The Georgia Straight proudly sponsors the Neanderthal Arts Festival

Cutting-edge performances by new and established artists hit Vancouver’s East Side Cultural Centre (1895 Venables Street) July 18 to 29 for the Neanderthal Arts Festival. Presented by Up in the Air Theatre, the festival offers national mainstage performances, local mainstage performances, site-specific performances, and readings of new works.

This year’s festival will include Coercion by Vancouver’s Hardline Productions, which takes place in the back room of a butcher shop; House of X by Vancouver’s Wild Excursions, which brings together melodrama, horror, fairy tale, and epic genres to tell a fragmented story; The List by local company Bouchewhacked, which centres around a woman concerned that she may have caused her neighbour’s death; God is a Scottish Drag Queen a comedic show from Victoria; STATIONARY: A recession-era musical by Vancouver’s Delinquent Theatre, which focuses on the disenchantment of college graduation; The Sunday Service, where Vancouver improvisers will re-enact every show at the festival in under an hour; and Tyumen, Then by Toronto’s Groundwater Productions, which looks at two soldiers who have been tasked with guarding the corpse of Vladimir Lenin while trapped in the boxcar of a motionless train somewhere between Moscow and Siberia.

Tickets are $14 for a single show, $33 for a three-show pass, and $72 for an eight-show pass. Tickets can be purchased online or by phone at 604-251-1363.