New Projects... I think I have a problem with Down Time...

Back in the spring of this year, I got a phone call from Elizabeth Bowering.  I had heard of Elizabeth because she had been quite busy at Walterdale over the years, but I had never met her. She explained to me that we had a mutual friend, David Kirshner Sr., and that she and David suffered from the same illness, MSA (Multiple System Atrophy).  I remembered when David was diagnosed and this terrible illness swept into his and his family's life.  A once vibrant and active man was suddenly stilled. Elizabeth was in the same boat. She went on to explain that she wanted to produce one of her plays, Wind in Her Sails, as a fundraiser and awareness project for MSA and she wondered if I might consider directing it. So I asked her to send me the script so that I might read it.  I read it and I was immediately in. It's a beautiful piece in tribute to her grandmother telling a story on a trip on a 60 ft. schooner in the early 1900s full of East Coast music.

Well, now it's fall and the show has been cast and we have started rehearsals.  The cast is terrific:

Narrator/Fiddler - Larissa Pohoreski
Mavis - Halee Pierog
Captain - Morgan Smith
Pike - Kris Loranger
Purdy -Murray Farnell*

No doubt I will regale you with more stories from rehearsal.  So far we have been having fun singing Lukey's Boat and learning a few other East Coast songs (Feller From Fortune, Killgrew's Soiree), as well as embracing the accent! As a former resident of Fort McMurray, it is fun to be surrounded by the accents of the rock and the script is peppered with the Newfoundland sense of humour I love. Whether you are an aficionado of all things from Newfoundland and the East Coast or whether you want to support this terrific cause, I hope to see you out!

The show runs November 12-21st at the PCL Theatre at the Arts Barns. Tickets can be purchased through Tix on the Square online or by phone 780.420.1757.

* appears with permission of Equity

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