Author Author

Melanie Gall has a big smile on her face this week. In addi­tion to writ­ing and per­form­ing in two shows at this year’s Fringe, A Toast to Pro­hi­bi­tion (Venue 6) and Ever­leigh and the Mag­ic Book (Kids Venue), Gall received advance copies of her first book on July 15, which will be avail­able for sale at book­stores on August 1. Her book is called Dean­na Durbin, Judy Gar­land, and the Gold­en Age of Hol­ly­wood and it is based on the research she did for her pre­vi­ous Fringe show Ingénue. It’s the first biog­ra­phy of actor Dean­na Durbin, who was born in Win­nipeg in the 1920s and became a big Hol­ly­wood star in the 1930s and 1940s, before quit­ting movies in her mid 20s.

You might think that Gall will be on a book tour in August, but no, she will be per­form­ing two shows at the Edin­burgh Fringe in Scot­land. For­tu­nate­ly, one of the shows she is per­form­ing in Edin­burgh is Ingénue, so hope­ful­ly she’ll be able to sell some books while in the UK.

Trib­ute

If you vis­it The Cin­e­math­eque (Venue 7), I encour­age you to look at the posters as you enter the venue. There is a beau­ti­ful trib­ute to Dave Bar­ber, the long­time Cin­e­math­eque movie pro­gram­mer, who died in July 2021. Dave was pas­sion­ate about movies and the walls of that venue show a cou­ple of posters he cre­at­ed back in the 1970s for his high school film club (I did­n’t real­ize that Dave was pas­sion­ate about movies back then). I remem­ber talk­ing to Dave over the years and he seemed like a magi­cian pulling rab­bits out of his hat — he would always sug­gest an obscure movie or two that I’d nev­er heard of before to watch that I would check out.

Quote of the Day

“What do a group of men talk about? Nothing.”

From Gabe Mol­li­ca: a Solo Show About Friend­ship (Venue 7).