Category: Arts and culture

Izad Etemadi as Buddy the Elf: ‘It’s fully a dream come true’

As he honed the role of Samuel for the world premiere of the musical Grow earlier this year, Canadian-Iranian actor Izad Etemadi had no idea he’d be back at London’s Grand Theatre so soon. And this time, in a lead role.

Artistic director Dennis Garnhum, however, was already thinking seven months ahead. Among those thoughts: asking Etemadi whether he’d be interested in the role of Buddy in this year’s holiday production of Elf, The Musical.

“[During the run of Grow], my husband, Bruce, asked whether I’d settled on who would play Buddy,” Garnhum said. “I said I hadn’t. He said I think you’ve found him…. The very next day, [former executive director] Deb Harvey suggested the same thing. As Samuel, Izad showed he could charm you and entertain you. He had heart.”

Izad Etemadi
Izad Etemadi

“Dennis told me that story not long ago,” Etemadi said this week. “He sent an email [in spring] asking whether I’d consider playing the role of Buddy. I sent back a coy response: ‘Yes, I’d consider it. Please contact my agent.'”

Etemadi’s casual reply, however, belied his excitement about the offer. Aware of the physical demands of the role, he immediately began weekly voice lessons, which soon ramped up to twice-weekly. He learned the music over the summer and began memorizing lines three weeks ahead of rehearsals so that he could go off-book as quickly as possible.

“On a personal and emotional level, this is the kind of role I’ve always dreamed of getting to do,” Etemadi said. “I’ve found sometimes in musical theatre people didn’t always know what to do with me…. With Buddy, I get to sing, I get to dance, I get to make people laugh for two hours. But it also has so much heart; it’s the really moving story that drives the whole show forward. Fourteen-year-old me would be in shock right now… it’s fully a dream come true.

Izad Etemadi and Buddy the Elf
Izad Etemadi as Buddy the Elf in the Grand Theatre’s 2022 production of Elf, The Musical. Photo by Morris Lamont

Script and songs aside, Etemadi says the physical demands of playing the energetic, unworldly Buddy are a challenge all their own.

“It’s a lot. It’s, straight up, two hours of me talking and singing and screaming non-stop, but I started the process really early, because it’s the first time I’ve been the lead-lead-lead of a show…. The big thing has actually been learning how to yell healthily on stage. Buddy is always very excited. It’s really easy to get swept up in that excitement and then shout improperly. There’s a lot of yelling in the first 20 minutes, so if you’re not doing that properly, the rest of the show is going to be really, really difficult. Also, you have to get it to a cadence that’s funny and not annoying. There’s a really fine line.”

Garnhum and Etemadi agree that audiences will expect certain lines and gags from the 2003 motion picture Elf, starring Will Ferrell, to show up on stage; however, the musical version doesn’t slavishly follow the hyperactive thrust of the film. Whereas the movie is steeped in frenetic realism, the musical version is more fantastical, honouring audience expectations but telling a more heart-rending story, Garnhum said.

“And I’m not 6-2,” said Etemadi. “I went into this thinking this is not going to be the Will Ferrell version; this is going to be my version. And that’s what I’m going to give to the audience. Because this is a musical adaptation, there are so many new things for the audience that, while they’re going to be familiar with the story, they’re not seeing the movie on stage.

Izad Etemadi with Michelle Bardach and Ma-Anne Dionisio
Buddy (Izad Etemadi) enjoys a bowl of spaghetti with Emily (Ma-Anne Dionisio), left, and Michelle (Riley Deluca). Photo by Morris Lamont

“Emotionally, everything has to be played for real. It has to come from the heart…. It’s funny and it’s over the top and it’s silly, but it’s grounded in so much truth that, when it does get sad and when it does get moving, we’re all going to feel it as well. And that lets the funny stuff be even funnier. So I’m really hoping we can have justice for Buddy.

“It’s a challenging role, but this process with this company and this theatre has been one of the best that I’ve ever been in. Everything has gone smoothly, everyone is so positive … it’s been magic,” Etemadi said.

Elf, The Musical has a history at the Grand as being one of the theatre’s most successful shows. It boosted the institution’s bottom line in 2013, when former artistic director Susan Ferley directed and actor Liam Tobin played the role of Buddy. More than 20,000 tickets have already been sold for the current production, with shows extended to New Year’s Eve. It had originally been slated to close on Christmas Eve.

