Blue Skies, Smilin' at Me

My blogging has been less than zero lately, here and on my other blogs. Blogging rules say that I'm not "supposed" to apologize for long absences, so I won't, but I am going to explain where I've been anyway. It's my blog, and I can do what I want!

I've been a more than a little preoccupied lately with a musical that I've been working on now since August. It's a production of "White Christmas" that the Scugog Choral Society in Port Perry is doing. (Tickets are almost sold out, but you can get what's left here) It's based on the old Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye movie, for those who don't know. It has fantastic music, a lot of dancing, and a whole lotta love! And the parting of the Red Sea! No, seriously!

The show closes tomorrow night. We have three shows left between now and then. Honestly, despite the show taking over a large chunk of my life lately, I am pretty bummed about the end.

I hear a lot from people in my life that I shouldn't "waste my time" being in the chorus of shows. These are people who love me, and care about me, and know my background in theatre. They think I should hold out and only do shows if I have lead roles. I understand where they're coming from, and truthfully I'm always a little bit bummed out to be "in the chorus AGAIN" but I don't have the strongest singing voice, and I know that, so even though it's always a bit disappointing to be given yet another chorus role, I end up accepting happily, because I know that in the end I will enjoy myself. I also don't do these shows in the hopes of being discovered by an agent, or a major movie director who just HAPPENS to go see a show in small town Ontario. I do them because I love musicals. I have them in my blood. I love the fact that in musicals it's okay - even expected - to have BIG emotions. If you're happy, you're the happiest guy in the world, but if you're not, it's the biggest trauma you've ever experienced. There's no in between in musicals. I love the costumes, and the dancing, and most of all, the music.

I openly admit that I wish life were like a musical. I truly believe that I should have an orchestra follow me around at all times who could just play along to whatever song fits my emotional state at the time. It's one of the reasons I love Glee - they just HAPPEN to have a band who can play any song, any time. It's my dream for life.

This show has been so much more to me, though. I always enjoy doing shows, but sometimes the cast gels better than others. This has been one of those times. I knew a lot of the cast members before, through other productions with various companies, and some were good friends, but there were some I had never had the opportunity to work with previously. There were some I had "known" but didn't really know. There were a few that I was already good friends with. This particular combination, though, has proven to be magical (yes Liz, I'm stealing your word!)

I am really sad to know that after Saturday night I won't see these people again, in this particular grouping, on a regular basis. As much as I know my husband is dying to have me home again all the time to help with the kids, it has been a joy to go to the Town Hall, knowing that I was going to see them, and spend the evening running up and down stairs for copious costume changes, sitting backstage and whispering along to songs I don't get to sing, but wish I did, and occasionally making somewhat obscene comments - away from the younger members of the cast, of course! I've gotten to spend more time with one good friend than I have in years; I've gotten to know people I've worked with previously, but didn't really spend time with (even if some of them are total divas who have to have a follow spot everywhere they go!); and I've been lucky enough to get to know a few new absolutely fabulous people that I hope will stay in my life after the curtain closes for the last time.

There's almost always a camaraderie amongst a cast, and over the years I've learned that those fast friendships formed backstage can quickly fade after the final curtain call. I really hope that won't be the case this time. The friendships I've made, and strengthened, are far too valuable for that.

Why Do I Care?

I haven't lived within the boundaries of Metro Toronto since 1998. The last Toronto election I voted in was also the FIRST Metro Toronto election after the "megacity" was created. Since then our family has moved around, but for the most part we've been within the boundaries of the Greater Toronto Area (some "greater" than others).

So you might wonder why I care about who was elected Mayor of Toronto. Here are a few reasons:

1. I may not live there anymore, but I really do love Toronto. I love wandering around downtown. I love Queen West and the Beaches (wait, the Beach?). I love the entertainment district and all of the mega-musicals put on by Mirvish Productions and Dancap, among others. I love the smaller theatres like Passe Muraille, the Factory, Soulpepper and CanStage. I love the fact that I can walk all over downtown Toronto in the middle of winter without a coat using the PATH system. I love watching baseball games at SkyDome (I will never admit that it's no longer called SkyDome, so don't even try to make me.) I love the Toronto Islands. Most of all, I love the people - well, most of them, anyway. So I don't want to see a loudmouth politician screw up "my" city. I also don't want any Lastman-sized international embarrassments (African cannibals, anyone? How does that compare to wanting someone's wife to be go over to Iran and be raped? Hmmm...)
2. The truth is, what happens in Toronto affects the whole province to a certain extent, most notably the 905 area (for those not familiar with Toronto, this is a horseshoe-shaped area outside of Toronto thus called because of their "905" area codes.) If not a majority, then a lot of 905-ers are commuters. We may start our mornings in Oshawa, Pickering or Mississauga, but we spend our days firmly in the 416. Gridlock and public transit are issues that don't just affect Toronto residents. 
3. Again, because so many 905-ers work in Toronto, if you mess up the economy of Toronto, you mess up the economy of a much wider area. Even if you don't take into account the commuters, products and services are regularly traded amongst the cities of south-central Ontario. The economy of the country's largest city has a ripple effect across the whole area, at minimum.
4. I was talking to someone last night who works in social services in Toronto. The look on his face when told Rob Ford was elected said it all. Outside of the Great Depression, this may be the worst thing to ever happen to the poor, under-privileged, and mentally and physically-challenged people in Toronto's history.
5. Why is it that the right wing is so against funding for arts organizations? My guess is that most of them can't read a book or have the attention span to sit through a play, but that's just my (somewhat biased) opinion. Arts organizations in Toronto are surely quaking today. Hopefully many of them have been making plans based on this possibility, because they can be sure sure to lose most, if not all, of their funding if Ford gets his way. It amazes me how people think this is such a huge waste of their tax dollars. Do you know how much Toronto currently spends per capita on the arts? THIRTEEN DOLLARS. Yes, that's right: $13 of your hard-earned money goes to support the arts. How much do you spend on coffee in a week? Or on take-out meals? Or anything else. You can't afford $13 per year to support thousands of artists and workers in arts organizations that bring in millions of dollars to Toronto's economy not only through ticket sales, but through hotels and restaurants as well? An article in the Star says that Pantalone and Smitherman both hoped to raise that spending to $25 per year. San Francisco, to compare one city to another, spends $86 per year on the arts. Yet Toronto, for example, is the third-largest centre for English-speaking theatre in world, behind only New York City and London.
6. Toronto will host World Pride Day in 2014, just a few months before the next mayoral election. Can anyone picture Rob Ford riding on a float in the Pride parade? Me neither. With the cuts that he surely wants to make to their funding, the entire experience will likely be embarrassing. However, I have faith in the Pride Week organizers, and I'm sure they'll find a way to get around the whole "bigoted mayor" thing.

I am not completely terrified of Rob Ford as mayor - just yet. I admittedly do not know much about those who have been elected as councillors, and so I don't know how much of his mandate he will really be able to pass. It could be - as many have speculated - that we'll have gridlock until the next election. Not that four years of a stalemate is a good thing, either, as we've seen in our years of minority federal governments, but at least it may mitigate the damage Ford will likely do. With any sort of luck, we can all just look back on the Rob Ford experience in four years as an amusing anecdote, and let the grownups go back to running the city.

An Evening in Yorkville

I used to work at Bloor St and Avenue Rd in Toronto, but that was a long time ago. It's been over six years since I spent a lot of time down there. If this tells you anything, I can count on two hands the number of times I've ridden the subway since we returned to Canada in 2008.

Truthfully, I preferred it when I worked further downtown. At least there I could afford to shop! In Yorkville (as the area around Bloor and Avenue is called) the stores are more Chanel and Versace than Wal-Mart and Dollar Giant. Being near the Eaton's Centre was great. I liked being within walking distance of the SkyDome (you can call it the Rogers Centre from now until Kingdom come, but it will always be the SkyDome to me!) and the Mirvish empire known as the "Entertainment District". I just love the feel of that area of Toronto.

But that being said, the one time of year that it's cool to be in Yorkville is during the Toronto International Film Festival, commonly referred to as "TIFF." During TIFF the entire area changes and starts dripping with celebrities. My big story from TIFF was always in 2002, when I saw Nick Nolte eating lunch at an outside cafe outside the Club Monaco store on Bloor. I went back to my office and was talking to a coworker who also saw him, and we both agreed that he looked like one of the homeless guys who sleep on the back ledges of the Club Monaco store. A few days later a certain famous photo of him was taken:

Tonight, for the first time in seven years, I wandered around Yorkville during TIFF. I was only there for about an hour, and it was the wrong time of day for celebrity-spotting. In fact, the most exciting thing I saw was - I think - Jon Hamm. And I've never watched Mad Men, so not all that exciting for me.

