Patty Andrews of singing Andrews Sisters dies

Patty Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio whose hits such as the rollicking Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B and the poignant I Can Dream, Can't I? captured the home-front spirit of the Second World War, died Wednesday. She was 94.

Andrews died of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement.

Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home.

'There were just three girls in the family. LaVerne had a very low voice. Maxene's was kind of high, and I was between. It was like God had given us voices to fit our parts'—Patty Andrews

She could also deliver sentimental ballads like I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep.

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen in 1937 and continuing with Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar, Rum and Coca-Cola and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records, several of them gold (over a million copies).

Other sisters, notably the Boswells, had become famous as singing acts, but mostly they huddled before a microphone in close harmony. The Andrews Sisters — LaVerne, Maxene and Patty — added a new dimension. During breaks in their singing, they cavorted about the stage in rhythm to the music.

Their voices combined with perfect synergy. As Patty remarked in 1971: "There were just three girls in the family. LaVerne had a very low voice. Maxene's was kind of high, and I was between. It was like God had given us voices to fit our parts."

Rise of swing music

The Andrews's rise coincided with the advent of swing music, and their style fit perfectly into the new craze. They aimed at reproducing the sound of three harmonizing trumpets.

The Andrews Sisters, from left, Maxene, Patty and Laverne, were known for wartime hits like Boogie Woogie Bugel Boy of Company B. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"I was listening to Benny Goodman and to all the bands," Patty once remarked. "I was into the feel, so that would go into my own musical ability. I was into swing. I loved the brass section."

Unlike other singing acts, the sisters recorded with popular bands of the '40s, fitting neatly into the styles of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, Guy Lombardo, Desi Arnaz and Russ Morgan.

They sang dozens of songs on records with Bing Crosby, including the million-seller Don't Fence Me In. They also recorded with Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Danny Kaye, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Red Foley.

Road to Rio with Bing Crosby

The Andrews' popularity led to a contract with Universal Pictures, where they made a dozen low-budget musical comedies between 1940 and 1944. In 1947, they appeared in The Road to Rio with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

The trio continued until LaVerne's death in 1967. By that time the close harmony had turned to discord, and the sisters had been openly feuding.

Bette Midler's 1973 cover of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy revived interest in the trio. The two survivors joined in 1974 for a Broadway show, Over Here! It ran for more than a year, but disputes with the producers led to the cancellation of the national tour of the show, and the sisters did not perform together again.

Patty, left, and Maxine Andrews are shown in 1987 after accepting a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Reed Saxon/Associated Press)

Patty continued as a single, finding success in Las Vegas and on TV variety shows. Her sister also toured as a single until her death in 1995.

Her father, Peter Andrews, was a Greek immigrant who anglicized his name of Andreus when he arrived in America; his wife, Olga, was a Norwegian with a love of music. LaVerne was born in 1911, Maxine (later Maxene) in 1916, Patricia (later Patty, sometimes Patti) in 1918, though some sources say 1920.

Sang in harmony

Listening to the Boswell Sisters on radio, LaVerne played the piano and taught her sisters to sing in harmony; neither Maxene nor Patty ever learned to read music. All three studied singers at the vaudeville house near their father's restaurant. As their skills developed, they moved from amateur shows to vaudeville and singing with bands.

After Peter Andrews moved the family to New York in 1937, his wife, Olga, sought singing dates for the girls. They were often turned down with comments such as: "They sing too loud and they move too much." Olga persisted, and the sisters sang on radio with a hotel band at $15 a week. The broadcasts landed them a contract with Decca Records.

They recorded a few songs, and then came Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen, an old Yiddish song for which Sammy Cahn and Saul Kaplan wrote English lyrics. (The title means, "To Me You Are Beautiful.") It was a smash hit, and the Andrews Sisters were launched into the bigtime.

Their only disappointment was the movies. Universal was a penny-pinching studio that ground out product to fit the lower half of a double bill. The sisters were seldom involved in the plots, being used for musical interludes in film with titles such as Private Buckaroo, Swingtime Johnny and Moonlight and Cactus.

Buck Privates with Abbott and Costello

Their only hit was Buck Privates, which made stars of Abbott and Costello and included the trio's blockbuster Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B.

In 1947, Patty married Martin Melcher, an agent who represented the sisters as well as Doris Day, then at the beginning of her film career. Patty divorced Melcher in 1949 and soon he became Day's husband, manager and producer.

Patty married Walter Weschler, pianist for the sisters, in 1952. He became their manager and demanded more pay for himself and for Patty. The two other sisters rebelled, and their differences with Patty became public. Lawsuits were filed between the two camps.

"We had been together nearly all our lives," Patty explained in 1971. "Then in one year our dream world ended. Our mother died and then our father. All three of us were upset, and we were at each other's throats all the time."

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Downton Abbey fan creates cookbook from on-screen food

A Downton Abbey fan has taken her interest in the show to a new level, creating a cookbook based on recipes mentioned in the Edwardian-set melodrama.

Pamela Foster, of Burlington, Ont., combined her love of the show and her own interest in culinary history to created the e-book Abbey Cooks Entertain.

Culinary historian Pamela Foster of Burlington, Ont., author of Abbey Cooks Entertain, a cookbook featuring food from the show Downton Abbey. (Pamela Powered Inc./Canadian Press)

"I'm a big fan of the show and, as a result of a marathon session my husband and I had, watching episode after episode without eating anything, it inspired me to find out what the food was like and learn how to cook it," Foster said in an interview with CBC News.

Foster was already blogging regularly about the show, which focuses on a British noble family, the Crawleys, living in Downton Abbey and their friends and servants.

One of the regular features of her blog is "Tea Tuesday," which focuses on the pastries and finger sandwiches eaten at afternoon tea.

"Since food follows fashion, to literally take all the food that was eaten in those days and bring it forward might not be the best experience," Foster said.

Instead she has reduced the fat content and amended the cooking methods so today's cooks can replicate the recipe.

"A lot of those rich pastries I've been able to lighten up by taking some of the butter out. I'm a big fan of unsweetened apple sauce. We can have the same taste and experience without all the badness to it," she said, adding that she likes to keep the recipes as a healthy as possible.

Abbey Cooks Entertain is an e-book of recipes. (Pamela Powered Inc.)

The Edwardian fashion was a lot of meat and fish in the upstairs dining room, as well as French sauces. Vegetables weren't popular — except for the servants downstairs. A family like that of Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, followed the king's lead in what they served.

"Edward VII loved food with a passion, loved French food in particular, so you do what the king does and everyone picked up that passion for volumes of food, especially French food," Foster said.

Fortunately many of the recipes were simple, because the French chef Escoffier had simplified them at the end of the 19th century.

Her Abbey Cooks Entertain e-book includes recipes such as the roast chicken dropped on the floor by the cook Mrs. Patmore and the asparagus salad served to servants for a special occasion in season three.

"As I followed the show, I started to take an interest in the famous Downton dishes, for example the Apple Charlotte Mrs. Patmore refused to make. We don't see it on camera but that inspired me to go researching that dish, which is a traditional British dish — it's basically bread and apples," Foster said.

But she avoided foods such as the kidney soufflé that was less likely to appeal to a modern fan.

"My husband loves the fact that there's decorum and there's manners, and there's a time and place for everything, and everyone has a certain way of behaving that we often don't see," Foster said.

With files from Metro Morning, Canadian Press

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TV special revisits Whitney Houston's death ahead of Grammy gala

CBS says it will air a behind-the-scenes look at how Whitney Houston's death affected the 2012 Grammy Awards.

The hour-long special, titled The Grammys Will Go On: A Death in the Family, is scheduled for Feb. 9, the eve of this year's music awards.

Last year, Grammy producers learned of Houston's death less than 24 hours before the ceremony. The special recounts the scramble to pay tribute to the pop star and revamp the show.

The special includes interviews with LL Cool J, Jennifer Hudson, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift and other artists.

The 48-year-old Houston was found drowned last February in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub. Coroner's officials ruled her death accidental, with heart disease and cocaine use contributing factors.

The 2013 Grammys will air on CBS Feb. 10.

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Justin Bieber poised for record books with new acoustic album

With Tuesday's release of Justin Bieber's latest album Believe Acoustic, the Canadian pop star is poised to enter the record books.

The latest from the Stratford, Ont.-raised Bieber, 18, marks his third studio album (he has also released multiple remix albums).

If Believe Acoustic tops the Billboard 200 chart, he will be the first artist to rack up five No. 1 albums before the age of 19.

If he achieves the record, he will also join a rarified company of artists, including The Beatles and rapper Jay-Z, to have released four No. 1 albums in consecutive years. His past chart-toppers include 2012's Believe, 2011's Under the Mistletoe and 2010's My World 2.0. Bieber burst onto the scene in 2009 with My World.

Believe Acoustic features slower, stripped-down versions of Bieber's uptempo hits such as Boyfriend and As Long as You Love Me. It also includes several new tracks, including Nothing Like Us, a heartbreak ballad inspired by the dissolution of his high-profile relationship with singer-actress Selena Gomez. The songs largely feature Bieber singing alongside piano or guitar accompaniment, harkening back to his roots as a young busker in Stratford.

Bieber, who recently set a record for being the "most-followed" Twitter user, is set to host and perform as the musical guest on long-running sketch show Saturday Night Live on Feb. 9.