Elf: The Musical
Book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin
Music by Matthew Sklar
Lyrics by Chad Beguelin
Directed by Dennis Garnhum
Musical director: Alexandra Kane
The Grand Theatre, London, Ont.
November 22-December 31, 2022
Buy tickets here.

Buddy the Elf with Jovie
Buddy (Izad Etemadi) tries to befriend Jovie (Michelle Bardach) in the Grand Theatre’s 2022 production of Elf, The Musical. Photo by Morris Lamont

(More photos are available on freelance photographer Morris Lamont’s Facebook page. A preview of the show by London Free Press entertainment writer Joe Belanger is here.)

We should all shout ‘Bravo!’

There are moments in the cultural life of a city that should be remembered as nothing less than a triumph. What happened Saturday night, at the corner of Wellington Street and Dufferin Avenue in London, Ont., was one of them.

London Symphonia‘s season-opening concert at Metropolitan United Church was more than an evening of orchestral music. It was the dramatic, even cathartic, meeting of two story lines: that of a skilled and undaunted ensemble that has wandered an artistic wilderness for nearly a decade in search of place to call home, and that of a faith congregation in the heart of the city that seized an opportunity to transform its space into one that could serve as both a place of worship and an arts hub. Saturday night’s result was as brilliant as the autumnal colours of the weekend and as glorious as its warm sunshine.

London Symphonia performs En el Escuro, es Todo Uno, by Kelly-Marie Murphy, under the direction of conductor Gordon Gerrard, at Metropolitan United Church on Oct. 22, 2022.

The concert, dubbed We Are All One, after the double concerto for harp and cello by Kelly-Marie Murphy titled En el Escuro, es Todo Uno (In the Darkness, All is One), was spectacular for its music alone. Murphy’s evocative score revealed the skilful artistry of harpist Angela Schwarzkopf and the prodigious talent of cellist Cameron Crozman. But layer on the culmination of a $1.65-million renovation, jointly financed by the church and the orchestra, and the evening became a landmark event. It was a brand new space — not even Metropolitan’s congregants, who had spearheaded the fundraising, will gather in the renovated sanctuary until Oct. 30. One could hear the understated satisfaction in the voice of Al Edwards, chair of the renovation steering committee, during opening introductions: “This is really going to happen,” he said, with a hint of emotion. “It’s tremendous.” And it was.

Al Edwards, chair of the joint renovation steering committee, welcomes patrons to London Symphonia’s new home at Metropolitan United Church at the start of yesterday’s concert.
Kelly-Marie Murphy

Akasha, (meaning “sky” in Sanskrit) by Canadian composer Glenn Buhr, offered a foretaste of the exotic sounds and rhythms that would pervade the first half of the evening, while Mendelssohn’s familiar Symphony No. 4 in A major (“Italian”) closed the program, post-intermission. The concert’s centrepiece, however, was Murphy’s remarkable double concerto, which premiered in Montreal in 2018. The composition draws on songs from the Sephardic tradition for each of its four movements, together with Bulgarian, Turkish and Balkan influences. The concerto’s third movement, the Cadenza Yigdal, was arresting in both the emotion it evoked and the musical virtuosity it revealed. Conductor Gordon Gerrard, in his sixth season as leader of the Regina Symphony Orchestra, brought a casual yet masterful, business-like style to the podium, displaying an ease with audience interaction as he offered an unscripted, light-hearted introduction to the Mendelssohn work.

Harpist Angela Schwarzkopf and cellist Cameron Crozman perform En el Escuro, es Todo Uno, by Kelly-Marie Murphy, on Nov. 22, 2022, in London, Ont.

After two years of experimenting with live-streaming as a box-office option, London Symphonia appears to have mastered that aspect of its business plan too, with the help of Stratford-based Stream Studio. (Much as I would have loved to have been there in person, I opted for the livestream of Saturday’s concert. I’ll leave it to others to evaluate the acoustics of Metropolitan’s new space.) The livestream’s production values are high: superb direction, timely switching, sharp and focused video and a rich sound quality. The best I’ve seen and heard.

