One more show ...

... at 2:00 PM and I hope everyone got the memo on DST. And I hope our actors coming in from Toronto drive carefully. Wet flurries or rain showers. Local blowing snow early this afternoon.
Pictured above (L-R): Nicholas Cumming, Sherree Tams (set and costume design), Iva Zendelska, Daniella Forget, Majdi Bou-Matar (director), Gary Kirkham, and Frank Spezzano.
Photo by Dwight Storring.

Not in the picture: Andrew Laikin (the Angry White Man). Lighting: Kari Kokko. Dramaturg: Jasminka Klacar. Assistant Director/Stage Manager/Technical Director: Nicole Lee Quesnel. Original Music: Nick Storring. Sound Board: Richard Quesnel. Front of House: Linda Levesque. Volunteer Manager: Tony Yang.

Thank you.

As for myself, the playwright, I feel a little like I've been to party where I've talked too much and drank too much and was very entertaining until I puked and passed out, and woke up hours later to see the party still going full steam without me.

Three more performances ...

... counting tonight. It is a weird play, to use an adjective that occurs in the review in The Record. (Where you can also see a couple of video clips by Philip Bast -- I don't know how long before these go behind the subscriber wall.) You're not going to see this at Drayton. But Stratford? I don't know about that. "You will see."

(Another photo from Dwight Storring. Iva, Daniella, Gary.)

Yes or No!

Daniella Forget, Iva Zendelska
(photo by Dwight Storring)

Yes or No! at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener, Oct 25-29

Tickets through the Centre-In-The-Square box office

UPDATE: Iva's blog is here.

Yes or No!

Nicholas Cumming, Daniella Forget
Iva Zendelska, Gary Kirkham

(photo by Dwight Storring)

Yes or No! at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener, Oct 25-29

Tickets through the Centre-In-The-Square box office

Silky voice: check. Brain: oops...

On CKWR this evening. Majdi spoke words, sentences and whole paragraphs. He answered questions as if he had been waiting all his life for them to come.

Then it was my turn. Managed to answer "What got you interested in playwriting?" Then the question I had been expecting and preparing for all weekend. Where did I get the idea for the play? "Well, I have been thinking about that." I announced with a great deal of confidence -- and then Mary-Lou looked away from me to the monitor -- and this kicked off the "pause until I get eye-contact again" reflex -- but she didn't look back -- and I said "A dream ... ah ... dream ... ummmmmm" -- Majdi reached over to still my drumming fingers -- and at this point the "I'm an idiot" reflex kicked in. Anyway, got out of it somehow.

Afterwards, I complimented Majdi on his smoothness, and he said "But Douglas, this is what I studied in Lebanon: Radio and TV broadcasting. I've spent hours in radio studios. So it's not talent, just hard work."

So I didn't feel so bad. I'm just the writer, remember that.

Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony

Balzac: I shall never make a name.
Laure: Nonsense! with such books, any one could make a name.
Balzac: You are right, by Jove! . . . these books must live. . . . Besides, there is Chance. It can protect a Balzac as well as it can a fool. Indeed, one has only to invent this chance. Let some one of my millionaire friends (and I have a few), or a banker not knowing what to do with his money, come and say to me: ‘I am aware of your immense talent and your anxieties; you need such and such a sum to be free; accept it without scruple; you will pay it back some day or other; your pen is worth my millions!’ That’s all I require, my dear sister.

You don't have to be a millionaire to make a pledge, but if you are one, or better, a billionaire (and we have a few), then it would only take such and such a sum to set them free -- and you can say you saved ... a Balzac!

This and That

I have put up a new website for Isabella using Google Page Creator. It is not very sophisticated but it is less embarrassing for me (the supposed computer guy) than the one I had previously. I said, "Don't you have any designer friends?" Well, that didn't work, so this is what happens.

On the left one of Isabella's drawings which might possibly be in the show at Harbinger Gallery opening on Saturday. Sigh. I am in love. With my very talented painter wife, of course. The model is Ewa. Not to be confused with Iva, who is appearing in my play.

It seems I will be on Mary Lou Schagena's Monday Night with the Arts, on CKWR 7:30 to 8:30, with Majdi Bou-Matar, to discuss Yes or No! I must practice my silky radio voice.

Gestures

I have been so self-involved with Yes or No! coming up (and you would think I'd be involved with my collaborators but no, it's with my self) that I didn't realized what Isabella was up to until after she'd done it. She spoke at a symposium on drawing at the University of Waterloo Fine Arts Department. (Not that she would have wanted me in the audience. Maybe that's why I missed it.) Next week she opens a show, Gestures at Harbinger Gallery with Noriko Maeda, her shodo sensei. I will try to remember.

Yes or No!

On the night of the 1995 Quebec referendum, a newcomer from Yugoslavia draws a Canadian concert cellist into her own crisis of identity.

Don't miss the newest production from The MT Space (The Multicultural Theatre Space)


Performances Wednesday to Saturday at 8 pm and Matinee Sunday at 2 pm
Adults: $18 in advance / $20 at the door / Students & Seniors: $15

For tickets call 1-800-265-8977
or order online at www.centre-square.com

Group Bookings available at 519.585.7763 or email info@mtspace.ca