The Grammy Awards take place in Los Angeles the following night, but Bieber — who did not receive any nominations this year — told Billboard he was not planning to attend.

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Toronto's k-os on his double album BLack on BLonde

With his latest project, Toronto's k-os didn't want to have to choose from among the 20 tracks he has waiting to release — he wanted it all out there while it was still fresh and relevant.

The result is a double album, BLack on BLonde, which combines hip hop songs with some that have more of a rock sound.

The collaborations with Emily Haines of Metric, Sam Roberts, Sebastien Grainger of Death from Above 1979, Black Thought from the Roots, Travie McCoy from Gym Class Heroes and '80s star Corey Hart are an indication of the eclectic mix.

K-os, who emerged on the music scene with 2002's Exit, had to push back the release of his new album to Jan. 29 because of sample clearance issues.

With a title like BLack on BLonde, the Toronto rapper is ready for questions about civil rights and race relations.

But he's reflecting on a time he hopes is coming when race won't matter at all.

"If you can embody the music and think of another culture to the point where people of another culture will appreciate it, I think that the most biggest eraser of racial lines ever," he said in an interview with the CBC's Laura Thompson.

When he thinks back on hip hop, he remembers how alien Eminem seemed at first because he was a white rapper and he admits he's revised his definitions lately of what rap is and where it is going.

"To be able to serve someone's culture and respect it and spit it back at them in a form… that's what I'm proud of in this record," he said.

K-os agrees there is now an emotional edge to his music — sometimes called "emo rap" — and says it's about time men acknowledged their feelings in the way women do.

"I dated somebody and she was a pimp and she messed me up and I was left with stained egos on the ceiling and I was like nooo!" he said.

"I wrote songs about it and so for the first time of my life I was like, this is really real, this pain is real and I'm gonna write about it and that's what it's about."

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War Witch producers work to bring former street kid star to Oscars

Efforts are underway to bring the African teen star of War Witch to this year's Oscar bash.

Former street kid Rachel Mwanza is the celebrated actress at the heart of Canada's contender for the best foreign-language film prize. The film is also known by its French-language name, Rebelle.

Producers Marie-Claude Poulin and Pierre Even say they've applied for a visa to bring Mwanza to Los Angeles from the Democratic Republic of Congo. They say the 16-year-old is eager to visit the glitzy celebrity capital, where she hopes to meet music superstars Beyoncé and Rihanna.

In War Witch, Mwanza plays a 12-year-old girl who is abducted and forced to become a child soldier. The French-language drama, directed by Montreal's Kim Nguyen, is the third Canadian feature in as many years to compete in the best foreign-language film category.

The Academy Awards will be handed out Feb. 24 in Los Angeles.

"She's very thrilled with just the idea of maybe seeing Beyoncé or Rihanna on the red carpet," Even says from Montreal.

"That's her main goal in life. Hopefully one of these two singers will be at the Oscars so that she can get an autograph."

Applications filed for U.S., Canadian visits

All that depends on whether Mwanza can secure a U.S. visa. Even says an application was filed late last week at the embassy in Kinshasa but that Mwanza also needs to undergo an interview with U.S. authorities to prove she won't try to remain in the United States.

He hopes she can visit for about five days, noting that they plan on two days of post-Oscar interviews to promote the film's staggered release in the United States, which begins March 1. After that, Even says they hope to bring Mwanza north of the border for more awards ceremonies including the Canadian Screen Awards in Toronto on March 3 and the Jutras in Montreal on March 17.

"We believe [that] is a good thing to reassure the U.S. authorities that she won't stay in the U.S. because she's coming with us to go to the Canadian Screen Awards," he notes.

"She's going to be at many award ceremonies in a few weeks."

Mwanza also needs a visa to enter Canada but Poulin says she doesn't expect that to be a problem since the teen spent two months here last year when the film made its Canuck premiere. Mwanza has also travelled to Berlin and Paris for other War Witch screenings, which should help her application, the producers add.

War Witch team her new family

The teen currently lives with fellow War Witch actress Marie Dilou in Kinshasa, says Even. He, Poulin and Nguyen have promised to pay for her education and room and board until she turns 18.

"It was Kim's idea at first," says Even. "We still feel responsibility towards Rachel because she gave us so much with the film."

'She's intelligent and she knows that she has to work hard because she's way behind other kids of her age. But she knows that and she really wants to learn because she wants to change her life' —Producer Pierre Even

"I don't think we anticipated it," Poulin adds.

"We never had much discussion about it because it was natural for us to do that. And I guess in life you pick and choose your charities or who you help and what you do and this is one of the ones we're picking. [At the Berlin International Film Festival, Rachel] talked about how she was abandoned and then she looked at Kim and Pierre and I at the table and she said: And now this is my family. And I think it was felt by us as well."

Mwanza and her siblings were abandoned by their parents when she was young, notes Even. At age six, she ended up with her grandmother, who later lost her job.

"And she just told them: I can't feed you. You have more chances in the street than staying with me," says Even.

From there, Mwanza spent about three years on her own.

"The street children in Kinshasa are very common and problematic," says Poulin.

'One in a million'

War Witch, starring Rachel Mwanza, is nominated for a variety of awards, including the Oscars, the Spirit Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards. Producers are working to bring the former street kid to North America to attend the galas.

"There's hundreds of thousands of street children ... and unfortunately the older ones often become thieves and not such good people so we're very happy that Rachel, given her will and intelligence, that we were able to help her get out of that life."

Mwanza's life began to change when she appeared in a documentary that caught the attention of Nguyen, Even and Poulin. From the moment he saw her, Even says he knew Mwanza was special, calling her "one in a million."

When he and Nguyen travelled to Kinshasa to meet her in person they were blown away again. "She had an intensity that no other girls had and we decided to cast her at the time and she was living mostly on the streets," he says of Mwanza, who went on to win best actress awards at last year's Berlin International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival.

Back then, Mwanza had never been to school and didn't know how to read or write. Things are different today.

"She sent me an email through Facebook at Christmas and I was amazed because she could write an email which is really something great," says Even.

"She's intelligent and she knows that she has to work hard because she's way behind other kids of her age. But she knows that and she really wants to learn because she wants to change her life and do something with her life."

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Bollywood's Shah Rukh Khan caught in India-Pakistan spat

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan appeared to be caught in a verbal slugfest between India and Pakistan after he wrote a magazine article that led to heated exchanges between the rival nations.

The controversy erupted after Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik suggested that New Delhi beef up the actor's security after Khan wrote an account of how it felt to be a Muslim in India.

In the article, Khan wrote that sometimes he became "the inadvertent object of political leaders who choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India."

New Delhi reacted sharply to Malik's comments with Indian politicians and officials suggesting he should concentrate on the security of Pakistani citizens.

"Malik would be better served bothering about the internal situation in Pakistan and introspecting about the minorities there," said Manish Tewari, India's information and broadcasting minister.

India's Home Secretary R.K. Singh said India was capable of looking after its citizens. "Let him [Malik] worry about the security of his country's security," Singh told reporters.

Khan says his safety a 'non-existent issue'

Khan responded to the exchange late Tuesday by saying he was extremely safe and happy in India. He said it was "irksome for me to clarify this non-existent issue."

He said the article did not "even vaguely say that I am ungrateful for the love I have received in a career spanning 20 years. On the contrary, the article says that in spite of the bigoted thoughts of some of the people that surround us, I am untouched by skeptics because of the love I have received from my countrymen and women," he said, reading from a prepared statement.

The 47-year-old actor is popularly known as "King Khan" in the Indian film industry. He has acted in around 75 Hindi feature films, including many box-office hits. He has also hosted a season of the Hindi version of the game show, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

Khan is immensely popular in Pakistan as well. His father was born in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and moved to India in the 1940s.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947. Their relations have been marked by distrust and acrimony in the decades since, although both countries are trying to promote trade and closer cultural ties.

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Conrad Black strikes deal to host weekly TV show

Conrad Black will soon be coming to a television near you.

The former media baron has reached a deal with ZoomerMedia to host his own weekly, 60-minute current affairs talk show.

The flagship show, titled "The Zoomer — Television for Boomers With Zip" is being touted as a weekly "take" on the world from the point of view of those aged 45 and over.

It will begin airing across Canada on ZoomerMedia's Vision TV channel in late spring.

ZoomerMedia head Moses Znaimer says Black was the ideal candidate for the job.

"He's one of the most learned men in the country. He's a well-established historian of serious stature. He's a witty conversationalist," Znaimer said in an interview Monday from Miami, Fla., where he is promoting the show at an international television sales conference.

"He has views on just about anything. If you are ever giving a dinner party — this is the guy you want to invite."

The show, which finished shooting its pilot episode early Saturday in Toronto, has been in the works for the past four to five months.

Each episode will have Black interview "some of the world's greats" and end with an editorial segment titled "Talk Black" where he gives his commentary on issues "that really get under his skin" like the U.S. justice system, ageism, gun control and the financial crisis.

Znaimer remained tight-lipped about who Black may interview on the show, but added that there was "not a significant personality on the planet that Conrad cannot get to."

The show will also feature a roundtable discussion on various topics such as current affairs and health by co-host Denise Donlon, former CBC Radio executive. It will also include visits from book authors and actors and have cooking and live performance segments.