Amid the information desert that is London, Ont., on weekends, it’s easy to miss — or worse, dismiss — events of this import. But Saturday’s concert was a marvellous, exultant feat, both on the stage and off.

Here’s a time-lapse video produced by Metropolitan than speeds through the orchestra’s rehearsal on Thursday evening:

A guide to the remainder of London Symphonia’s 2022-23 season is here.

Three years on, Grand Ghosts reappears as a new incarnation

At 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 2, 2019 — it was dark and cloudy in London, Ont., with the temperature just below freezing — Grand Theatre artistic director Dennis Garnhum summoned donors and patrons to the Spriet stage. With the house lights low and a single ghost light onstage, Garnhum announced that Grand Ghosts, a new play by Canadian playwright Trina Davies, would launch the theatre’s 2021-22 season.

The date of the Grand’s announcement was symbolic: It had been on Dec. 2, 1919 — exactly 100 years earlier — that Canadian entertainment magnate Ambrose Small sold his chain of theatres for $1.7 million, deposited the money at a bank and then disappeared, never to be seen again. At least, never to be seen in the flesh again. In the 100-plus years since Small’s disappearance, his ghostly manifestations in and around his once-favourite theatre have been some of the most persistent (and saleable) tales at the city’s venerable arts institution.

Jesse Gervais as Ambrose Small in Trina Davies’ Grand Ghosts. Photo by Morris Lamont

According to the Grand, Small was “a ruthless businessman with a fondness for gambling and women; qualities that did not endear him to his employees, his business partners, his gambling rivals or the ladies of his life.” The Davies commission, financed through the COMPASS new play development program with additional funding from Tourism London, would explore one of the city’s most lingering mysteries.

To add import to the occasion on that night in 2019, the Grand invited journalist and author Katie Daubs, who three months earlier had published The Missing Millionaire: The True Story of Ambrose Small and the City Obsessed With Finding Him. Daubs shared some fascinating stories drawn from her new book. Davies, meanwhile, appeared via a video link from Vancouver. In describing the development of the new play, Davies said that, with Grand Ghosts, “audiences will be invited on a ghost hunt to experience the Grand in a way they never have before. Areas of the theatre that have been previously unseen by the general public will be exposed, along with the stories that are held within the building’s 1901 bricks and mortar. This hunt may open up something that has long been hidden within the theatre: the story of Ambrose Small, his disappearance, and all those around him that felt entitled to a piece of the action.”

Fast forward one pandemic, a building renovation and nearly three years later, and Grand Ghosts, in its new incarnation, is a dramatically different show than the apparition Davies had conjured. Gone are the suggestions that audiences would explore the theatre’s haunted spots, even entering the building via a shadowy, circuitous route. Instead, the show has gone vaudeville.

“The Grand started as a vaudeville theatre and would regularly have travelling acts cross its stage,” Davies says in the theatre’s latest press release. “Bringing the theatre back to its roots, over 100 years later, is truly exciting.” What she has produced, the theatre’s release says, “is a ghostly spectacle bursting with music, dancing and spectacular vaudeville acts.” In the show, the ghosts who haunt the Grand (yes, there are others) return to relive “what actually happened on that fateful day.”

Emcee with a ghost light in the Grand Theatre production of Grand Ghosts
Andrew Prashad plays Emcee in the world premiere of Trina Davies’ Grand Ghosts at the Grand Theatre. Photo by Morris Lamont

“This has been quite a process — unlike any other than I’ve been a part of,” Davies said when I spoke with her earlier today. ” The first draft of this play — probably mid-2019 — was over 200 pages long and did exactly what we’d talked about early on. It was an experience where the audience would come in through a non-traditional entrance (not through the front doors) and there were going to be scenes and experiences backstage, all around the lobby, things that would travel. And then there would be a main-stage show. The intermission would involve more of those kinds of experiences and then you’d come back for the end of the main-stage show. That was the concept at the time.”

All along, however, Davies was concerned about how the site-specific show would work in a theatre as big as the Grand, with as many as 800 patrons at a time. “It was a bit of a mind puzzle,” she said.

When former executive director Deb Harvey heard about the plan in May 2019, she was taken aback.

