding a multi-family garage sale on the holiday Monday. Check out this map to plan your route. Monday, 9am to 4pm.
ONGOING EVENTS
At the Botanical Gardens, the tulips and magnolias are waning but the peonies are just starting to bloom. Check out the blooms of the week here
Nearby, the Montreal Planetarium’s new show imagines what human life could like on Mars.. in 2100! With help from NASA aerospace engineer Farah Alibay and celebrated troupe Cirque Éloize, ROUGE 2100 explores the environment of the red planet as well as what astronauts would need to survive. You’ll have the A-I bot Felicity 87, to take you through the immersive exhibit.
Pointe-À-Callière Museum has launched a first-in-Canada show, Olmecs and the Civilizations of the Gulf of Mexico Explore 4,000 years of Olmec history through nearly 300 objects, some of which will be seen for the first time by the public. What’s fascinating is that traces of the Olmecs were not really “discovered” until the 1800s. This show, a collaboration with Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, runs until September 15.
Explore the beauty and diversity of our natural world in Root for Nature. This new, 90-minute show is a “nature hike” indoors, conceived as a powerful piece of edutainment inspired by the COP15 biodiversity talks hosted by Montreal in late 2022. This collaboration between National Geographic and OASIS Immersive Studios will take place in the same location as the UN conference, at the Palais des congrès. Also at the venue: Dreaming of Asia is a stunning exploration of Chinese and Japanese culture, making its North American premiere at OASIS Immersions. French digital art studio Danny Rose has crafted four different experiences, including a look at shadow puppet theatre.
The Horizon of Khufu: A Journey in Ancient Egypt is a virtual reality experience that brings you into the giant pyramid in Giza, a 146-metre high pyramid built nearly 3,000 years before the Common era. Noted Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian will be your guide. Studio PHI has brought in this for a North American first. Until May 31, in the Old Port at 2 rue de la Commune.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts explores how nature inspired two great artists of the 20th cetury. Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore: Giants of Modern Art is an exhibit curated by the San Diego Museum of Art; it recreates both artists’ studios down to minute detail. Admire O’Keefe bodacious flowers and landscapes, contrasted with Moore’s sculptures inspired by stones and bones, and his Helmet heads. Until June 2.
The McCord Stewart Museum’s excellent and informative Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience. The show profiles the 11 nations living within the borders of Quebec, with testimonies and carefully curated objects. Two of the McCord’s current shows include Becoming Montreal is about the depictions of the city in the 1800s, and Wampum: Beads of diplomacy, which displays over 40 wampum belts from different collections, underscoring their symbolism and history.
Visit the city’s newest museum: Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises promises to capture the metropois’ history and citizens. Check out the vintage neon signs at the entrance, and look for the colourful balls that once decorated Ste-Catherine in the Gay Village. There are two exhibition up now: a lookback at the 90 years of Le Chaînon, the women’s shelter and resource centre, and Détours, which focuses on hidden corners of the city. Located at 1201 St Laurent.