The Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance.  Society  gave a preview of this summer’s production of Hamlet  at the Grand opening of  Festival Square, next to Telegraph and across from the SAAG.

 Producer Kate Connolly is excited to bring Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy to stagers all over the city this summer.

“This is our eleventh year and we were able to do this throughout Covid,” Connolly said before the show.

 While  the local thespians usually concentrate on the comedies, they have explored some of Shakespeare’s tragedies including Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth and the Tempest .

 Connolly is excited to have a full slate of shows and new venues for this year.

“We have 17 shows this summer, which is the most we’ve ever done,” Connolly said, noting most of the July shows will be outside Casa on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m..as part of Upside Downtown. 

They also have three shows at the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden, Galt Gardens, Legacy Park and road trips to the Historic Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod,  Coutts Centre outside Nanton and the Venue in High River.

“We’re very excited to be part of the very popular Upside Downtown concert  series ,” Connolly said.

Vancouver’s Rebel Priest  are stoked about their latest EP “ Lesson In Love” and their upcoming visit toTheoretically Brewing with Deadwolff and Local rock band Hell Diablo, June 30.

“ We’re stoked about visiting Theoretically Brewing,” said Rebel Priest bassist/ vocalist Jayme Black.

 Rebel Priest released their  first EP in 2017.

“We got together in 2014, just playing together. We were all in other bands, but decided to focus on Rebel Priest for the past four years,” he said.

 Though  the new EP  wasn’t officially released un til Friday, June 24, he said audiences are already responding to it.

“It‘s the best one we’ve released so far and people really seem to like it,” Black said, addinghe is alway excited to tout with Deadwolff.

“ We’re stoked about that. We’ll show them the west then we’ll go out east,” he said adding they share Deadwolff]s love for ’80s rock.

Toronto based new wave of hard rock band Deadwollff are taking life easy, at least until they hit the stage, on a  quick tour with Vancouver’s Rebel Priest, which stops by Lethbridge to rock Theoretically Brewing , June 30.

“We’ve been driving for three days. We’re parked by a river. It’s so  beautiful .The mountains are out of this world,” said laid back bassist/vocalist Thomas Wolffe, noting they were  on their own eastern tour since April.

“We’re very just excited to be playing”he continued.

They are supporting their self titled EP, which they released last year on Los Angeles based label  Metal Assault Records and Toronto based Boonsdale Records, which will also be releasing their full length  record early next year.

“We’ll be playing  a full set. We’ll be playing  the EP songs and a handful from the new record. When We go to a show we want to see a show. We don’t want to see a snoozer. So there will be a lot of moving around,” he said.

Deadwolff draws a lot of inspiration of early ’80s hard rock like April Wine and Triumph, though those bands predate Deadwolff by a few years.

“We love Triumph. There was always a lot of tTriumph being played by our parents. We just love ’80s hard rock. We just like the feel of it all and it’s music you can bop your head too,” Wolff said.

 They ’80s feel continues right on down to the physical format they release their music.— cassettes.

“All the cassettes  of the EP are sold out. I love cassettes.They’re the simplest format. They’re easier to store than records,” he said.