“Deb said, ‘You want to do WHAT?'” Davies remembers. There were all kinds of emergency exit issues, along with logistics and safety concerns.

“It was all very challenging that way. And then, of course, COVID happened. That added a whole other layer to it. And the idea that we had to go into all these spaces kind of got dropped — which was actually a huge gift for me, because that was really stressful…. So then it became a more traditional stage play. I call it a play with singing, dancing and vaudeville acts. It’s not strictly a musical, but there is a lot of music in it now.

Jesse Gervais and Allen Cole in Grand Ghosts
Jesse Gervais as Andrew Small, with music director Allen Cole at the piano, in Grand Ghosts. Photo by Morris Lamont

“Thankfully, Allen Cole, the composer, came on this year. He’s amazing; he’s done beautiful work. And he actually agreed, at the last minute, to be onstage as the pianist, so he’s right there, every night,” Davis said. The lyrics and music ended up being a collaboration between the two.

“It was a learning process for me. I’m really happy with how things have turned out, although I don’t know, if I were to go back to myself five years ago, that I would take it on again.”

Audiences during the show’s previews this week have responded enthusiastically, “right off the hop,” Davies says.

“I do feel a special connection to London,” she adds. “When I came for Silence, I stayed here for a month. I was at rehearsal every day, living and working here, digging into the fantastic resources of the London Public Library. This time, too, it feels a little bit like home. I feel like I have my neighbourhood when I’m here and I just really love working in London and working at the Grand…. I hope to return and work at the Grand and be in London again.”

Meanwhile, patrons will be left to decide what happened to Small — and whether the radical pivot from the audience-interactive mode to the vaudeville format tells the story effectively.

(Additional images from the Grand Theatre’s production of Grand Ghosts can be found in a Facebook post by London photographer Morris Lamont. London Free Press entertainment writer Joe Belanger’s adoring review is here.)

World Premiere of
Grand Ghosts
By Trina Davies
Directed by Jillian Keiley
Musical director, composer and pianist: Allen Cole
The Grand Theatre, London, Ont.
October 18-November 5, 2022
Cast: Tess Benger, Jesse Gervais, Cyrus Lane, Katelyn McCulloch, Christian Murray, Andrew Prashad, Jan Alexandra Smith, Tahirih Vejdani and Anthony Raymond Yu
Buy tickets here.

The High School Project is back

Yesterday afternoon, I attended the media call at London’s Grand Theatre for the High School Project production of Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical, Into the Woods. Performances began last night. Opening night is Sept. 23; the show closes Oct. 1.

I’ve written on this blog about the High School Project before — a list of productions is available here. The 2019 production of Titanic The Musical was the last before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

During the lockdown in the fall of 2000, the Grand improvised by offering students The High School Project Online. It invited students to dive into the theatre-making process by addressing topics such as musical theatre canon, show selection, dramaturgy, design, directing and performance. It then asked student participants to develop and pitch show concepts to the Grand Theatre’s team. All meetings took place via Zoom from Oct. 19 – Nov. 16, 2020.

Similarly, in 2021, as continuing lockdowns kept audiences out of theatres, the Grand ran The Great Grand Road Trip, a kind of love letter to London, Ont. Under the direction of Andrew Tribe, High School Project students spent three weeks exploring some of London’s favourite landmarks and imagining the theatrical possibilities. Students utilized unique London environments to reinvent classic musical theatre numbers in new, exciting ways — and all outdoors.

Camilla Rodriguez as Rapunzel (upper left), from Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School, and Stella Yanga as Witch (far right), from H.B. Beal Secondary School, perform “Our Little World” from Act 1 of Into the Woods.

Into the Woods brings the HSP back in front of live audiences. It’s a special experience to witness the sheer joy and enthusiasm the students bring to their parts. And I am constantly amazed at the quality of their voices. Maybe I’m mis-remembering, but I’m convinced that no high school — or even a collection of high schools — during my teenage years could have produced voices as rich, trained and skilled as those on display here. What’s making the difference? More formal voice training? Better musical instruction in schools? TikTok?

This year’s edition of the HSP involves a cast of 26 student performers, another 15 backstage and three orchestra members. They’re drawn from Grades 9-12, mostly from schools within the Thames Valley District School Board and the London Catholic District School Board.

