Hi! If you’re new here, this is a thing I do every month, where I provide a roundup of all (or at least most) of my writing that has been published in the preceding month. March was a bit of a light month, to be honest, and while I continue to actively pitch, I would also be eternally grateful for any freelance work that just happens to fall into my lap.
Franklinland takes an irreverent look at one of the Founding Fathers of the United States
(Stir, March 10, 2026)
Considered the greatest polymath since Leonardo da Vinci, Franklin was a prolific writer, a publisher, an inventor, a statesman, and—perhaps most crucial to his sacrosanct status in the U.S.—a staunch proponent of American independence from Great Britain.
He was also, if playwright Lloyd Suh’s Franklinland is to be believed, an insufferable egotist and kind of a shitty dad to his first-born son, William.
U.S.–born actor Brian Markinson plays Ben Franklin in the Arts Club’s upcoming production of Franklinland. He acknowledges that Suh’s script is not especially flattering to the man who has been called “the first American”. “This Benjamin Franklin, as written, is myopic, narcissistic, driven—those things that seem to translate to the country of my birth rather well, and certainly these days it has a different resonance,” says Markinson…
Read the rest here.
Brahms X Radiohead finds common ground between classical music and alternative rock
(Stir, March 12, 2026)
On paper, an orchestral work of the mid-Romantic period wouldn’t appear to have much in common with a dystopian-themed alternative-rock record, but in Hackman’s mind, they make a natural pairing.
“They’re both pieces that have a lot of anxiety, and this brooding feeling; this tense, unsettled feeling,” he tells Stir in a telephone interview. “So, from a macro level, I thought to explore that emotional similarity. And then on the micro level, there are certainly lots of musical devices or key signatures or time signatures or chord progressions that they have in common—but you could say that for a lot of music. Just because things are in C minor doesn’t mean you have to combine them, of course…”
Read the rest here.
(I also reviewed this show, and you can read my review here.)
For Black Gardenia’s Daphne Roubini, the artist’s life is one of constant evolution
(Stir, March 16, 2026)
THERE WAS A TIME when you almost never saw Vancouver jazz musician Daphne Roubini without a ukulele in her hands. In 2009, the transplanted Londoner started Ruby’s Ukes, which grew into what was possibly the largest ukulele school outside Hawaii, spawning a festival and a 70-member uke orchestra.
Ruby’s Ukes scraped through the COVID-19 pandemic by pivoting to online classes, but by 2024, Roubini decided to wind things down. These days, Roubini, who fronts the band Black Gardenia, hasn’t forsaken the little four-stringed instrument that many associate her with, but playing the ukulele has taken a back seat to writing songs as her creative vehicle of choice.
When she meets up with Stir at a busy Strathcona cafe, Roubini admits that the instrument initially served as something of a security blanket or a shield. “I was a very, very shy singer, so when I started playing the ukulele, I felt like it kind of protected me in some ways,” she says. “It was between me and the audience…”
Read the rest here.
Vancouver’s Revived Park Theatre Is an Investment in a Cinephile Future
(MONTECRISTO Magazine, Spring 2026 issue; posted online March 23)
There’s a white rectangle on the floor of the Park Theatre’s projection booth where a high-resolution, large-format film projector used to be—specifically, a Cinemeccanica Victoria 8. The Italian-made 70mm projector is now lodging at Cineplex Odeon International Village, but it doesn’t matter much.
On a behind-the-scenes walkthrough of the space in January, projectionist Sarah Worden promises that a replacement Victoria 8 is on the way, one of the finishing touches to the technical upgrades that the historic cinema’s new owners say will make it any film lover’s dream. It’s less a return to a former glory than it is the start of a new era for the storied movie house.
When the Park Theatre first opened its doors at 3440 Cambie Street on August 4, 1941, cinemas didn’t have much competition for the attention of the viewing public. Broadcast television in Canada didn’t exist until 1952, and a streaming service like Netflix would have staggered the imagination of even the most dedicated fan of science fiction. The advent of the multiplex was still several decades away, and single-screen movie theatres across Vancouver were each showing something different.
Read the rest here.
John Lucas 
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