Znaimer, who is best known as the co-founder and former head of Toronto's CityTV, says that being a Zoomer nowadays is all about re-invention and Black exemplifies that mantra.

"I think Conrad is in some ways the perfect example, of someone who, for various reasons, has to constantly make and remake himself and I think this (show) is very brisk and attractive first step in that direction," he said.

Black is the former CEO of media giant Hollinger International and founder of the National Post newspaper.

He served 37 months of a 42-month sentence in a Florida prison after he was convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice while he was head of Hollinger. He returned to Canada last May on a one-year temporary residency permit.

Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001, so he could accept a title in the British House of Lords.

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Tegan and Sara take new direction

Tegan and Sara, the Calgary-raised twins who have been darlings of Canada's indie scene since they were teenagers, are now 32 and thinking about commercial success.

And success is thinking about them. Their live CD/DVD combination package titled Get Along, released last November, has them nominated for best long form video at the Grammys, new territory for the singing sisters.

Tegan and Sara Quin say they've changed over the years — they fight with one another less and agree on more.

And when their new album Heartthrob is released Tuesday, fans will hear a new pop sound, polished by producer Greg Kurstin.

Some believe it will be the album that takes them to superstar status.

Tegan Quin says their songwriting is just as introspective as it ever was, and they still consider themselves part of the indie scene, reaching out to the same set of fans.

In this chat with CBC's Deana Sumanac, they acknowledge that a lot has changed for them and they are growing in a new direction.

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Oprah sought 'space to be truthful' in Armstrong interview

Oprah Winfrey has interviewed countless famous figures over the years — from U.S. President Barack Obama to Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel — but she admitted to taking a moment to collect herself before her most recent high-profile chat: the interview with Lance Armstrong.

"I prayed before doing that interview," the talk show guru told CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos during one of her recent speaking engagements in Western Canada.

During their discussion, Winfrey shared thoughts on a variety of topics with Stroumboulopoulos. (George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight)

"I sat in silence before going upstairs to do the interview and my prayer was that the presence in me would find a way to reach the presence in him — that I would create an open field," she said.

"I said at the beginning of the interview, 'it's an open field, I can ask anything I want.' I wanted to create an open field so he would have the space to be truthful, if that's what he chose to do, and that I would have no judgment of it."

Stroumboulopoulos conducted onstage interviews with Winfrey during each of her sold-out tour stops last week — in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver — and filmed an exclusive chat with the broadcasting icon for his show.

During their discussion, Winfrey shared her thoughts on a variety of topics, from her interview with the disgraced cycling star to celebrating her 59th birthday on Tuesday to American society's tendency to tear down celebrities.

"We're a culture — you are not, you Canadians. I don't put you all in that. Even looking at television here, television is calmer here. I don't see a lot of the nastiness I see on [American] TV shows — We just like to complain about things," Winfrey said.

"The only difference between famous and not is that more people know your name. Because, as you all can see, I'm just like you, except you know my name," she said.

So, regarding the recent controversy over whether singer Beyoncé Knowles sang The Star-Spangled Banner live or lip-synched to her pre-recorded track for the U.S. presidential and vice-presidential inauguration, "it was her voice," Winfrey said.

"I can see if she was using Mary J. Blige's voice, Alicia Keys' voice [you might be upset]. It was her voice. Why is everyone so upset about that?"

The full interview with Winfrey airs Wednesday at 7p.m. (7:30 p.m. NT) and 11 p.m. (11:30 p.m. NT) on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.

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Human rights museum boasts inclusive design

Designers of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg say they are setting a new standard in making the building accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities.

Eight disabled Canadians have had direct input into the design of the museum, which is being built near The Forks in the city's downtown. Designers are now working on implementing their recommendations.

This miniature 3D model of the museum can be handled by visually impaired visitors to determine how atriums and galleries are laid out. (Marianne Klowak/CBC)

Museum officials will be showcasing highlights of the accessible design to reporters on Tuesday morning.

"I'm really excited what's happening with the human rights museum," said Valerie Wolbert, a Winnipeg disability rights activist who was consulted by the museum.

Wolbert recommended that exhibits use language that is easy for everyone, including those with cognitive impairments, to understand.

"For me, as a person with an intellectual disability, I feel it would be great for having the plain language for everybody," she said.

The museum will also employ tactile maps and a miniature 3D model of the building to help visually impaired visitors get a feel for how atriums and galleries are laid out.

"The fact that we're creating everything fresh, it's a blank canvas. We can do so with an inclusive design methodology," said Corey Timpson, the museum's director of design.

Timpson said the standards being developed will apply throughout the entire museum experience, including all exhibits.

Officials say the design will be a first in Canada and will surpass the standard used by the Smithsonian Institution in terms of being accessible to as many people as possible.

"We believe we are setting a global standard," said Stuart Murray, the museum's chief executive officer.

"Now when new buildings get built, they're going to look at the new gold standard which is going to be the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It's significant and it's something we are extremely proud of."

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Set for Mary Walsh's one-woman show lost en route to Edmonton

An Edmonton theatre company is on the edge of its seat after a cross-country mix-up with a shipping company.

The shipper apparently misplaced part of the set for Mary Walsh's one-woman show, Dancing With Rage.

The former star of CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes is planning to begin her western tour in Edmonton this week.

Michael Clark, the artistic director of Workshop West Playwrights' Theatre, in North Central Edmonton, said the set was shipped from St. John's, Nfld., in three boxes.

"I'm told by the folks who did the show that if we don't have that box we don't have the show. So it's quite a big deal and Workshop West has really kind stuck ourselves out quite on a limb to bring this show in," Clark said.

The Toronto set builder that made the original, part of which is seen here in a Newfoundland Theatre, is racing to build a replacement set for the shows at Workshop West in Edmonton. (CBC)

A Toronto set company that made the original set is now scrambling to replace the missing pieces.

"Last that I heard, the designer for the show has gotten in touch with the builders in Toronto... and they've put everything on hold in Toronto. All their other work is on hold and they're madly now trying to build Mary's set again," Clark said.

Clark is optimistic that the rebuilt set will ship and arrive in time for the opening performance on Feb. 2.

With files from the CBC's Trisha Estabrooks

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Screen Actors Guild awards Argo cast best performance

The CIA thriller Argo continues to steamroll through awards season, winning the top honour for overall cast performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Sunday's win came a day after Argo claimed the top honour from the Producers Guild of America.

SAG's lead-acting honours went to Jennifer Lawrence, who won for her role as a troubled widow in a shaky new relationship in the lost-souls romance Silver Linings Playbook, and Daniel Day-Lewis, who won for his role as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War epic Lincoln.

The supporting acting awards Sunday went to Anne Hathaway of Les Misérables and Tommy Lee Jones of Lincoln.

Hathaway won for her role as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution in the adaptation of the stage musical based on Victor Hugo's epic novel. Her win came over four past Oscar recipients — Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Nicole Kidman and Maggie Smith.

"I'm just thrilled I have dental," Hathaway said. "I got my SAG card when I was 14. It felt like the beginning of the world. I have loved every single minute of my life as an actor. ... Thank you for nominating me alongside incredible women and incredible performances."

Jones was not at the show, but the win improves his odds to become a two-time Academy Award winner. He previously won a supporting-actor Oscar for The Fugitive.

The wins lift their prospects for the same prizes at the Feb. 24 Academy Awards.

Best-picture Oscar win hard to predict

The SAG honors are the latest show in a puzzling Academy Awards season in which Hollywood's top prize, the best-picture Oscar, looks up for grabs among several key nominees.

Honors from the actors union, next weekend's Directors Guild of America Awards and Saturday night's Producers Guild of America Awards — whose top honor went to Argo — typically help to establish clear favorites for the Oscars.

But Oscar night looks more uncertain this time after some top directing prospects, including Ben Affleck for Argo and Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty, missed out on nominations. Both films were nominated for best picture, but a movie rarely wins the top Oscar if its director is not also in the running.

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln would seem the Oscar favorite with 12 nominations. Yet Argo and Affleck were surprise best-drama and director winners at the Golden Globes, and then there's Saturday's Producers Guild win for Argo, leaving the Oscar race looking like anybody's guess.

Affleck has made some nice jokes about his directing snub, wisecracking at one point that no one seemed surprised he didn't get an acting nomination for Argo, either.

His colleagues just seem happy for all the attention the film has received.

"The thing is, we're all very pleased we've been nominated for so many things," Argo co-star John Goodman said before the SAG Awards.

SAG's strong track record of predicting acting Oscar winners

The Screen Actors Guild honors at least should help to establish solid front-runners for the stars. All four of the guild's individual acting winners often go on to receive the same prizes at the Academy Awards.

Last year, the guild went just three-for-four — with lead actor Jean Dujardin of The Artist and supporting players Octavia Spencer of The Help and Christopher Plummer of Beginners also taking home Oscars. The guild's lead-actress winner, Viola Davis of The Help, missed out on the Oscar, which went to Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady.

The guild also presents an award for overall cast performance, its equivalent of a best-picture honor, which went to Argo.

Yet the cast prize has a spotty record at predicting the eventual best-picture recipient at the Oscars. Only eight of 17 times since the guild added the category has the cast winner gone on to take the best-picture Oscar. The Help won the guild's cast prize last year, while Oscar voters named The Artist as best picture.