The cast of Into the Woods concludes Act I with the finale, Ever After, at the Grand Theatre, September 2022.

This year’s High School Project is directed by Saccha Dennis. In an interview, she told me of her own experiences with acting as a pupil in elementary school, then as a member of Young People’s Theatre in Toronto. I tried to capture some of her thoughts in a column in The London Free Press.

Saccha Dennis as Dorothy with Molly Atkinson as Glinda in the Young People’s Theatre production of The Wizard of Oz (2007-08). Set and costume design by Michael Gianfrancesco; lighting design by Steve Lucas. Photo by Ted Simonett. youngpeoplestheatre.org

Engines of Joy

As a member of the Conrad Grebel University College alumni committee, I get a chance at least twice a year to return to the place where I spent most of my undergraduate years — and where my spouse and I lived, as dons, during our first year of marriage.

Yesterday’s visit offered a first chance to see one of Grebel’s latest art installations in person. We Are All Engines of Joy is a moving-wire sculpture that beckons the passerby to grasp the handle on its bottommost wheel and take it for a spin.

We Are All Engines of Joy, James Paterson, 2022

The work’s creator, James Paterson, is a Grebel alumnus who graduated with his BFA at the University of Waterloo in 1981. The label adjacent to the sculpture says it “unifies the University of Waterloo’s six different faculties, with musical symbols, Grebel’s iconic peaked roof, ploughshares, and agrarian windmills. The artist’s goal is to show sheer revelry, joy, and celebration of who we are at our best and the good things in life we share together.”

Here is Paterson at the sculpture’s unveiling:

While a student in Waterloo’s fine arts program, Paterson studied with the late Nancy-Lou Patterson, who designed the stunning stained glass windows of the Grebel chapel, dedicated in 1964. Even though I sat in that chapel dozens of times as a student, I return to those windows nearly every time I visit the Grebel campus.

The windows on the north side of the Conrad Grebel University College chapel, designed by Nancy-Lou Patterson in the early 1960s

CRA publishes details of London Arts Council’s year

Canada Revenue Agency this week published details of the 2018 charity information return filed by the London Arts Council.

Source: Canada Revenue Agency

The filing, for the period ending Dec. 31, 2018, shows total revenue for the year at $1.49 million, with total expenses at just over $1.48 million. Nearly 70 per cent of the council’s income came from governments, with $998,844 derived from the City of London and another $36,100 coming from the federal government. Other revenue, including funds from sources such as Ontario Trillium Foundation, London Community Foundation and sponsorships, came to $452,732. Receipted donations ($1,332) amounted to less than one tenth of one per cent of the agency’s income.

Source: Canada Revenue Agency

On the expenditure side, the arts council steered nearly $1.16 million to programming (a breakdown of 2018 grants in the largest of its programs, the Community Arts Investment Program, is available here). The council incurred expenses of $287,824 for seven staff salaries and had occupancy costs at its King Street location of $14,824. Another $12,612 was spent on professional and consulting fees. About $5,800 went to training for staff and volunteers, while $1,550 was spent on advertising.

The London Arts Council’s stated purpose is to work with “public, private and community partners to build and sustain Londoners’ awareness of, involvement in, and support for all artistic disciplines across the city.” Chief among its functions is the administration of the Community Arts Investment Program (CAIP), a funding program for local professional artists, artist collectives, and arts organizations that fosters artistic excellence. Additionally it offers assistance to artists, artist collectives and arts organizations with “professional development and training, networking and mentorship opportunities, and community connection and accessibility.” The council also advocates for public policies that support the arts.

A listing of recipients of the council’s CAIP grants for 2019 is available here. It shows the top recipients of funding in the current year as being Aeolian Hall Performing Arts Centre and Fringe London Theatre Festival ($55,000 each), followed by Palace Theatre ($50,000), Sunfest ($50,000), The ARTS Project ($50,000) and Home County Folk League ($40,000).

The London Arts Council is led by executive director Andrea Hibbert. Allison Price, director of programs and engagement at TechAlliance of Southwestern Ontario, is president of the five-member board of directors.

