Arts Roundup
Sept. 17, 2026

Music

• Métis alt-pop artist Robin Cisek was named the new musician in residence for the Edmonton Public Library. Working from the Stanley A. Milner branch, Cisek offers free mentorship, one-on-one sessions, and workshops to help local artists develop their skills, including advice on navigating the business side of the music industry. The two-time CBC Searchlight Top 100 finalist is the program's fourth musician in residence, following in the footsteps of Mallory Chipman, Biboye Onanuga, and Olivia Street, aka King of Foxes.
• Edmonton Opera is reviving its Opera Pub nights at The Druid Irish Pub downtown, running on the third Wednesday of each month until May. Artistic director Joel Ivany said the informal, no-cover shows let audiences get close to singers in a way a traditional theatre doesn't allow. Edmonton Opera will also program part of the Fall Community Fest at The Piazza on Sept. 20, alongside a vendor market and grape-stomping.
• St. Albert country artist Hailey Benedict spoke to CTV about her fifth consecutive nomination for a Canadian Country Music Association award. The awards will be presented in Saskatoon on Sept. 19.

Visual arts

• Filmmaker and photographer Cory Johnn has turned his miniatures of Edmonton landmarks — including the Muttart Conservatory, the Walterdale Bridge, and the Talus Dome — into postcards he's mailing for free to anyone who asks. "I know the Talus Dome is kind of a funny shape when you drive by it — it's almost like a meme in the city," he told Taproot. "People make fun of it at times, but it's also very beautiful."
• The Edmonton Arts Council has returned a sculpture commonly referred to as "Lunchbox Joe" to Churchill Square after about 18 months of repairs following an attempted theft. The restored sculpture, formally titled Lunchbreak and created by John Seward Johnson, was first installed on a bench in the square in 1983.
• Plant Memories, a new public artwork by Alma Louise Visscher, has been installed on the parkade at the Orange Hub. The acrylic installation on the chain-link surface uses shapes referencing leaves and petals to trace what has grown, and can continue to grow, on the site.
• Gallery@501's Family Traditions exhibition, on display until Oct. 24, features Inuk stencil printmaker Roberta (Apun) Sukayaluk Memogana and Métis-Cree watercolour artist Emily Mosley-Delorme, both of whom draw on family histories in their work. A public reception with an artist talk and printmaking demonstration is set for Sept. 17.

Theatre and dance

• Liz Nicholls previewed OH, ANNE!, the new musical from Bridget Ryan. The show, which Nicholls called "ingenious," is an all-woman, four-actor take on Anne of Green Gables with an East Coast sea shanty score. It opens Theatre Network's new season at The Roxy, running through Oct. 18. Ryan also spoke to the St. Albert Gazette about growing up performing with the St. Albert Children's Theatre, which was founded by her mother, Maralyn Ryan.
• Alberta Musical Theatre Company's revival of Rumpelstiltskin is a high-speed, high-energy debut for new artistic director Ellen Chorley, Liz Nicholls said in a review. After the musical runs at the Varscona Theatre, the cast will take it on a tour of more than 200 Alberta schools from October to June.
• Workshop West Playwrights' Theatre announced its 48th season, The Ties That Bind, assembled by an interim programming committee after Heather Inglis's departure as artistic producer. The season opens with Frank Moher's solo memoir Boy Player, continues with the world premiere of Conni Massing's culinary comedy Last Supper, and closes with Workshop West founder Gerry Potter directing a revival of the Canadian classic Billy Bishop Goes To War.
• Alberta Ballet is opening its 60th season with a new staging of Giselle by artistic director Francesco Ventriglia, who shifted the setting to a Mediterranean wine-making village and had the sets and costumes built entirely in-house. Giselle runs at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium on Sept. 18 and 19 before moving to Calgary. Later in the season, Alberta Ballet will bring in Romanian choreographer Edward Clug for the Canadian premiere of his Peer Gynt in October. It will also restage The Nutcracker with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in December, mark its 60th anniversary with a gala in February, perform a Beethoven-inspired program in April, and reimagine Snow White in May.
• Ballet Edmonton's Home Tour, its biggest fundraiser of the season, returns on Sept. 19 and 20 with five homes on display. New artistic director Diego Ramalho said government grants cover just 20% of the company's $1-million budget, so the rest has to be raised by fundraisers such as this. Ballet Edmonton's 2026-27 season opens in October with Ramalho's debut work, Origin, followed by Shift in February, and Resonance in April.
• Brian Webb, founder of the Brian Webb Dance Company and the longest-serving artistic director in Canadian arts history, is stepping back after 48 years. He and his successor Molly McDermott spoke to CBC Edmonton's Radio Active about the transition.
• St. Albert's Arden Theatre unveiled a new season programmed by Elliott Garnier, who scouted shows at the Edinburgh Fringe for the lineup, Edify reported. Highlights include Scottish Celtic rock band Skerryvore, the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival, and Ballet Jörgen's Swan Lake.
• Nominations are open through Oct. 31 for the BroadwayWorld Edmonton Awards, which will honour local theatre productions staged between October 2025 and September 2026.
• Broadway Across Canada's touring production of & Juliet moves from Calgary to Edmonton's Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium from Sept. 22 to 27. Newcomer Fabiola Caraballo Quijada, who plays Juliet, told Postmedia she landed the role a month after winning a Jimmy Award for musical theatre.