Such past guild cast winners as The Birdcage, Gosford Park and Inglourious Basterds also failed to take the top Oscar.

Receiving the guild's life-achievement award was Dick Van Dyke, who presented the same prize last year to his The Dick Van Dyke Show co-star, Mary Tyler Moore. Van Dyke's award was presented by his 1960s sitcom's creator and co-star, Carl Reiner, and Alec Baldwin.

"I'm so tickled. I'm so excited,' Van Dyke said before the show. "And I'm the only one who knows he's going to win."

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Austen's power: 200 years of Pride and Prejudice

In the genteel world Jane Austen created for the witty Elizabeth Bennet and the charming Mr. Darcy, zombies would seem to be particularly unseemly intruders.

Yet, 200 years after Austen's Pride and Prejudice introduced readers to these now-iconic lovers, zombies have become part of their modern milieu, thanks to a recent parody novel that seems to have taken on a life of its own.

Jane Austen wrote six novels, but Pride and Prejudice is frequently considered the most popular of her works. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

It is a juxtaposition that finds little favour with those whose appreciation of Austen focuses on the original tale set in rarified Regency England. But in a strange way, it speaks to the enduring allure of the story the author spent years refining before its publication on Jan. 28, 1813.

"It all testifies to the huge appeal of it," says Janet Todd, president of Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge University in England, and the general editor of the nine-volume Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen.

No zombies will be in the hall when Todd's college hosts a Regency ball in June, complete with music from the period, as part of a conference celebrating 200 years of Pride and Prejudice, the novel Austen said was her "own darling child."

But the range and reach of the novel — which has been retold on screen and in print numerous times, including the 2009 parody Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — will be front and centre for conference-goers who are expected to come from around the world, including Canada.

"It has become global, the brand of Jane Austen," Todd says, in an interview from Cambridge.

"Everybody knows who Darcy is. You can play around with the name. They've become absolutely iconic lovers so I imagine that will go on."

How Pride and Prejudice will go on, however, is an intriguing question.

In the First World War, Todd says, Austen's novel was reputedly given to soldiers who were sent home to recover from shell shock. She also notes it has found a discernible audience among gay men.

"Every generation brings something more to it … that's what a classic is," Todd feels. "It's a book that can be reinterpreted and made fresh for every new generation that comes along.

"If you think back, a little while ago there was a sort of feminist Jane Austen," at least as far as literary criticism went.

"The stress was on the way these heroines break out and the way Jane Austen is trying to give a coded message that she couldn't bring out quite openly. And then there was a Marxist Jane Austen when that was the most popular feeling."

Still, there is the question of just why Pride and Prejudice has such lasting appeal? For fans and scholars alike, much of the allure lies in its wit, wisdom and insight into human nature.

"The novel is the most enduring love story of the past two centuries — on par with Romeo and Juliet," Robert Morrison, an English professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., said recently. "The world Jane Austen lived in is different than today yet her books remain vital."

Morrison went on to note that, "for many people, her novels shape everything from what we think the past might have been like to what we mean when we say we have 'fallen in love.' Thanks especially to movie versions of her books, to 'fall in love' today still means. in many ways. to fall in love like Elizabeth and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice."

It's not a simple falling-in-love, though, where boy meets girl and everything is all hunky-dory right way.

"It's a love story, but it's an intelligent love story," says Rohan Maitzen, associate professor of English at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Jane Austen House in Chawton, southern England, is looking forward to the 200th anniversary of the publication of Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice on Monday. (Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)

"It's a love story that's mature and witty and it's about articulate, intelligent people who both have to learn and change in order for that romance to reach its very satisfying conclusion."

And that, suggests Maitzen, is an enticing model for us all.

"It's not romance as silly adolescence. It's not romance as teenage angst," she says.

"I think sometimes people who have seen versions rather than read it are a little surprised in the book. It's a very intellectual process of internal development. So although it's very romantic, it's about desire and gratification, it's kind of an interestingly voyeuristic novel."

Beyond the attraction the basic plot holds, there is also no denying the power of the screen versions to periodically draw fans to both Pride and Prejudice and Austen. (Colin Firth — who went on to win an Oscar as King George VI in The King's Speech —proved especially alluring as a white-shirted Darcy emerging from a pond in the 1995 BBC version.)

"Membership in the Jane Austen Society always spikes in a year after a film has been released," says Elaine Bander, president of the Canadian branch of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

But film is just a portal, says Bander, who is co-ordinating a 2014 conference in Montreal that will focus on Austen's fourth novel, Mansfield Park.

From that portal, people will turn to the Austen novels themselves, she says.

Bander knows Pride and Prejudice is seen as a romantic novel — something she suggests is a result of "some of the weaker dramatizations" — but she considers it a very complex one.

"Jane Austen was anything but a romantic. She was an anti-romantic," says Bander, pointing to how Elizabeth's efforts at romantic love with Wickham didn't work out at all, and so she tried something different with Darcy, later going over and over her early experiences and encounters with him and seeing them in a different light.

A first edition of Pride and Prejudice is seen at the Jane Austen House in Chawton, southern England, on Jan. 24, 2013. (Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)

Bander sees "brilliant writing and wit," along with "shrewd psychology" and "the realistic appraisal of the choices we make in life" behind the appeal of any Austen novel.

"But Pride and Prejudice has perhaps an appeal that is very different from all of Jane Austen's other novels because it's the only one that's really a Cinderella fairytale."

When Pride and Prejudice was published, Austen was not the most popular or famous novelist of the era.

Yet "one of the interesting phenomenas is how it's become that way," says Maitzen, "that her profile has not only crowded out other, what we would now call romantic novelists, especially women novelists, but I mean, who reads Walter Scott anymore?"

Which leads, Maitzen suggests, to another question: "Who can really predict or understand fame?"

For Austen, it has all become a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.

"You can put Austen on a mug," says Maitzen. "You can put her on a handbag. I can put her in the title to a course and I can guarantee it will draw people to it in a way that other writers won't."

But as Maitzen contemplates the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice, she would be quite content if all the reinterpretions stopped popping up.

"Does it have to be another 200 years of imitations and adaptations to follow, or perhaps can everybody just go read the book? That seems to me the most fitting tribute."

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Berlin film fest mixes US stars, global contenders

New movies from directors Steven Soderbergh and Gus Van Sant and a trio of films starring French divas will be competing this year at the Berlin International Film Festival.

A diverse selection of 19 movies, including films from Kazakhstan and Iran, will vie for the main Golden Bear prize at Europe's first major film festival of the year. The event runs from Feb. 7-17.

Van Sant's film about the shale gas industry, Promised Land, starring Matt Damon, and Soderbergh's thriller Side Effects, featuring Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones, are the most prominent U.S. offerings.

Filmmaker Denis Côté is among the Canadians heading to Berlin with his latest work: Vic+Flo ont vu un ours.

There's a strong contingent from eastern Europe, including Oscar-winning Bosnian director Danis Tanovic's An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, about a poor Gypsy family; Calin Peter Netzer's Child's Pose, which highlights corruption in Romania; and Malgoska Szumowska's In the name of, a film about a gay priest in Poland.

French actresses Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert all star in separate competition entries this year — Binoche in Camille Claudel 1915, about the French sculptor's later years; Deneuve in On My Way; and Huppert in The Nun, a movie about a convent.

From Iran comes Closed Curtain, directed by dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi and fellow Iranian Kamboziya Partovi. Panahi was sentenced to house arrest in Iran and banned from filmmaking after being convicted in 2011 of "making propaganda" against Iran's ruling system. Festival director Dieter Kosslick said Panahi's no longer confined to his home but still isn't supposed to make films.

Kosslick said Monday that organizers "tried to bring new people who are making films for the first or second time into the program," continuing a tradition of having less-heralded directors rub shoulders with established names. This year, there's an entry from Kazakhstan — Harmony Lessons, directed by Emir Baigazin.

The top prize will be awarded by a seven-member jury under Chinese director Wong Kar-wai, whose members include actor-director Tim Robbins. Wong's new movie about two kung fu masters, The Grandmaster, is screening out of competition and will open the festival.

Last year's Golden Bear went to Caesar Must Die, by Italy's Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, which showed inmates of a high-security prison staging Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Canadian film War Witch (Rebelle) also picked up kudos.

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Chris Hadfield connects from space via social media

As Chris Hadfield tests out new technologies aboard the International Space Station, he's also breaking new ground through his links to Earth through social media.

The Canadian astronaut says being aboard the ISS on a five-month mission is "way too good an experience to keep it to myself."

Hadfield has found time to share his photos and observations on Twitter and Facebook. He's tweeted with William Shatner, dropped the puck for the Leafs home opener and will soon be doing a musical performance from space with children across Canada.

"It's something I think is really important to share," Hadfield said in an interview with CBC's Q cultural affairs show from the I.S.S.

"Ever since my first space flight 17 years ago, I've been trying to describe to people just how incredible it is to see our world this way and what it means to us as a species to start leaving earth — and now I have the time."

Hadfield said life aboard the space station is busy — he's doing experiments with his American and Russian colleagues and communicating with mission control centres around the world, with a goal to learn more about the effects of space on the human body and how new technologies can further space flight.

But communicating via Twitter with people on earth has been "heartwarming," he said.

