POST-SECRET

Okay I don’t know if any of you have heard of a book called Post Secret but this guy named Frank Warren put word out somehow to people from any and everywhere to send anonymous secrets to an address.  Literally send a postcard with a secret – preferably one line and it’s incredible the sorts of things that people write.  OH MY GOD!!!!   Some funny, some heart breaking.  I’ve had it for a bit and been reading bits of it. Then it sort of got lost on my bookshelf until recently and I broke it out again.  Thought I’d mention just a couple that made me laugh or made me intensely sad.

“The love of my life is ugly”

“I don’t know what to say to God anymore.”

“I feel guilty about sometimes wishing that I didn’t have children.  I don’t dare say it out loud for fear I might trigger something bad happening to them.”

“I stole your duck and took him to San Francisco.”

“The night he died he tried to call me . . .  when I saw it was him, I didn’t answer.”

See what I mean, y’all?  That shit is deep and sometimes deeply funny.    There is also a blog you can go to to read new ones.

www.postsecret.blogspot.com

It’s gotten me thinking about how many people carry something they think is so dark or terrible that, indeed may be heavy but not unlike someone or, in fact, everyone else’s secrets.  But we carry these things around, making us emotionally, mentally, and sometimes physically sick.  All the negative energy and self-flaggelation.  Eek!  Come on, people, let’s let it go.  So many wonderful things to hold on to instead.  And I absolutely do not believe in guilt.  My good friends know this.  And not because I’m a cold remorseless serial killer . . .  no, no I’m not a cold remorseless serial killer.     I think guilt is a cruel method of control imposed on people by others.  I have no patience with someone who tries to make me feel guilty.  If someone cares about me, they wouldn’t want me to feel that bad about something just because they want something from me. And as far as self-imposed guilt about a given event or situation, this is the way I look at it.  If you can fix it, fix it.  If you can’t fix it, forget about it, it’s done. If you can fix it but chose not to, forget about it anyway because you’ve made the decision not to fix it.  I’ve watched more people waste their own possibilities because of guilt and I just won’t do it.  It doesn’t exist in my world and it shouldn’t exist for anyone.

Wow, that wasn’t were I intended to go with this.  But there you are.  Down with guilt!!!!  Up with Post Secret.  Woohoo

REMEMBERING MICHAEL

Wow, everyone.  Michael Jackson is dead.   That is a tragedy of such epic proportions.  I can’t imagine what sort of life he had.  We’ve heard all kinds of stories and God knows we’ve seen his issues played out over the years in his ever-changing (and whitening) appearance and “unspecified” surgeries.  But I can’t help but think of this sweet young man before his demons really got hold of him.  He certainly gave us some of the most spectacular music and videos.    The man was a trail-blazer.  Some stars just burn too bright and too fast . . . wow, that was obnoxious, Thom.  Okay, anyway, here is a reminder of  the sweet soul that was Michael Jackson.

WORK NEWS

So I have more news of upcoming work.   I’ll be playing Mitch Mahoney, the “comfort councillor” – and by comfort councillor, I mean the ex-con who’s forced to give drink boxes to the kids as part of his community service -  in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Theatre Calgary from April 20 to May 9, 2010.  I’m really looking forward to it.  I’m on this William Finn roll apparently.  That will be my third Finn show.    It stars Gavin Crawford but I don’t know what role he’s playing.  It will be great to go back to Theatre Calgary.  I’ve done three shows there.  I did Berlin To Broadway With Kurt Weill, Cabaret and Evita.  I’ve got great memories of the place and the people.

So there you go.  Probably more news coming soon but for now, that’s it.  Okay I must be tired.  These last two posts, I just put up and they are so dry and boring.  No panache.  Sorry, kids, papa needs a good  nights sleep.

WILLIAM FINN

Okay, y’all.  It happened.  We did the evening with William Finn at Canstage last night.  For those of you who don’t know him.  He is the Tony award winning composer of the broadway musicals Falsettos, Elegies, A New Brain, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.  He’s a fascinating man.  Very no nonsense and seemingly crusty on the outside but he is a man who cares a great deal about musicals and people and artists.  But I have to say, I haven’t been that nervous singing for a long time.  It didn’t destroy me or anything but I was soooooooooooooo self-conscious.  But at the same time, it was thrilling to share his music with people.  And he had such great stories.  The one that really floored me was when he told the story of how his mother was dying of cancer around the time he was opening . . .  hmmm  either Spelling Be or A New Brain, I forget now.  Anyway, she euthanized herself with her morphine around his opening so the family would all have to be in town for her funeral anyway . . . then they could be there for his show.  Whaaaat???!!!!  Apparently she was quite a woman.  But that is intense.  Anyway, he seemed to enjoy himself.  He said some really nice things about the evening and it was a sold out crowd which really was great for him to see.  He got a standing ovation at the end of the night.

