The Point Artist-Run Centre will be holding its summer music and theatre camps, either online or in-person, depending on rules around the COVID-19 pandemic.
Josh Suhrheinrich (a.k.a. Papa Josh) will be instructing Into the Groove Band Camp from July 13 to 17 (with the potential alternate onsite date of Aug. 17 to 21) and again from July 20 to 24 (with alternate dates of Aug. 24 to 28).
Meanwhile, Ira Pettle will host The Monologue Project theatre camps in July and August with two one-on-one sessions per week. He's also set to host five-day theatre improv camps from Aug. 10 to 14 and Aug. 27 to 31.
Registration for all summer camps opens on May 15 at thepointartists.com.
In a release, The Point also said its array of summer programming—from Sundays at The Point to the Flag Stop Theatre & Arts Festival, Sunday Artist Sessions, and its annual fundraiser have been planned, "but will only occur if provincial guidelines deem them safe."
One activity COVID-19 couldn't crush? The annual Alta lake Ice-Break Raffle.
Billed as one of Whistler's oldest fundraising traditions, the event involves placing a barrel on Atla Lake with residents guessing the time and day the ice will break up and allow it to flow past The Point. Money raised goes to The Point's summer art camps.
This year, the barrel was spotted on April 16 at 2:08 p.m. That meant Roshan Beaven's guess of 3:24 p.m. that day was closest. She won a one-night stay at the Crystal Lodge and a $50 gift certificate to the Beacon Pub.
Local authors shortlisted for award
Two authors with ties to Whistler have been nominated for the 2020 Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing.
Whistler's Loreth Anne White received a nod for her book In the Dark in the Best Crime Novel category. The novel follows eight guests at a secluded wilderness spa as a storm hits the area and they're cut off from the outside world.
Pam Barnsley's book River Cage, meanwhile, is up for an award in The Unhanged Arthur Award for Best Unpublished Crime Manuscript category. Her book is about a well-regarded coach who is murdered in Whistler and the disgraced detective who falls for the main suspect—a stripper-turned-Paralympic athlete.
The winners are set to be announced on, or soon after, May 21, pandemic-pending.
To see all the finalists from across Canada, visit crimewriterscanada.com/awards/arthur-ellis-awards/current-contest/shortlists.
Poet's Pause winners
Even a pandemic can't get in the way of a jury selecting this year's Poet's Pause winners.
Last month, the Resort Municipality of Whistler revealed that Vicki Crompton's "The Eve of Destruction: December 26th, 1980" and Kate Heskett's "Meet Me at the Lake" were the winners of its annual competition. Both poems will be displayed at the Poet's Pause sculpture sites in Alta Lake Park some time this year.
For the competition's 12th installation there were 26 poems from 24 poets.
You can read the winning poems at whistler.ca/poetrycompetition.