"This is a magnificent human experience. This is something, not only personally amazing to be part of, but it is a new thing within the human experience, and it's way too good an experience to keep it to myself."

Hadfield says he doesn't get time to read every tweet, but he is encouraged to learn about schools around the world following his progress and using his photos in geography and language classes.

"People are stopping and looking up to see something that people did go overhead, and they're writing me about it," he said. "It's that ability now, because of technology, to directly connect to let people share in the experience as it happens that makes it even richer …."

Hadfield says it's important to him to give young Canadians a sense of the great possibilities of space travel.

That's one reason for his involvement in a special project with the Coalition for Music Education and CBC Music. Together, with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, he's been writing a song that will be performed with children across Canada as part of Music Monday — the first Monday of May.

The song I.S.S.: Is Somebody Singing, with music by Robertson and lyrics by Robertson and Hadfield, is an attempt to capture the emotions he has as he watches the earth from the space station.

"The song does a nice job about talking about the wonder of it and some of the science of it, but also thinking about what it means psychologically to be here and what it's going to mean in future for people who are living away from Earth and using our inventions to increase our capability to understand the universe," Hadfield said.

"There's all this stuff going on," Hadfield said of life aboard the I.S.S.

"It's only when you float over to the window and pause for a second and look at the huge, impermeable permanence and beauty of the world that's underneath you, the greatly assuring wonder of it, that it makes you thoughtful to combine the high-paced action that we're doing on board with this magnificent planet that's just outside the window."

The premiere of I.S.S.: Is Somebody Singing on May 8 will be capture on CBC's Q and CBC Music.

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Lost's J.J. Abrams tipped to direct next Star Wars

Another universe of sci-fi fans has been put in the hands of J.J. Abrams.

According to multiple reports, Abrams is set to direct the next instalment of Star Wars, which Disney has said will be Episode 7 and due out in 2015. Disney bought Star Wars maker Lucasfilm last month for $4.06 billion US.

The Emmy-award-winning director of the TV show Lost also captained the reboot of Star Trek for rival studio Paramount Pictures, with the next instalment in that series, Star Trek: Into Darkness, set to hit theatres May 17.

The news was reported earlier by Hollywood trade outlets The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety.

Soon after the news broke Thursday afternoon, websites were flush with chatter. On Twitter, "J.J. Abrams," "Star Wars" and "(hash)Star Trek" were all trending topics.

Abrams denied interest in directing the next Star Wars following The Walt Disney Co.'s October announcement it was buying Lucasfilm, but many people pegged him as the most obvious choice.

In addition to Lost, he produced Revolution and Fringe.

Abrams even spoke about the plot of the original Star Wars in the lecture series "TED Talks" in March 2007.

"He took the Star Trek franchise, which was just drowning in misery, and he was able to bring that back to life," said Adam Frazier a staff writer for the entertainment website GeeksofDoom.com. "If there's anyone that can do it with Star Wars I think it's him."

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Ben Heppner returns to COC stage as Tristan

Canadian tenor Ben Heppner takes to the stage of the Canadian Opera Company Jan. 29, to perform one of his most famous roles, Tristan in Tristan und Isolde.

One of the opera world's great romantic lead roles, Tristan calls for a voice of great emotional colour.

Heppner has received acclaim around the world for his interpretation of the doomed lover in Richard Wagner's opera.

But this time his appearance is remarkable because it's in Toronto, with the COC.

Heppner has been a no-show in COC productions for the past 17 years, despite making his home in Toronto.

It's not just that he's an opera star in demand around the world – when he has been scheduled to perform in Toronto, a virus or other mishap has always stopped him.

It's been such a long time between appearances in Toronto that critics have begun to call it a "Heppner curse." Heppner himself dismisses the notion.

"It's interesting because that has been brought up a few times, and I kind of feel like it fits into the way that a lot of the country feels about Toronto which is 'why do they think they are so special?'" he told CBC News.

Heppner shares the stage with Melanie Diener and he has internationally renowned director Peter Sellars at the helm.

Sellars has every faith in his performance.

Sellars says Heppner has "incredible commitment to not just singing in beautiful sound quality but this powerful voice that comes right from his heart, right from his gut!"

Tristan und Isolde is being co-produced with Opéra national de Paris and conducted by Johannes Debus. It runs Jan. 29 to Feb. 23 at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.

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Mali musicians forced out by Islamic rebels

As Islamic radicals clamp down on much of Mali, the rich musical culture of the country is threatened.

There are reports of instruments being broken and music being banned in the north, except the singing of verses of the Qur'an.

Canada is weighing whether to extend its mission in Mali, as French and African troops move into the nation to push back Islamic rebels who have taken the north of the country.

Many musicians have fled the country and are in refugee camps in bordering Burkino Faso.

In any case, the conflict has robbed most of them of their livelihood, as they can no longer play at weddings and festivals.

Ibrahima Diabaté, a Malian musician now living in Montreal, says he's afraid his homeland's vibrant musical culture is being destroyed.

"Seeing my country in this situation is really hard for me. It's unbelievable," he told CBC News.

A group of 40 of the Mali's top artists, led by singer Fatoumata Diawara, have recorded a song and video, title Mali-Ko, that is a plea for peace.

"People are looking up to musicians for a sense of direction," Diawara said, highlighting the importance of music to the people of Mali.

Even the acclaimed Festival in the Desert, an annual celebration of Tuareg culture that usually is held outside of Bamiko, is going into exile this year.

Last year, U2's Bono played at the festival alongside the well-known band Tinariwen and Indo-Canadian singer Kiran Ahluwalia also had a spot.

"I immediately felt the warmth of the audience," she said. "It was a very very hospitable crowd. The arts are a major life nourishment. And that part of life is no longer being nourished."

Instead the festival is in exile, with caravans of performers heading to a spot in Burkino Faso to catch up with fellow musicians forced out of the country.

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Quebec's Xavier Dolan gets César nomination for Laurence Anyways

Quebec whiz-kid director Xavier Dolan has received a best foreign film nomination for France's César Awards for his latest film, Laurence Anyways.

Dolan impressed audiences at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals with his film about a devoted couple whose relationship is put to the test when the male partner wants to change sex. Laurence Anyways won the best Canadian film prize at TIFF.

Just 23, Dolan has already screened three films at Cannes, including his debut J'ai tué ma mère and second feature film Les Amours Imaginaires.

In the foreign film category, he faces tough competition, including Danish director Nikolaj Arcel's A Royal Affair and Argo, Ben Affleck's film about the CIA operation that helped six Americans slip out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis.

The other nominees for best foreign film:

• Bullhead, directed by Michael R. Roskam (Belgium).
• Oslo, August 31st, directed by Joachim Trier (Norway).
• The Angels' Share, directed by Ken Loach (Britain).
• Our Children, directed by Joachim Lafosse (Belgium).

The race for the Césars, France's equivalent of the Oscars, was led by Noèmie Lvovsky's Camille Rewinds (Camille Redouble) with 13 nominations and Michael Haneke's Amour with 10 nominations.

Amour, a moving depiction of love between an elderly couple, is also a leading contender for Academy Awards for both best foreign film and best actors. Its stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are in the running for best actor and best actress Césars, with a supporting actress nomination for Isabelle Huppert.

The nominees for best film:

• Farewell My Queen
• Amour
• Camille Rewinds
• In the House
• Rust and Bone
• Holy Motors
• What's in a Name

Last year's César winner, The Artist, went on to win the best picture Oscar.

The César winners will be named on Feb. 22 in Paris, just two days before the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

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Chris Hadfield connects from space via social media

As Chris Hadfield tests out new technologies aboard the International Space Station, he's also breaking new ground through his links to Earth through social media.

The Canadian astronaut says being aboard the ISS on a five-month mission is "way too good an experience to keep it to myself."

Hadfield has found time to share his photos and observations on Twitter and Facebook. He's tweeted with William Shatner, dropped the puck for the Leafs home opener and will soon be doing a musical performance from space with children across Canada.

"It's something I think is really important to share," Hadfield said in an interview with CBC's Q cultural affairs show from the I.S.S.

"Ever since my first space flight 17 years ago, I've been trying to describe to people just how incredible it is to see our world this way and what it means to us as a species to start leaving earth — and now I have the time."

Hadfield said life aboard the space station is busy — he's doing experiments with his American and Russian colleagues and communicating with mission control centres around the world, with a goal to learn more about the effects of space on the human body and how new technologies can further space flight.

But communicating via Twitter with people on earth has been "heartwarming," he said.

"This is a magnificent human experience. This is something, not only personally amazing to be part of, but it is a new thing within the human experience, and it's way too good an experience to keep it to myself."

Hadfield says he doesn't get time to read every tweet, but he is encouraged to learn about schools around the world following his progress and using his photos in geography and language classes.

"People are stopping and looking up to see something that people did go overhead, and they're writing me about it," he said. "It's that ability now, because of technology, to directly connect to let people share in the experience as it happens that makes it even richer …."

Hadfield says it's important to him to give young Canadians a sense of the great possibilities of space travel.

That's one reason for his involvement in a special project with the Coalition for Music Education and CBC Music. Together, with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, he's been writing a song that will be performed with children across Canada as part of Music Monday — the first Monday of May.