So, I had a lot of time for observations, and here are the ones that I remember:

1. Walking around Yorkville during TIFF, everyone looks like they could be somebody. 90% of them, aren't.
2. There are a lot of Escalades with tinted windows during TIFF.
3. During TIFF, I think that the population of Toronto (usually around 2.5 million) becomes much closer to the population of New York City (around 8.5 million). Seriously, I have not seen so many people crowded on to one section of sidewalk since the last time I was in Manhattan.
4. No offense to my American friends, but it is SO easy to tell the Americans when you're walking around Yorkville right now.
5. I don't like cigar bars. This has nothing to do with TIFF, but I just didn't like the giant cloud of smelly cigar smoke that got puffed into my face.
6. I did not see Ben Affleck. Despite being told that he's a jackass, I'm still disappointed.
7. I also did not see Ben Mulroney, despite hanging around a building with ETalk logos all over it.
8. I do miss being in Toronto. Hopefully as my kids get older it will be easier for me to just go and hang out again the way that I used to. Roger Ebert has made me a fan for life with the way he's been tweeting Toronto's praises in the past couple of days.

So that's it! My random thoughts after a brief evening in Yorkville. Anyone else have TIFF experiences or thoughts to share?

The Last Five Years

Back in April, my friend Lisa came for a visit. We don't get to see each other very often, even though she's my best friend from university and I miss her dreadfully when she's not around. She's one of those people who honestly just make me happy by their very presence. She told me about a show happening in Toronto in May, and that I had to see it with her.

Theatre is still my first love, but I rarely get to indulge myself anymore. When she decided it was my birthday present and she was taking me, I couldn't say no.

So last week I drove down to the Toronto Centre for the Arts. There, in the studio theatre, a new company called Angelwalk Theatre was presenting their second show: The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown.

It was everything Lisa told me it was: touching, sad, funny - altogether just a really good show. It's a two-hander: not something I'm used to seeing in musicals. It tells the story of a relationship from beginning to end, and from end to beginning all at once. Cathy tells her side of the story from the end and works backwards; Jamie tells his from the beginning to the end. The only song they sing together is "The Next Ten Minutes", which comes at the very middle of the show and shows their wedding.

Of course, I'm late now in posting this, since the show ended last weekend, but I wanted to congratulate Angelwalk Theatre on a great show, and encourage any GTA theatre-goers to check them out next season. If their next shows are as good as this one you'll be in for a wonderful evening.

In the meantime, here's a clip of the actress, Sherie-Rene Scott, who portrayed Cathy in the off-Broadway production, singing the song that's been stuck in my head since last Thursday night. The soundtrack is available, and I really recommend checking it out.

Awesome Job, Brian Linehan!

There are probably a lot of people now who don't remember Brian Linehan, which is a pity, because he was a real advocate for the arts, just as much as he was a Hollywood A-list interviewer. I'm thrilled to hear that his legacy (he died of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2004 - the same disease that killed my grandfather in 1995, coincidentally) is supporting TRUE undiscovered talent in Canada (not in a televised talent competition, either! What a concept!)

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/article/778684--somewhere-brian-linehan-is-chuckling

Somewhere, Brian Linehan is chuckling

Late talk-show icon left surprise financial legacy that's helping Canadian talent like Allan Hawco

This is the kind of thing Brian Linehan lived for.

The first part of the tale is all too familiar: An unknown young stage actor from Bell Island, Nfld., a graduate of the National Theatre School, is propelled by his ambition and initiative to Toronto to start up a small, struggling theatre company, maintained by small episodic roles and bit parts in the occasional film ... for all intents and purposes, doomed to the typically anonymous existence of the average unknown Canadian actor.
Except that there was nothing average about Allan Hawco, as anyone who saw him on stage can attest, with a talent that outshone even his rugged good looks – bearing, as he does, and as you can see from the photos, a rather startling resemblance to Colin Farrell.

