Young artists  have an excellent opportunity to learn new skills and show off their own during the third annual SOAR  Emerging Artists Festival, May 31-June 4.
Casa hosts a busy week of art, symposiums and local talent during the annual festival.
“ It will be so amazing,” summarized Allied Arts Council communications coordinator Kelaine Devine, who looks forward to the variety of events happening throughout the SOAR Festival.

SOAR 2017 opens with the first of three cabaret nights at Casa, May 31. Featured acts are Lethbridge circus act Gymfinity Aerials, plus short plays “My Daughter‘s Father” by Sydney Murdoch and “Severance Pay” by  Griffin Cook and Ben Price Magic.
Cabaret night 2, June 1, includes “My Daughter’s Father” by Sydney Murdoch “Follow me on Instagram” by Kristen Krein and “Come Home” from Moot Entertainment.
Cabaret 3, June 2, features Hannah Rud’s “ Awkward Girl” and Newman Mentalism performing “Letters to West 113th.”

SOAR passes are $50 which includes admission to all three of the cabarets and the symposiums June 3 and 4. Otherwise admission is $10 for each cabaret night.
 Admission to the seminars and to the cabarets is open to everybody, though participation is the cabarets is restricted to young artists 18-34.

 Project and Member Services director Muffy McKay noted different symposiums won’t conflict with each other this year.

“There’s no conflict. You will be able to attend all of them if you want to for $25,“ she said, noting there are a variety of symposiums on the nuts and bolts of making a living in entertainment, covering topics like taxes, applying for grants and other interesting topics.
 There are also a lot of fun symposiums including Nick Bohle’s seminar on preparing for interviews in front of video cameras.

The Windy Castle Medieval Faire is looking for some community support via a Kickstarter Campaign running May 1-15.

“We‘re only looking for $4,500 because we need to put the down payment on the jousters and  the caterers, so the community are voting with their dollars about how much the audience wants to see,” said co-organizer Junanita DeVos.
 The event takes place at the Coyote Flats Pioneer Village outside of Picture Butte, July 29-30 featuring a replica of a medieval village.

 There will be a variety of events including a hay bale maze, a Medieval feast, puzzles, costumes,  games, bouncy castles and an “eventful ” wagon ride into the coulee and plenty of other activities.
“There’s going to be puzzle questions and things to test your mind. there will be something for everyone,” she said.

“We’re even going to have a unicorn,” she enthused.
 The Kickstarter campaign raised $500 in the first three days of the campaign. There are several levels of a support mostly named after various aspects of wind such as Tsunami, Flurry, Zephyr, Whirlwind and Typhoon.
 Any pledge over five dollars gets your name on a banner to be displayed in the feast hall.

     John Dunsworth, who is often known for playing perpetually drunk trailer park  manger Mr. Lahey on the Trailer Park boys is excited to bring his sidekick Randy (Pat Roach)  back to Lethbridge to perform at Soundgarden, May 6.

“We just finished season 11 of the Trailer Park Boys on Netflix and starting Season 12. But I never know what I’m doing on the show until about a week before we film it. The boys are always writing and reading and rewriting and writing and sometimes they just throw it out,” Dunsworth said.

“I’m always impressed by how far they have managed to stretch the concept. I’ve always considered it was due to them being geniuses,” he said.
He noted he has been performing a lot of shows with Randy in the United States where The Trailer Park Boys is very popular.

“We played 100 shows last year, most of them in the U.S. I’ve been going through  paperwork from the tour, like hotel and meal receipts, but among that is a lot of paper from fans saying how much the Trailer Park Boys mean to them,“ he said.
 While he is known for playing  a drunk on stage, Dunsworth said he doesn’t drink.

“I’ll get people coming up to me saying ‘I can drink you under the table  Mr. Lahey.’ and when I tell them I don’t drink they’re disappointed.  Like ‘oh no, image shattered.’ But I always tell people it‘s more fun pretending to be drunk than it is to be drunk,” he said, adding he worked with Trailer Park Boys  creator Mike Clattenburg to create the character.