The song I.S.S.: Is Somebody Singing, with music by Robertson and lyrics by Robertson and Hadfield, is an attempt to capture the emotions he has as he watches the earth from the space station.

"The song does a nice job about talking about the wonder of it and some of the science of it, but also thinking about what it means psychologically to be here and what it's going to mean in future for people who are living away from Earth and using our inventions to increase our capability to understand the universe," Hadfield said.

"There's all this stuff going on," Hadfield said of life aboard the I.S.S.

"It's only when you float over to the window and pause for a second and look at the huge, impermeable permanence and beauty of the world that's underneath you, the greatly assuring wonder of it, that it makes you thoughtful to combine the high-paced action that we're doing on board with this magnificent planet that's just outside the window."

The premiere of I.S.S.: Is Somebody Singing on May 8 will be capture on CBC's Q and CBC Music.

22.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Lost's J.J. Abrams tipped to direct next Star Wars

Another universe of sci-fi fans has been put in the hands of J.J. Abrams.

According to multiple reports, Abrams is set to direct the next instalment of Star Wars, which Disney has said will be Episode 7 and due out in 2015. Disney bought Star Wars maker Lucasfilm last month for $4.06 billion US.

The Emmy-award-winning director of the TV show Lost also captained the reboot of Star Trek for rival studio Paramount Pictures, with the next instalment in that series, Star Trek: Into Darkness, set to hit theatres May 17.

The news was reported earlier by Hollywood trade outlets The Wrap, The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety.

Soon after the news broke Thursday afternoon, websites were flush with chatter. On Twitter, "J.J. Abrams," "Star Wars" and "(hash)Star Trek" were all trending topics.

Abrams denied interest in directing the next Star Wars following The Walt Disney Co.'s October announcement it was buying Lucasfilm, but many people pegged him as the most obvious choice.

In addition to Lost, he produced Revolution and Fringe.

Abrams even spoke about the plot of the original Star Wars in the lecture series "TED Talks" in March 2007.

"He took the Star Trek franchise, which was just drowning in misery, and he was able to bring that back to life," said Adam Frazier a staff writer for the entertainment website GeeksofDoom.com. "If there's anyone that can do it with Star Wars I think it's him."

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Ben Heppner returns to COC stage as Tristan

Canadian tenor Ben Heppner takes to the stage of the Canadian Opera Company Jan. 29, to perform one of his most famous roles, Tristan in Tristan und Isolde.

One of the opera world's great romantic lead roles, Tristan calls for a voice of great emotional colour.

Heppner has received acclaim around the world for his interpretation of the doomed lover in Richard Wagner's opera.

But this time his appearance is remarkable because it's in Toronto, with the COC.

Heppner has been a no-show in COC productions for the past 17 years, despite making his home in Toronto.

It's not just that he's an opera star in demand around the world – when he has been scheduled to perform in Toronto, a virus or other mishap has always stopped him.

It's been such a long time between appearances in Toronto that critics have begun to call it a "Heppner curse." Heppner himself dismisses the notion.

"It's interesting because that has been brought up a few times, and I kind of feel like it fits into the way that a lot of the country feels about Toronto which is 'why do they think they are so special?'" he told CBC News.

Heppner shares the stage with Melanie Diener and he has internationally renowned director Peter Sellars at the helm.

Sellars has every faith in his performance.

Sellars says Heppner has "incredible commitment to not just singing in beautiful sound quality but this powerful voice that comes right from his heart, right from his gut!"

Tristan und Isolde is being co-produced with Opéra national de Paris and conducted by Johannes Debus. It runs Jan. 29 to Feb. 23 at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.

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Parker a formulaic high-kicker for Jason Statham

In the realm of cinematic consumables Jason Statham films are the microwave pizzas: Cheesy guilty pleasures that are never quite as good as you hope. But with Parker, the addition of Jennifer Lopez adds an unexpected ingredient to the tried-and-true formula of the high-kicking bald Brit.

Stratham plays Parker, the Robin Hood of thieves, who only steals from those who can afford it and always keeps his word. But after a double-cross during a heist at a state fair, Parker is out for revenge.

Micah A. Hauptman, Clifton Collins Jr., Wendell Pierce and Michael Chiklis in Parker. (FilmDistrict/Associated Press)

Directed by Taylor Hackford, a serviceable filmmaker responsible for The Devil's Advocate and Ray, the film doesn't have much to add to the heist genre except a generous application of blood splatter. (Interestingly this isn't the first incarnation of Parker himself. Versions of the character based on the novels of Donald E. Westlake have appeared in movies such as Payback and Point Blank.)

Strangely for this B-rate Death Wish knock-off, Hackford's enlisted an A-list cast include Nick Nolte, The Shield's Michael Chiklis as the defector crew's leader, Bobby Cannavale and reality judge/popstar/actress Jennifer Lopez.

Lopez turns up in Florida after Parker discovers his ex-partners are planning a high-stakes jewel heist in tony Palm Beach. This is where the film takes a detour into what seems like a failed Sarah Jessica Parker sitcom. Lopez is Leslie, a debt-ridden real estate agent who dreams of the high life in one of Florida's McMansions but is stuck living with her soaps-addicted Ma and a yappy dog, with only the local beat cop (Cannavale) as love interest.

Jennifer Lopez, shown in scene with Jason Statham, is lefting wondering what might have been. (FilmDistrict/Associated Press)

On a ruse geared to discovering his buddy's hideout, Parker hires Leslie to drive him around. Posing as a rich Texan oilman with a ten gallon hat and accent as laughable as Tarantino's attempt at Australian, Parker isn't fooling anyone. Oh, but you think perhaps sparks will fly. The two could spend an evening counting each others abs.

But, no. Parker has already pledged his heart to his girl Claire. The overexposed flashbacks we're treated to do little to explain why the blond plaything (Emma Booth) stands by her thug, leaving Lopez with little to do but bite her lip and pout about what might have been.

So in the end what is Parker? A rough yet unimaginative con job and a tease in terms of romance. It's not that Statham and Lopez are talentless, but rather that their limited skills are squandered. At his best, Statham is as deadly with deadpan as he is with a drop kick, while Lopez can hold her own — case in point, the underrated Out of Sight featuring a sizzling slow burn between George Clooney and J-Lo. If you want Statham at his best, rent Snatch. Meanwhile someone get Nick Nolte a throat lozenge and Bobby Cannavale a decent script for a change.

Rating: 2.5 / 5

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Children's theatre pioneer Susan Douglas Rubes dies

Susan Douglas Rubes, a pioneer of children's theatre who founded the Young People's Theatre of Toronto, has died. She was 87.

Rubes died in Toronto on Jan. 23, according to a release from YPT.

Susan Douglas Rubes thought theatre for children should be of professional quality. (YouTube)

An actor, producer and director, Toronto, Rubes founded YPT in 1966 and developed and produced numerous Canadian works for children. She ushered the theatre into its permanent home in 1977 and was its artistic director until 1979.

In the 1980s, Rubes was head of CBC Radio Drama and later president of Family Channel.

"We are so grateful for the life and work of Susan Rubes," Allen MacInnis, artistic director of YPT, said in a statement.

"I feel truly blessed to have had her advice and presence since I was appointed to this incredible job. YPT thrives today because it has the indomitable spirit of Susan in its DNA."

'It's for children – it has to be the best'—Susan Douglas Rubes

Rubes led the fight to convince Toronto it needed a theatre for young people. She believed that children should be exposed to professional productions of the highest quality, including classic and contemporary works from Canada and around the world.

"It's for children – it has to be the best," she is quoted as saying in a history on the YPT website.

Her first production for children in Toronto was The Looking Glass Revue in 1966, which opened in the Colonnade Theatre.

Her children's productions bounced around to different theatres, until YPT opened in its own building, a converted power plant, on Dec. 22, 1977. The first production there was an adaptation of Laterna Magika's The Lost Fairy Tale.

Born Zuzka Zenta in Vienna, Austria, in 1925, she emigrated to the United States at age 14 to escape the Second World War. She completed high school in New York and began an acting career soon after, choosing the name "Douglas" at random from a phone book. Susan is an adaptation of her given name.

Rubes earned the first Donaldson Award for best debut on Broadway for her performance in the 1945 revival of He Who Gets Slapped by Leonid Andreyev. She appeared in films and television shows, including 10 years on radio and TV versions of the soap opera The Guiding Light.

Jan and Susan Rubes are shown together at a theatre opening in undated photo. (Young People's Theatre)

While filming Forbidden Journey in Montreal in 1950, she met her husband Jan Rubes, an actor and singer. The couple married the same year, had three sons and moved from New York to Toronto in 1959. They were together until Jan's death in 2009.

Rubes moved from YPT to CBC television in 1980 and was head of CBC radio drama from 1982–86. She was president of the Family Channel when it debuted on Canadian pay TV in 1987.

She was named woman of the year by B'Nai Brith in Toronto in 1979 and made a member of the Order of Canada in 1975.

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Knife Fight not as sharp as it should be

As the glow from the Presidential inauguration fades, into theatres comes Knife Fight, the latest in string of political dramas focusing on the art of the spin. (Among them the filthy/fantastic In the Loop or the upcoming House of Cards.) Compared to its brethren, Knife Fight plays out as a cynical version of The West Wing, thanks to the inclusion of familiar faces Rob Lowe and Richard Schiff.