And now, thanks in large part to Linehan's legacy, Hawco is the creator, co-producer, co-writer and star of the hit CBC series Republic of Doyle, a show that managed to pull more than a half-million Canadian viewers up against CSI and American Idol, and slightly less than half a million opposite Canada/Russia Olympic hockey.

Somewhere, Brian Linehan is laughing. The late interview icon, Canadian television's premiere celebrity schmoozer, was, for all his noted facility for stroking the A-list rich and famous, a passionate advocate for homegrown talent at a time when that was a fairly revolutionary concept.

It was – and is – a sentiment shared by the country's most respected and connected industry deal-maker, and Linehan's long-time advocate, adviser and friend, Toronto lawyer Michael Levine.

"Three weeks before Brian died," Levine recalls, "we're sitting in Morton's restaurant, and I finally said to him, "All right Brian, what do you want?'

"And he said, generously, "I would like to help artists. (I'd like) the best of the best of the best to have an opportunity to come forth, because I've always believed our talent is as good as any in the world, and all they need is training, good work and promotion.'

"And I said, 'Who do you want to do this?' And he said, `You.' "

When Linehan died, in 2004 from non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, he left behind an estate, to be administrated by Levine, totalling $4.5 million – much to the surprise of even those of us who knew him well, and generally assumed he was broke.

"Even I had no idea what Brian was worth," Levine confesses, "because Brian was the world's most private individual. And then I wake up one morning, and when the bank tells me I literally started to laugh. I mean, I didn't know if I had enough money to pay for his funeral.

"I remember, shortly after Brian died, Norman Jewison yelling to me from the stage of the Elgin Theatre, 'Levine! You know the money he left? It's ours!' "

And indeed, Levine did funnel some of the funds into the Jewison-founded Canadian Film Centre, toward establishing the new Actor's Conservatory.

"We put in 20 per cent of the money, got a network to put in money, got the government to put in half the money ... and now we have about a $5 million fund sitting there, and we just graduated the first class a couple of days ago."

There have been other endowments, to the likes of TIFF, Soulpepper and the Stratford Festival. "Everything we do has to be not-for-profit," stresses Levine. "And I am very careful as to how it is used.

"I have said to recipients, 'I am not a rich philanthropist. I have a duty to a beloved friend and to a concept ... and if we can't bring that added value to the project, I am not interested in giving you money."

So he was skeptical when Seamus O'Regan, co-host of CTV's Canada AM, started badgering him to come out to see his best pal, Hawco, on stage in his Company Theatre's inaugural production, Whistle in the Dark.
But saw him he did, and was immediately impressed.

"Blown away" is how he puts it.

"So I sit the kid down and ask that same fatal question, `What do you want?' And he said, `Well, I've got this little theatre company ... do you think you might give us a little sponsorship?' "

Levine did more than that. "I give the kid a small grant, I tell him to apply to BravoFact, I give him a Heritage Minute, which is a program I ran. And I take him by the hand to the CBC, and I get a little bit of money for a treatment, a little more money for a script, and literally put together a $20 million package.

"That is a perfect illustration of how we're trying to, in a very quantifiable way, use Brian's money."
It does not, of course, stop with Hawco.

"I went with my wife last year to see West Side Story at Stratford," says Levine, who is on the festival's council. "And I see this incredibly talented kid, and I'm asking, you know, `Who is that?' And they say, `Paul Nolan.' And I say, `Who's he?' `Well, he's this talented song-and-dance guy.' And I ask, `How old is he?' And they say, `30.'

"I went, `You're telling me that this kid has been professionally in this country, doing this quality of work, for a decade, and nobody knows who he is?'

"I mean, he's a former professional hockey player, for crying out loud."

It strikes Levine as typically Canadian that we so readily celebrate our athletic achievements – particularly, most recently, at the Olympics – and yet still somehow manage to overlook our actors.

"Oh, we take great pride in anybody who makes it abroad ... but we have got to create a standard of excellence for what we create, not just export the raw material so it's created elsewhere. Don't export all of the wood and build the furniture in Minnesota. Cut down the wood, build the furniture in Ontario and export the furniture, because you get more money for it. Let's become stars at home, and let's export ourselves.
"I'm saying we're as good as anybody in the world. And that exactly was Brian's philosophy."