I was freakin’ exhausted by the end of the night.   But sooo glad I did it.

WHAT IS RACIAL IDENTITY?

hahha  I know that sounds terribly important.    Really this is just an observation.  I feel like I may have said this before in a blog but – who cares? – it’s my blog. I can say it again if I want.  I just saw a commercial for The Bonnie Hunt Show. (She’s a funny chick) She had the young actor on who is playing Sean (P.Diddy) Combs in the movie NOTORIOUS and he had said his mother had made him and his brothers slaves for her.  Bonnie picked up on that and sad “Ooooohhh, surely that’s not the word for it.”  Very funny.  But it got me suddenly thinking about race and how much if our race issues are visual.    What I mean is, I’m a man of mixed race, and there certainly are a lot more areas where “mixed” is considered a viable answer for “Race” on questionaires, etc.  But for all intents and purposes, I’m most often categorized as black.  Which is not a bad thing at all and this is certainly not a diatribe about race issues.  As I said, it’s more an observation.  I’m just as much white as I am black but racially, I’d never be called white.  The closest I’ve come is Italian. ahhaahh.  Which I still consider a great honour.

There is no point to this really.  Just a thought I wanted to share.  It’s so much about a visual.  I’m never so aware of how lucky I am to have blue-green eyes as when I go through customs.  My name is generic but I see them look at my passport and look at me:  light-ish brown skin, shaved head.  I could possibly be profiled.  But I can always see that quiet moment when they look into my eyes and see the colour and they realize I’m no one to be concerned about.  It’s a bit freaky but again, all visual.

I just think it would be kooky to be described as a dark-skinned white guy sometime.  hahahaahahahaha

SENIOR ARTISTS’ RESEARCH PROJECT

Okay, kids.  So I had the wildest experience last night.  I was asked to perform for an evening awareness for an amazing research project iniated by Joysanne Sidimus – an extraordinary woman who founded the Dancer Transition Resource Centre 20-some-odd (weird expression) years ago.

www.dtrc.ca

It was an evening to encourage funding from the many private angels who support the arts.  Joysanne had become aware of how many senior artists (over 65), from all art forms,  where struggling with no place to turn for help and began some preliminary research into this issue and realized there needed to be a serious iniative created to figure out what sort of help was needed, where it needed to come from, who needed it, how different it needed to be for the different disciplines, etc.   So this was to start to raise awareness and subsequently, funding to begin a 3 year research project.  The outcome of which is to figure out the answers to all of those questions and set a solution in motion.  Very Cool

It was at the home of a couple of arts patrons.  I can’t even begin to describe this house, y’all.  Holy Doodle.  It was pretty extraordinary.  Out of respect for their privacy I won’t give the details but I’ll just say it was a mansion in an area with a name that  sounds like “Hosevale” . . . .  But there were about 100 guests and there had to be millions of dollars of “cash-worth” in that room.  It was wild.

Sheila McCarthy was the organizer of the “artist guests” and the “artist guest talent” for the evening.  ie. artists were invited to mingle as “luminaries of the Canadian entertainment” scene and talk with the patrons and in some cases, were asked to perform as part of a little entertainment section.  So the list included Colin Mochrie, Debra McGrath, Rex Harrington, Karen Kain, Ross Petty, Veronica Tennant, Gordon Pinsent, Carlo Rota, Brent Carver, Fiona Reid and myself.  What?????!!!   And me, apparently.  So honoured to be in that sort of company.  Sooooo   I was asked to appear and do a couple of songs.  So Wayne Gwillim, who accompanied me, and I created a medley of two songs (I’m not saying which ones in case someone decides to steal it – you know you’re out there) and then I sang Infinite Joy which is my favourite song to sing these days.  It was a wild experience.    The “entertainment” portion went like this: Sheila hosted and started with a small a cappella song.  Then I did my songs, then Fiona Reid did this hilarious monologue about the merits of Canada – dressed as a school girl (I’m not kidding – HI-LARIOUS), then Louise Pitre did a Piaf song, then Brent Carver did a Leonard Cohen song followed by a Jacques Brel song, then we had a treat of a taste of the new generation in Leah Keely (daughter of Stratford Festival pianist/music goddess  Laura Burton and actor/matinee idol David Keely) playing the piano and singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

So interesting and fun. My songs went really well even though I screwed up a bit in the second one but no one would have known unless they really new the song.  And the highlight of the night was when Gordon Pinsent – who I had never met before – hugged me after I sang and said some really lovely things.  It was awesome.