While Schiff gets a minor role as a mysterious investigator, Lowe's the brightest star in this small-budget production. He's Paul Turner, a strategist molded in the image of James Carville with more hair and less personality. When we meet him, Turner has his hands full jetting back and forth between multiple campaigns. There's an idealistic Kentucky governor (Eric McCormack) aiming for re-election and well as a heroic war vet (David Harbour) making a run for the Senate. But when a couple of sexual speed bumps threaten to derail both races Turner's damage control operation goes into overdrive.

Rob Lowe as the political strategist in Knife Fight. (Pacific Northwest Pictures)

News junkies looking for view behind the curtain might appreciate the fact that former Democrat "Master of Disaster" Chris Lehane co-wrote the screenplay with former documentarian Bill Guttentag. As someone who's worked with both Al Gore and Bill Clinton, Lehane has seen the way political fortunes change in the time it takes to click "Send." Lowe does his best getting his chops around Turner's detail-heavy dialogue, spitting out numbers of ad buys and polling trends while iPads showing the latest 30-second spot are passed back and forth like playing cards. It all feels very current and a little forced, like Lehane's eagerness to show what politics is really like got the better of Guttentag's story-telling.

While Knife Fight hits the right data points, the story is a poorly-structured muddle. Much like Not Fade Away, the movie from Sopranos creator David Chase, Knife Fight overreaches, stuffing an entire television season's worth of twists into 98 minutes. There's Kerstin, the ambitious gay assistant dealing with her parent's disappointment. Or Peaches, an anchor for a "fair-and-balanced" news channel who threatens to spill the goods on the horny war hero. Finally, presumably to underline there's some good in the world, Carrie-Anne Moss appears as Penelope, the idealistic inner-city doctor looking to make a real difference with her dot.com-funded campaign.

Carrie-Anne Moss plays the too-good-to-be true inner city doctor. (Pacific Northwest Pictures)

Much has been made in the promotional material of the real-life inspirations of the movie. As Lehane blusters, "This is how politics is played, a knife fight in a telephone booth." While Knife Fight gives us a sense of the close quarters combat, it's Turner's emotional inconsistency that hurts the movie the most. Flipping from ambitious, to remorseful and then to eager again, Knife Fight wants a heroe's redemption without any evidence of change. (Sorry, dunking your Blackberry doesn't count.) Television-quality production values and risible screenwriting ("I had a blogasm" quips Howard Kurtz in a cameo) don't help much either. Lots of sharp edges, but a dull script, make for a knife fight where no one wins.

RATING: 2/5

(Opens Jan 25th in Toronto, other Canadian cities to follow.)

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B.C. NDP leader talks up local film industry in L.A.

B.C. New Democrat leader Adrian Dix says Hollywood productions want to work in Vancouver and the province needs to do more to attract them.

Dix was in Los Angeles meeting with film executives as the B.C. film industry pleads with the province for more tax credits to attract and keep productions.

"What I was doing was talking to them about what at their issues were and listening to our customers as to what steps we will take next," he said.

"We're going to continue to consult with people here and press the government to take this issue seriously, which they haven't done for some time."

Dix says he'd been planning to visit Hollywood since the fall, well before the Save BC Film campaign was launched.

He says there's plenty those in the industry in L.A. like about Vancouver.

"[We're] in the same time zone, great location, a depth of crews that, as long as we maintain and support the industry, will continue to be there."

But Dix won't say specifically what an NDP government might do to attract more business.

"I think it was a pretty clear message we wanted to send that B.C. wants this investment, wants these jobs, wants these productions, wants this creative activity," he said.

"We now have to decide — and these are often difficult choices — what the right decision is."

Premier Christy Clark has rejected calls for larger tax credits for the film industry, saying she thinks the higher credits offered in other provinces aren't sustainable.

B.C.'s film tax credit is 33 per cent of labour costs, while Ontario and Quebec offer a 25 per cent tax credit on all production costs.

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Atom Egoyan, Peter Sellars to direct COC operas in 2014

Canadian film and stage director Atom Egoyan will helm a new production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte as part of the 2013-14 season of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.

He is one of several big names in the ambitious season announced Wednesday by the COC's general director Alexander Neef.

Renowned Canadian tenor Ben Heppner returns to the COC stage in Peter Grimes, Canadian diva Adrianne Pieczonka is to sing in Un ballo in maschera and Peter Sellars returns to direct Hercules.

The Opera Australia production of Peter Grimes is shown in 2009. Ben Heppner is to sing the title role in the COC production. (Branco Gaica/COC)

COC premieres

The COC season includes three premieres — George Frideric Handel's Hercules, Gaetano Donizetti's Roberto Devereux and Jules Massenet's Don Quichotte.

Sellars, currently directing Tristan und Isolde as part of the 2013 season, plans a modern take on the Greek myth of Hercules that reflects on horrors of war and the complications faced by veterans returning home.

This is the same minimalist production of Hercules Sellars created for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2011, with the same star-studded cast, including American bass-baritone Eric Owens as Hercules, British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote as his wife Dejanira, American countertenor David Daniels as his aide Lichas and American tenor Richard Croft as son Hyllus. Owens is making his COC debut.

The English-language version of Handel's opera was hailed for impressive performances by Owens and Coote and for proving that Handel was ahead of his time for showing the long-term effects of war on veterans.

Atom Egoyan directs

Egoyan, who directed Salome in 2013, will explore themes of love, temptation and deceit in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's comedy Cosi fan tutte.

His production will play up the theme of a School for Lovers and progress stylistically through time from the 18th century to present day.

He will be working with the COC Opera Chorus, with soprano Layla Claire in her COC debut as Fiordiligi and Ensemble Studio graduate mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta as her sister Dorabella. American tenor Paul Appleby, bass-baritone Robert Gleadow and Canadian soprano Tracy Dahl, returning to the COC stage after a 19-year absence, also star.

More details of the 2013-14 season:

• La Bohème, in a new COC co-production with Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera.
• Peter Grimes,starring acclaimed Canadian tenor Ben Heppner in the title role, with COC music director Johannes Debus making his Benjamin Britten debut.
• Un ballo in maschera, starring Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka and tenor Dimitri Pittas, both making role debuts.
• Roberto Devereux with American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, lyric tenor Guiseppe Filianoti and Canadian baritone Russell Braun.
• Don Quichotte with Italian Ferruccio Furlanetto and Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova making their COC debuts.

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Foo Fighters to induct Rush into Rock Hall of Fame

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins will help induct Canadian power trio Rush into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this spring.

The Cleveland-based Rock Hall revealed the partial slate of performers and presenters expected to usher in its latest class of musicians on April 18, at a ceremony at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.

The Foo Fighters members were chosen to honour Rush, a band they consider one of their key influences.

The Toronto group, eligible for induction since 1998, had repeatedly been overlooked as organizers announced each year's inductees. They made the final cut for 2013 after the public was permitted to vote for the first time.

The details of the induction ceremony released so far:

• John Mayer will give the induction speech for blues guitarist Albert King, while Mayer and Gary Clark Jr. will perform one of King's songs.
• Don Henley will induct Randy Newman.
• Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Hudson will perform in tribute to disco queen Donna Summer.

No details were available about the induction of Canadian-American rock outfit Heart or New York rap pioneers Public Enemy.

With files from The Associated Press

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Canadian Tire money-financed album debuts

Toronto folksinger Corin Raymond is unveiling a uniquely homegrown project this week: his two-disc album of Canadian-penned songs, funded by Canadian Tire money.

Almost exactly a year after recording their live performance at Toronto's Tranzac Club, Raymond and his band The Sundowners are releasing Paper Nickels, the 20-song album and 144-page booklet he describes as a "coffee-table CD."

In the year since his so-called "caper" began making headlines (even drawing the attention of the Wall Street Journal's foreign currency reporter), Raymond has received Canadian Tire money — which the retailer introduced in the 1950s — from across the country.

Corin Raymond described his project as something 'poetic' that resonated with many people, who sent personal stories, pictures and artwork to him along with donations of Canadian Tire money. (Mark Drolet)

The colourful, small-denomination bills were often accompanied by fan mail: letters, pictures and inspirational artwork in which senders shared their personal stories about Canadian Tire money, reactions to his 2011 song Don't Spend It Honey about the Canuck "cash" (which sparked the unusual crowd-sourced funding campaign) and messages of support.

"The whole year has just been kind of this slow avalanche of love," Raymond told CBC News.

"People just got more excited about it …. If you're lucky enough to ignite people's imagination and fire up their hearts, these incredible acts of community can just suddenly happen."

The more than 25 kilos of Canadian Tire bills he's amassed amount to almost $6,200.

Raymond says he remains about $1,100 short of the bill for Rogue Music Lab, the Toronto studio that has accepted Canadian Tire money at par for 20 years and where Paper Nickels was recorded and mixed. However, he feels confident that he and his band will gather the remainder in the next few weeks (any excess will be earmarked for future recordings).

"I have a feeling people are going to be giving me Canadian Tire money for the rest of my life, whether I want them to or not," he said.

Today, many struggling independent artists rely on crowd-sourced funding or other non-traditional methods to produce their albums, but Raymond feels his caper offered something special and poetic that resonated with many Canadians.

