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With Epigone, playwright Kevin Kerr turns to ancient Greece to process contemporary loss

In new Electric Company Theatre play, premiering at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, real grief over his sister mixes with fictional elements and age-old myth

Cirque du Soleil’s LUZIA explores Mexico’s vibrant culture and nature

The touring production returns to Vancouver after seven years, featuring a 14-metre rain curtain and giant treadmills powered by 28 car batteries

THEATREJanet SmithOctober 26, 2026Cirque du Soleil, LUZIA, Homepage feature

Review: At Vancouver Opera, knockout arias and inspired staging live up to Tosca expectations

Season opener, coproduced with Pacific Opera Victoria, features a strong central trio of singers and striking lighting and sets

Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors takes a bite out of the gothic-horror classic’s sexual politics

Actor Steffanie Davis plays three roles in the Arts Club production, including the gleefully unhinged, bug-munching Renfield

THEATREJanet SmithOctober 19, 2026Arts Club Theatre Company, Homepage feature, Arts Club

Textiles and language become vessels for lived experiences in Surrey Art Gallery show In the Folds of Memory

Shaped by South Asian artistic traditions, Farheen Haq and Russna Kaur explore personal and collective histories across mediums

The Cinematheque enters Forbidden Rooms filled with unique Halloween horrors

Richard Martin’s locally made 1989 feature Matinee takes its place among dread-charged classics from around the world in this monthlong series

SCREENJanet SmithOctober 7, 2026The CInematheque, Horror, Halloween, Homepage feature

Artists confront dominant narratives and stir collective action at Burnaby Art Gallery show RESIST!

Featuring works by Rawan Hassan روان حسن, Gord Hill, Laurence Hyde, and Elizabeth MacKenzie, the exhibition explores how art and print can be used as a method of resistance

Jordyn Wood’s lifelong love of writing leads zombie tale Vascular Necrosis to the stage

New blend of horror, dark comedy, and queer romance emerges from Touchstone Theatre development program and Glitch Theatre’s disability-led approach

THEATREJanet SmithSeptember 29, 2026Touchstone Theatre, Glitch Theatre, Disability Arts, Homepage feature

Theatre review: Arts Club’s complex Heist unfolds with seamless efficiency

With live visual tricks and countless technical cues, the tale of high-tech burglary builds the momentum needed to pull off Arun Lakra’s time-jumping storyline

THEATREJanet SmithSeptember 28, 2026Arts Club Theatre Company, Homepage feature

Xiu Xiu explores the sonic and visual worlds of David Lynch’s surrealist horror classic Eraserhead

At VIFF Live, the experimental rock band’s Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo imagine what sights and sounds could exist beyond the edges of the writer-director’s debut feature

MUSIC, SCREENJanet SmithSeptember 23, 2026VIFF Live, Rio Theatre, Homepage feature

In JOB, The Cultch presents a psychological thriller for the age of social media

Playwright Max Wolf Friedlich’s award-winning drama is a tense intergenerational showdown between a millennial content moderator and her baby boomer therapist

THEATREJanet SmithSeptember 22, 2026The Cultch, Homepage feature, The Search Party

With its technically demanding production of Heist, the Arts Club aims to wow the audience

Arun Lakra’s play is like a caper movie crossed with a whodunit, and director Andrew Kushnir says pulling it off requires the combined forces of an A team of designers and actors

THEATREJanet SmithSeptember 14, 2026Arts Club Theatre Company, Homepage feature

Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut to open Vancouver International Film Festival, while Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine to close it

Amid today’s full programming announcement of more than 160 features, DEVO icon Mark Mothersbaugh is added to VIFF Live lineup

East Van Schools Improv Project is about much more than funny business

Improv Centre program introduces secondary students to improvisational comedy while teaching skills that are applicable to many other areas of life

COMEDYJanet SmithAugust 25, 2026The Improv Centre, improv comedy, Homepage feature

Flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor strives to keep Jocelyn Morlock’s music alive

With the new CD Artemis Sleeps, the late composer’s former roommate celebrates chamber works that range from pithy to rhapsodic to enigmatic

MUSICJanet SmithAugust 17, 2026Jocelyn Morlock, Mark McGregor, Redshift Music, Homepage feature

Maiku Hama trilogy still buzzes with ’90s-era wit, corruption, and cool at The Cinematheque

Hayashi Kaizo’s hard-boiled trio moves from cheerful spoof to disturbing violence in a distinctly Japanese play on old Mickey Spillane stories

SCREENJanet SmithAugust 5, 2026The CInematheque, film noir, Japanese films, Homepage feature

Vancouver Cultural Precinct unveils ambitious call for four new arts venues, from a 400-seat hall to a 2,000-seat proscenium theatre

Space-starved alliance of 32 of the city’s arts groups releases a range of possible architectural site concepts that span Robson Square, Larwill Park, Northeast False Creek, and renos to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre building

At The Polygon, remarkable new exhibition connects Greg Girard’s images from across the decades, and across the Pacific

In Greg Girard: Photographs 1972–2026, Vancouver artist’s well-known nighttime hideaways and cityscapes share space with his affecting, lesser-known shots of urban dwellers

ART & DESIGNJanet SmithJuly 16, 2026POLYGON Gallery, photography, Homepage feature, Summer 2026