This business is so freaky.  You never know what you’re going to be in for.  It was an honour to be asked and it was a kick to do.  Bring on more of that.  Woohoo

NEWS FLASH #1

Okay you’ve all (well, whichever of you have been reading my blog – I love you guys) been waiting for the news I’ve been intimating for the last couple of months.  Well there is some news but I’ll give you some little bits of news before the larger news.

SMALL NEWS #1

I’ve been asked to part of something else for the Canadian Stage Festival of Ideas and Creation.  Aside from the William Finn evening on June 22. I’ve been asked to read one of the roles in the three evening presentation of Tom Stoppard’s Tony-winning play COAST OF UTOPIA.  It’s three small plays, originally performed as one evening, which Canadian Stage is presenting in their separate units over the course of three evenings  – June 17, 18, and 19 as a benefit for the Actors Fund of Canada.  I’ll be a part of the second part (Shipwreck) , being read on June 18.  It’s supposed to be an amazing play and I’m really excited to be asked and to hear it.

Each of the three parts of the trilogy features over 35 actors – so over three days over 100 actors will be participating in this massive Benefit reading.
The plays are being read as follows:
Voyage (Wed June 17 at 7 pm)
Shipwreck (Thurs June 18 at 7 pm)
Salvage (Fri June 19 at 7 pm)

http://www.canstage.com/festivalweektwo#shipwreck

SMALL NEWS #2

Okay so secondly, I’ll be singing with the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) choir on Pride day – June 28.  It will be part of the big public service they do every year.  It’s at 11:00 at the parking lot just North of Carlton on Church.  Always a good time.  I’m doing a really fun duet with the fantastic Stephanie Martin.  (possibly two)

http://www.pridetoronto.com/festival/events/372

BIG NEWS

Okay so it’s not humungous news but it’s pretty fun.  I don’t normally like to broadcast this sort of information before I’ve signed the contract but at this point, it’s pretty definite.  In the fall I’ll be reprising my role, Aldolpho (the role for which I was just nominated for the Jessie Award in Vancouver), in The Drowsy Chaperone.  In fact, our whole production is being taken lock, stock and barrel, as a co-production between The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and The National Arts Centre in Ottawa.  So we play The Citadel from Sept. 5 – Oct. 4,

http://www.citadeltheatre.com/events.php?eventid=716&cat=43

and The National Arts Centre from Oct. 14 – Oct. 31

http://www.nac-cna.ca/en/whatson/results.cfm?EventID=5910

I’ve never done a remount before.  The great thing is there are enough cast changes (some people just aren’t available) to keep it fresh and feel like a new show. So it will be fun to revisit the crazed Aldolpho once again.  It was so much fun the first time. If you can make to it either, do.  It was such a fun production and quite a brilliant and fun show.

There is more news to come but that’s not solid yet.  Hopefully I’ll have more for you in the next few weeks.

AMENDMENT

So I have to amend my last entry a bit.  I will no longer be appearing with Marcus Nance and David Rogers.  I’m very sad about that.  Something personal had come up and Marcus was extraordinarily understanding about my having to bow out of his evening.  So kudos to him.  Don’t worry y’all, nothing bad.

But if anyone was thinking of going to the evening.  It will still be a great  night as Marcus and David are both fantastic performers.

More stuff to come.

JESSIE AWARDS – VANCOUVER

Oh my God, you guys.  I’m so thrilled and honoured.  I’ve been nominated for OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE  for playing Aldolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone at Vancouver Playhouse.

http://www.jessies.ca/

The awards take place June 15.  Wow.  I won’t be able to go but I’ll ask someone to accept if for me in case I actually win.  This is just the icing. I’ve rarely had as much fun as  had doing Drowsy.  Aldolpho is such a gift for an actor.  He is so insane.  There is no boundary.  No end to his outrageousness.  I’m also thrilled that Max Reimer, our director was also nominated as well as our choreographer, Dayna Tekach.  Max was so on top of the show. He knew it inside out and knew just how far to push everyone.  It was amazing.  And Dayna created such extraordinary numbers. So much fun to do.  So much fun to watch.  It was a dream.