"Without the caper, I'd just be a guy you never heard of singing songs you don't know," he acknowledged.

However, "all that Canadian Tire money represents the sort of leftovers of daily and forgotten life because each one of those bills represents a time when someone went down to get a bicycle pump or a garden hose," he said.

"Though alchemy, all those little moments got translated into a record, which is a series of translations of songs, which are already translations of little moments."

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N.S. police seize hoard of rare books, art from man's house

Police in Nova Scotia are combing through hundreds of rare books, one-of-a-kind documents and artwork from a suburban home in Halifax that they believe are stolen goods.

Mounties say they've found almost 1,000 artifacts and antiques at the home of John Mark Tillmann in Fall River. They suspect he amassed the collection over two decades.

The 51-year-old has been charged with four counts of possession of stolen property. On Wednesday, police officers loaded boxes of artifacts into a rented U-Haul trailer.

RCMP Cpl. Scott MacRae said Tillmann's collection was set up like a private museum.

Police remove boxes of stolen items from this Fall River home located on Miller Lake. (CBC)

"[There's] old documents, there's antiques, there's things like a medieval suit of amour, old carvings, paintings," he said. "One painting was … from the Nova Scotia legislature."

The artifacts include an 1819 painting and a first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Theresa Kuhn, Tillmann's former partner and the mother of their toddler, said in an interview with CBC News that she became suspicious about items in his home and tipped off police in May 2012.

Kuhn said coming forward has taken a huge toll on her: "I have suffered, and my family has suffered tremendously. I have risked a lot. It's beyond words."

Investigators say they believe much of what they found in the home was stolen, but they remain a long way from understanding his involvement in acquiring them.

Uttering threats

Police have also seized items from businesses and collectors to whom Tillman is connected. Officers said they are also working with the FBI.

Last November, Tillmann was charged with 14 counts of assault and uttering threats against Kuhn and her dog.

He posted the $15,000 cash bail to spring himself from jail. Just one month earlier, he was unable to repay an auto body shop in Upper Sackville after defrauding the owner of $1,900 for repairs on his BMW, court documents allege.

He claimed he was unable to work and needed more time to settle his fine, blaming a justice worker for his financial hardship.

Tillmann is due in provincial court Thursday to face the charges.

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Stolen treasure hoard discovered in N.S. home

Nova Scotia police say they have recovered hundreds of allegedly stolen items from a Fall River home that include rare first editions of books, one-of-a-kind documents and art taken from multiple collections.

A traffic stop last summer led police to search John Mark Tillmann's Fall River home, where they found more that 800 allegedly stolen artifacts that police estimate may be valued at more than $1 million.

Police pulled Tillmann over last summer for breaching the conditions of his house arrest. During that stop they found a few unusual items in the 51-year-old man's vehicle, including a letter written in 1758 by British military leader Gen. James Wolfe.

Wolfe was one of the British leaders who led an attack on the French during the Siege of Louisbourg in the 18th century, effectively ending the French colonial era in Atlantic Canada.

'We believe such items as books, documents, paintings, antiques were stolen from private collectors around Atlantic Canada ... it's a vast undertaking.'— Cpl. Scott MacRae

After months of investigating the letter, police finally tracked it to Dalhousie University. Once they confirmed it was a stolen antiquity, police obtained a search warrant for Tillmann's house and arrested him following the search.

Police began their search early Friday morning and continued their search on Tuesday, cataloging hundreds of items — anything that looked to be an antique or rare object.

One item of note seized appears to be a rare edition of Charles Darwin's pivotal scientific work, On the Origin of Species.

Police said they have tracked the owners of many artifacts already, and have confirmed theft or fraud.

RCMP Cpl. Scott MacRae said local police are working with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down leads on where some of the artifacts may have come from.

"We believe that items such as books, documents, paintings, antiques were stolen from private collectors around Atlantic Canada, also from local universities, museums and even the legislature," said MacRae.

A watercolour of N.S. Province House painted by John Woolford in 1819 was discovered. The painting is similar to this painting in the same series. (CBC)

"We believe we have a painting from the Nova Scotia legislature so as one can see, it's a vast undertaking."

On Monday, Tillmann was charged with being in possession of four rare antiquities taken from universities in Halifax, from the archives and from the Nova Scotia legislature.

Dalhousie Archivist Michael Moosberger told CBC News he estimates the Wolfe letter that began the investigation is worth nearly $18,000.

He said with the amount of items in the archives, it's possible for items to go missing. He said if all the boxes of material in the archives was lined up, it would stretch seven kilometers from end to end.

"Somebody could take a letter out and we might never be aware it went missing," he said.

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Did or didn't she? Beyoncé questioned on lip-sync

There's no question Beyoncé's rendition of the national anthem was a roaring success. The mystery: was it live or lip-synced?

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Marine Band told news outlets that Beyoncé had lip-synced at President Barack Obama's inauguration. Master Sgt. Kristin duBois said the band was notified at the last minute that Beyoncé would use a pre-recorded voice track.

But by late afternoon, the marine corps backed off that statement.

Marine corps spokesman Capt. Gregory Wolf said that because there was no opportunity for Beyoncé to rehearse with the Marine Band, it was determined that a live performance by the band was ill advised. Instead they used a pre-recorded track for the band's portion of the song.

"Regarding Ms. Knowles-Carter's vocal performance," Wolf's statement continued, "no one in the Marine Band is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded."

A representative for Beyoncé did not respond to requests for comment.

DuBois declined to answer further questions. Earlier in the day, she told the New York Times that the rest of the inaugural performance was live and they did not know why a recorded track was used for the national anthem.

"It's not because Beyoncé can't sing. We all know Beyoncé can sing. We all know the Marine Band can play," she said.

Kelly Clarkson's representative said she sang live to perform My Country, `Tis of Thee.

Inaugural organizers did not respond to requests for comment.

All inaugural music is pre-recorded in case weather conditions or other circumstances could interrupt the program.

The use of a recording is typical in big events. In 2009, cellist Yo-Yo Ma was questioned about "hand-syncing" for Obama's first inauguration. Ma said instruments weren't functioning properly in 7 C weather.

Even in good conditions, producing good sound can be a challenge in a large open space.

Some artists choose to lip-sync. Whitney Houston's memorable performance of the national anthem in 1991 at the Super Bowl was sung to a track.

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Imprisoned Pussy Riot members say they have no regrets

The imprisoned members of the Pussy Riot feminist punk band say they feel no regrets about the irreverent "punk prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main cathedral that landed them behind bars for two years.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina offered a vivid, but stoic, description of their harsh prison conditions in interviews published Wednesday in the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper. They said they don't expect clemency from authorities.

Tolokonnikova, who works at a sewing machine like most female prisoners in Russia's prison colonies, was quoted by the paper as saying she has had her fingers punctured by the needle but has picked up speed and experience and can now meet her quota of making lining for 320 jackets a day.

Like other prisoners, she bathes once a week and uses cold water to wash the rest of the week.

"I am not paying much attention to living conditions," she said in an interview filmed last month. "I'm ascetic, and living conditions matter little for me."

Tolokonnikova said she meditates to prevent her spirit from being dulled by the monotonous labour. She added that the main thing she misses at her prison colony is the ability to read freely; prison conditions leave little room for reading the Bible and philosophy books.

'It was an ironic, cheerful and bold act, a political outcry'—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Pussy Riot

Three members of Pussy Riot were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred in August after they raucously prayed to the Virgin Mary for the deliverance from Putin at Christ the Savior Cathedral. One of them, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was later released on appeal, but Tolokonnikova and Alekhina were sent to prison colonies last fall.

Tolokonnikova argued that their protest wasn't aimed at religion. "It was an ironic, cheerful and bold act, a political outcry, so to speak," she said, adding that the Russian state media interpretation of it as a blasphemous action was deliberately wrong.

She said she wants to go to a prison church to talk to its priest and attend the service, although she added she has no intention of being baptized just yet.

She said that she had been warned about likely harassment by other prisoners who felt insulted by the band's act, but there was nothing like that at her prison colony in Mordovia, a province in western Russia about 350 kilometres southeast of Moscow.

"They never asked whether I'm religious or anti-religious," she said.

Nothing to say to Putin

Tolokonnikova said that she has grown tired of the stunt in the cathedral that made the band members global celebrities and drawn protests around the world against Russia's intolerance of dissent.

"It's just impossible to think about your work for so long, you would want to switch to other works and forget about the previous one," she said.

Asked whether she wants to say something to Putin, she answered bluntly: "No, honestly speaking, for me he doesn't exist. He is just a blank spot for me."

Earlier this month, Alekhina, who is serving her sentence at another prison colony in the Ural Mountains Perm region, had an appeal rejected by a local court. Serving her sentence in a different colony, Alekhina complained of systematic violation of human rights by the prison administration. She said she was transferred into a solitary cell for 90 days in November after receiving threats from fellow inmates that she suspects were instigated by prison authorities.

"They told me that I would be done with if I stay in that unit," she said.

She said she doesn't mind a solitary cell because it offers good condition for reading, unlike the crowded barracks where it's hard to concentrate.

Alekhina, a vegetarian, said she was cooking her own food from fresh products provided by supporters.

"I will survive, nothing will happen to me," she said, adding that if she faces any pressure she would go on a hunger strike and then be sent back to a solitary cell.

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