by MATTHEW WOODLEY

One can find many things on the stretch of Ste-Catherine running east of the Main: a prostitute, decent seats at the peep shows, crack. But it's getting harder to come across a cheap piece of pizza since Eric Amber moved in.

Amber, a product of Calgary's Loose Moose Theatre, which spawned the banger prodigies behind FUBAR and his own equally hilarious late improv troupe the Three Canadians, moved to Montreal three years ago. "I inherited an apartment building on Ste-Catherine," he explains, "but when I took over it was gutted by fire. It had just sat here derelict for like 10 years, so I've spent the last three summers ripping it apart and rebuilding it."

The upstairs apartment has come a long way - at least far enough that Amber doesn't have to go to Al Van Houtte to pee anymore. And since the downstairs pizza shop's lease expired last month, he's turned his attention back to street level, where he's building a theatre.

After nine years of street performance in Australia and around the world with Three Canadians, Amber knows something about keeping a crowd. His quick wit and disarming touch of Albertan earnestness are a hilarious, quirky mix - just what he wants to create in the space he plans to name simply "Theatre" ("or Théâtre," he muses. "It's a bilingual word.")

"I want vaudeville," says Amber. "That's why I love Montreal. There's a great history of vaudeville here - cabaret, freaks, the whole thing. And not too expensive. If you knew that there was a really good-quality show that you could see for between five and 10 bucks, maybe people would start coming back to theatre. Because television is full of lies, we all know that. And as the reality-TV cancer spreads, people are going to start looking for an alternative that challenges them. I think theatre is it. I mean it's crazy - you know people say, ‘Vinyl's coming back' and all that stuff, but I really believe that theatre is where it's at."

Amber has scored funding from the city, which is consciously trying to bridge the rundown gap of Ste-Catherine between the shopping stretch and the Village with a cleaner theatre district. The Green Party has also pitched in a hand with renovations and will fill part of the downstairs space with their office until Theatre opens, "hopefully by the summer."

Amber is also up to more than banging down walls and scraping hardened cheese from the floors. He gives a weekly improv workshop at the Comedy Zone (1740 René-Lévesque), where he passes on the wisdom of Keith Johnstone, his mentor from the Loose Moose days, Thursdays at 5 p.m., free. He can also be seen on stage at the same place, with FUBAR's Dave Lawrence and Paul Spence as well as Derek Flores, tonight, Jan. 8, at 8 p.m. and Jan 9–10 at 8 and 11 p.m., $12. Anyone interested in the Theatre project can contact him at nutsandcorn@hotmail.com.

>> Stage Listings