Titanic The Musical prepares to set sail

In the spring of 2016, as Grand Theatre artistic director Susan Ferley was concluding her tenure, I asked Ottawa-based theatre writer Patrick Langston about the yardsticks by which ADs should be measured. What makes theatre ADs successful and how should we evaluate their contributions to their theatres and communities?

The resulting column listed a number of Langston’s criteria; among them, whether the AD had managed to develop “local theatre makers” (actors, designers, technicians, playwrights), especially young people, who could reinvigorate the local theatre community.

Over the course of 34 productions spanning 21 years, the Grand Theatre’s primary tool for achieving that goal has been the High School Project. Launched by Michael Shamata and nurtured by successive ADs Kelly Handarek, Ferley and Dennis Garnhum, the HSP has grown steadily in popularity and reach.

Like many previous productions, this year’s HSP is a formidable challenge. Titanic: The Musical premiered on Broadway in 1997, winning all five Tony Awards for which it was nominated, and has since toured worldwide. Like its namesake, it is a monumental piece of work that will pose a significant challenge to the 50 students in the cast, supported by another 20 students in production positions. The students come from 12 different schools within the Thames Valley District School Board and the London District Catholic School Board. One student is home-schooled. By far the largest plurality of students (30!) hails from H.B. Beal Secondary School.

Illustrates blog post
Cast members of the 2019 High School Project appear at a media call for Titanic The Musical, on Sept. 17, 2019. Photo by Whitney South

Titanic: The Musical officially opens at the Grand Theatre on Sept. 20 and runs through Sept. 28. It’s directed by Londoner Andrew Tribe, best known for his work as artistic director at Original Kids Theatre. Check back later for a brief review. A link to The London Free Press’s advancer on the show is here.

Previous HSP productions:
1998: West Side Story (May 7-16; Michael Shamata, director)
1999: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (May 14-22; Michael Shamata, director)
2000: Guys and Dolls (April 28-May 6; Kelly Handarek, director)
2001: Hello, Dolly! (April 10-22; Kelly Handarek, director)
2002: Oliver! (April 3-14; Susan Ferley, director)
2003: The Music Man (April 8-20; Susan Ferley, director)
2004: Fiddler on the Roof (April 14-25; Susan Ferley, director)
2005: Oklahoma! (April 5-17; Campbell Smith, director); The Sound of Music (Sept. 27-Oct. 9; Susan Ferley, director)
2006: Twelfth Night (April 4-8; Susan Ferley, director); West Side Story (Sept. 13-30; Susan Ferley, director)
2007: Romeo and Juliet (April 17-21; Susan Ferley, director); Les Misérables, School Edition (Sept. 25-Oct. 6; Susan Ferley, director)
2008: Listen to the Wind (April 15-19; Andrea Boys, director); The Pirates of Penzance (Sept. 23-Oct. 4; Susan Ferley, director)
2009: As You Like It (May 5-9; Lee Wilson, director); Grease (Sept. 22-Oct. 3; Susan Ferley, director)
2010: Macbeth (April 6-10; Heather Davies, director); Anything Goes (Sept. 21-Oct. 2; Heather Davies, director)
2011: The Odyssey (April 5-9; Jeremy Smith, director); Footloose (Sept. 20-Oct. 1; Heather Davies, director)
2012: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (April 24-28; Jeremy Smith, director); My Fair Lady (Sept. 17-28; Susan Ferley, director)
2013: The Taming of the Shrew (April 23-27; Jack Grinhaus, director); Legally Blonde (Sept. 17-28; Susan Ferley, director)
2014: The Importance of Being Earnest (April 22-26; Jamie Dunsdon, director); The Addams Family: A New Musical (Sept. 16-27; Susan Ferley, director)
2015: Much Ado About Nothing (April 21-25; Krista Jackson, director); Hello, Dolly! (Sept. 22-Oct. 3; Susan Ferley, director)
2016: Julius Caesar (April 12-16; Megan Watson, director); Les Misérables, School Edition (Sept. 20-Oct. 1; Susan Ferley, director)
2017: Shakespeare: The Mixtape (April 6-8; Megan Watson, director); Evita (Sept. 19-30; Jan Alexandra Smith, director)
2018: Prom Queen: The Musical (Sept. 18-29; Dennis Garnhum, director)

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