We actually got 9 nominations.    I’m thrilled for the nominees and thrilled for the cast and especially for the theatre.  Woohoo.  It was a really great day.

POST DREAMGIRLS, NORMAN JEWISON AND BEYOND

Hey all.  Okay, I should have gotten to this sooner.  Okay, first things first.

DREAMGIRLS CLOSING:  It went really well.  It was a great run.  I think it did extremely well for the theatre.  We seemed to be at least 80 – 85% average.  It always seemed pretty full.  And the cast got along really well.  We had some allergy issues come into play with some voices right near the end but everyone made it. Whew!!!  Thank God.  We did not need people going down the last 3 shows.   So the end of another run passes without incident.  And on top of that, I ended up getting a really nice review in one of the papers which was nice, especially  since I didn’t think I was particularly interesting in the part.  But I’ve realized something.  I often don’t.  hahahaha or maybe it’s just the last few.  Well, no I loved Drowsy Chaperone and I thought I was pretty good in that I must say.  And I didn’t hate myself in A New Brain.  But there were parts where I didn’t love me in in that show. Ah well. As long as the public enjoyed it and I didn’t hate myself.  That’s all that matters.  lol

TRIBUTE TO NORMAN JEWISON:  So on Monday night, I sang at this benefit for the Regent Park rebuilding project which was a tribute to Norman Jewison and Reverend Gordon Winch.  It was wild.  Really fun.  The evening was hosted by Don Harron.  And in between videos and a couple of speeches, 7 performers, mostly from the musical world, were brought in to sing songs from Mr. Jewison’s films.  The performers were myself, Jackie Richardson, Louise Pitre, Alana Bridgewater, Jennie Such, Danny Brooks, and Yvan Pedneault.  I got to sing a medley of “Heaven On The Minds” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” which went well, even though I screwed up some of the lyrics but still sold the shit out of it.  I had a moment where I became so aware of Norman Jewison watching me sing this song. Aaaaaahhhh.  Then there was a party afterwards and many people said lovely things about my performance so I guess I didn’t screw up too badly.  Whew!  But what was really cool was Jackie Hennessy, twin sister of well-known actress Jill Hennessy, was there and . . . well I won’t give the details because it will sound too conceited but she really liked my work, which needless to say, was very cool.

BACK HOME:  And now here I am, back in Toronto – Post Dreamgirls, Post Norman Jewison.  I’m really looking forward to being here for the summer.   What’s coming up?  Well, just little bits for right now.

1.  I and David Rogers are going to be guests of Marcus Nance at Statler’s on June 8.

2.  I’ll be Sharron Matthews guest on one of her final Sharron’s Party’s in June.

3.  I’ll be part of Canadian Stage’s Festival of Ideas and Creation.  Broadway composer and Tony Award Winner William Finn is going to be in town to do a couple of masterclasses and an up-close and personal evening.  At the evening, 4 performers (myself, Steven Gallagher, Barbara Barsky, and Eliza-Jane Scott) will perform numbers from his shows between the interview segments, which will be mediated by Richard Ouzounian.  June 22, at 7:00

http://www.canstage.com/festivalweekthree#sound

Really excited about that.

And that’s about it, kids.  Other than that, it’s a summer of continuing to open up my own possiblities.  I’m hopefully going to do another cabaret.  And I’m also banking on it being a “film and TV summer”.  So pray, my children.

You know I just went away from the computer for  few minutes, lost in thought.

“What was Thom thinking?”

I’m glad you asked, y’all.  I was thinking that on the road to becoming who we are, we go through being so many people.  And we make so many of the same mistakes.  Growing, changing, dare I say “evolving” takes so many conscious choices to find it’s way.  I’m realizing it’s not the path itself that becomes easier, it’s the willpower it takes to keep making risky/difficult/costing choices that becomes stronger.  You just get used to being brave.   Bravery can become a habit.  I find myself, right now, wandering through a world of trying to make choices that are hard but I know are ultimately the right ones.  I stumble, I fall, I get up, I persevere, I triumph, I stumble again, but maybe don’t fall, etc.   The trick is to tell those negative voices that tell you “I told you so” to suck it, then pick yourself up and say “I’ll do better next time” and keep on walking.  I have things I want to accomplish in this life and I won’t let myself get in my own way anymore.

So join with me y’all.  Repeat after me,  “BRAVERY IS THE NEW BLACK” – it looks good on everyone. (And it’s so slimming)