Books and publishing

• Magpie Books was named by readers of The Economist's Plot Twist newsletter as one of the best bookstores in the world. The shop's selection for an Oct. 7 book club event is Bassem Khandaqji's A Mask the Color of the Sky.
• Poet, translator, and scholar Iman Mersal is among seven researchers from the University of Alberta who were named to the Royal Society of Canada. Her book Fi Athar Enayat al-Zayyat (In the Footsteps of Enayat al-Zayyat) won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2021.
• Candas Jane Dorsey spoke to CKUA about her new novel, At the Freak Show, which follows Asa, the survivor of separated conjoined twins, navigating gender identity through music.
• Jordan Abel's Dad Era, published by Coach Hand Books, was among the poetry titles on the Edmonton bestseller list from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta.

Screen industries

• Artificial Agency has found a client for its behaviour engine in Owlchemy Labs, a Google-owned studio based in Austin, TX. The Edmonton-based AI company's technology will make it possible for a single human player to collaborate with several "human-like AI agents" when playing Dimensional Double Shift, a game that is expected to ship in the first half of 2027. "By closing the reality gap between what the agent believes and what is actually happening, we can train very small, game-specific models that deliver responsive, adaptive gameplay beyond what scripting can achieve, at a cost developers can ship," Artificial Agency co-founder and CEO Brian Tanner said in a release. Artificial Agency was founded in 2024 by Tanner, Alex Kearney, Michael Johanson, and Andrew Butcher; the latter two later departed for the University of Alberta and Google DeepMind, respectively.
• Interactive Arts Alberta is organizing the inaugural Edmonton Games Week from Oct. 18 to 25. It includes events aimed at both professional development, such as IAA's long-running Game Discovery Exhibition from Oct. 23 to 25, and fun, such as a karaoke and bubble tea night on Oct. 23.
• The Mosquers Muslim Film Festival is returning to Edmonton from Sept. 17 to 20. This year's festival will include screenings of Mahershala Ali's Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. The festival bills itself as the world's largest Muslim arts and film festival. General admission tickets are on sale now.
• MacEwan University student Tyra Delver, who hails from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, made her filmmaking debut at TIFF with the short film pahkwêsikan sâkihitowin: Bannock is Love, part of the National Film Board's Redefined series. "Bannock is my No. 1 go-to for connecting with culture," she told CBC Edmonton's Radio Active ahead of the premiere. "I really struggle with keeping that connection because living in the city is quite overwhelming."
• NorthwestFEARFest has announced the full lineup for its Oct. 14 to 18 edition at the Garneau Theatre. It includes a 4K restoration of the outrageous Cannibal Holocaust — somehow in a new, uncut format — plus new work from locals. The Alberta Kills shorts package runs on Oct. 18, with a Q&A with Sylvia Douglas and Luke Cloarec following the frights. https://www.northwestfearfest.ca/2026/alberta-kills-shorts
• Edify traced how SCTV became a hit comedy after moving its production to Edmonton's ITV studios in 1980, with businessman Charles Allard financing the show and a local crew shaping its look. The Edmonton years are considered the show's peak and inspired a McKenzie Brothers statue downtown.

More headlines

• Three Edmonton community projects are among 16 organizations shortlisted for the Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Community Programming. They are AfroQuiz and AfroCademy, led by the Council of Canadians of African and Caribbean Heritage; the Philippine Arts Council Alberta's Echoes of Identity: Tracking Filipino Cultural Landscapes; and Where We Came From, led by Chúng Ta Cùng Nhau Vietnamese-Edmonton Cultural Society. The award recognizes initiatives that encourage public engagement in Canadian history and will honour two recipients — one from a francophone community and one from an anglophone community..
• In a piece for NPR, MacEwan University's Sheena Rossiter spoke to Edmonton comedians at the Grindstone Theatre about how tariffs and Canada-U.S. tension make for good material.
• Sports broadcaster Jim Jerome has turned to helping people preserve their own histories through a service called Your Story Told, which conducts in-depth interviews with clients, CBC Edmonton's Radio Active reported.
• The Edmonton EXPO Centre hosts Edmonton Expo from Sept. 18 to 20, with panels including a reunion of the original 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cast and John Cena's first appearance at the convention. Brendan Wayne, the stunt performer who plays Din Djarin in most scenes of The Mandalorian, told Postmedia that fans are often surprised to learn Pedro Pascal isn't always under the helmet.

Happenings

Here are some events coming up soon:

• Sept. 17-20: The Mosquers Film Festival at various locations
• Sept. 18: Thirty and Flirty: A Gala Fundraiser starting at 7:30pm at Varscona Theatre
• Sept. 18-19: Alberta Ballet: Giselle at Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
• Sept. 18-20: Down by the River at Louise McKinney Riverfront Park
• Sept. 18-20: Kaleido Family Arts Festival at Arts on the Ave
• Sept. 19: From My Closet to Theirs starting at 10am at Fringe Theatre Arts Barns
• Sept. 19: Fairytale Dreams starting at 7:30pm at McDougall United Church
• Sept. 19-20: Alberta Culture Days at Art Gallery of Alberta
• Sept. 21: tahto awasis asitakimaw Every Child Matters Traditional Feast & Round Dance starting at 4pm at Alberta Aviation Museum
• Sept. 21: Poetry Pleas: Open Mic Poetry Reading starting at 7pm at Upper Crust Cafe
• Sept. 22: Tuesday Jam Hosted by Eric Zeller starting at 8pm at Yardbird Suite
• Sept. 23: Creative Writing to Cope with Stress and Build Resiliency starting at 7pm at Edmonton Public Library (Stanley A. Milner)

And here are more to keep in mind:

• Sept. 30: Truth & Reconciliation Pop-Up Screening & Author Event at Audreys Books
• Oct. 14-18: LitFest at various locations
• Oct. 16: Our Rights and Freedoms: A Biography of Canada's Charter at Citadel Theatre

Visit the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for many more events in the Edmonton region.