Vancouver has had a wet summer, but there’s help at hand for those wanting to escape the miserable grey skies. On Friday (September 5), North Vancouver’s Centennial Theatre will be filled with the sights, sounds, and rhythms of heat-drenched Seville, as internationally touring flamenco dancer and choreographer Cristina Hall joins guitarist Manuel Alejandro Montero and singer David de Alcala in El Sonido del Silencio (The Sound of Silence).

Yes, the Vancouver International Fringe Festival is exciting—even overwhelming—but keep breathing. We’re here to guide you. You’ll want to catch Barry Smith’s Baby Book: A Grownup Comedy About Stuff (starting Saturday [September 6] at the Waterfront Theatre). This guy has obsessively documented his life, which is good news for us because it provides great material for his disturbingly funny multimedia monologues.

In an art crawl organized by the Swedish group Brudarna, over 100 female photographers will be exhibiting their work throughout Sweden, London, and New York City. What does that have to do with Vancouver? Well, former Swedish resident Laura Leyshon has decided to join her colleagues by presenting a Portraits of Sweden show at Aurum-Argentum Goldsmiths on Granville Island’s Railspur Alley.

With precious few days left before it’s back to school, North Vancouver’s Party-at-the-Pier celebration this Sunday (August 31) provides the opportunity for one last blast of freedom. Taking place at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue, the marine-themed event will feature a variety of local performers, including Uzume Taiko (pictured above), family entertainers Beverley Elliott and the Billionaires, the Sweetpea Swing Band, and Jay Knutson & the Draycott Swamp Devils, among others.

On Sundays all summer long, New Works’ All Over the Map has brought troupes from the far corners of the world to Granville Island’s atmospheric Ron Basford Park. But for its closing show, it’s bringing in artists from a little closer to home-ones that hail from B.C.’s northwest coast.

Oversized chandeliers, gilded balconies, muralled rotundas: these are just some of the fixings you picture when you think of the world’s great opera houses. But here’s a setting to rival any La Scala or Paris opera house: an open-air stage whose backdrop is the sea and mountains. That’ll be the milieu for the magical songs of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when Bard on the Beach presents Opera & Arias this Monday (August 25) as well as September 1 and 8 in Vanier Park.

Everybody may have hated the preteen Chris Rock (if you believe the title of the semi-autobiographical hit sitcom he executive-produces and narrates), but it’s been a long time since anyone’s uttered a negative word about the man’s comedic abilities. Long considered one of the top stand-up comics of all time, Rock makes a return visit to Vancouver a scant four months after performing at the River Rock Show Theatre in April.

For 15 years, the Downtown Eastside’s Gallery Gachet (88 Cordova Street) has been a cultural home to artists facing challenges rooted in trauma, abuse, and mental-health issues.

While the Roman Catholic Church is generally associated with European liturgical styles such as Gregorian chant, Rev. Paul Poovathingal is both an ordained cleric and a vocal virtuoso specializing in the South Indian style known as Carnatic music. Beyond that, the priest is also an apostle of religious tolerance, working with Christian, Muslim, and Hindu themes in his performances.

Centuries before Julia Roberts’s make-over from hooker to socialite in the 1990 box-office wonder Pretty Woman, before Kim Cattrall’s turn as a doll come to life in 1987’s critically panned Mannequin, before Audrey Hepburn’s transformation from cockney flower girl to high-society lady in 1964’s My Fair Lady, there was Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 1748 one-act opera Pygmalion.

Some people get cake on their birthday, and, if they’re lucky, some nice presents. Local composer Rodney Sharman, on the other hand, is getting a retrospective of his life’s work in celebration of his big five-O. Thursday (August 7) at 7:30 p.m., at the Roundhouse Community Centre, the Pride in Art Festival pays tribute to Sharman, whose recent work includes collaborations with Atom Egoyan and the San Francisco Ballet.

Granville Island celebrates B.C. Day on Monday (August 4) with a salute to the province’s artists. In its first-ever Art on the Street Festival, Chinese traditional dance (at Ron Basford Park) and hip-hop performances (at Kids Market) mix with kelp-weaving workshops (at Craft House) and glass-blowing demonstrations (at New-Small & Sterling).

Techno-geeks beware: the city’s best-known improv troupe is wiring into technology trends with its latest show, and promises to leave no blogger or YouTube addict unscathed. The Vancouver TheatreSports League’s newest late-night laugh fest, iProv, begins on Friday (August 1) at 11:45 p.m. at the New Revue Stage on Granville Island. Early birds can still catch the troupe’s other summer hit, TheatreSports—The Summer Games, at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, and 8 and 10 p.m.

Sometimes it’s all about the setting. The Harmony Arts Festival, which runs Friday (August 1) to August 10, features one of the most innovative venues of the summer: its Fountain Concerts series at Ambleside Landing floats acts like singer-songwriters Babe Gurr and Tom Landa on a platform over water, while audiences enjoy the sea breezes from stands overlooking the stage. At sunset, head to the main outdoor stage at John Lawson Park for acts like the Latin-dance band Tanga.

On the eve of Pride weekend, Morgan Brayton and her pals are promising to serve up sketch comedy that will “make you laugh no matter who you’re going home with after the show”. In other words, the comedian and 30 Helens alumnus has cornered the kind of laughs that appeals to players on both teams—gay and straight—and everyone in between. Tuesday, Wednesday, and next Thursday nights (July 29 to 31), they take to the colourful confines of the Biltmore Cabaret.