Eden

This show has certainly left a scar on me. Damage done that will be evident for years to come. Mostly I mean emotionally. Emotional scars. But I do have a scar that will be physically visible for a long time. If you take a look at this Interview you will see the Canoe Poles. I hate the Canoe Poles. On our third or fourth day in Vancouver while moving these stupid poles around a metal corner gouged my thumb. It was a very deep cut, but we were in the middle of a run so I swore and kept moving. A little later I felt the blood running down my arm. That was almost two months ago. Look at it. Still very visible.

Here are some pictures for you as well. It is the visual of the show that people are talking about the most. These don't really capture it, but I figured you might like to see.

My Olympic Experience

It feels like a million years ago that we were in Vancouver.
To be in that city in the days leading up to the Olympics was pretty cool. Especially in the last two weeks. To watch the number of people on the streets increase exponentially every day.
The number of police walking the streets, all in different uniforms. The street closures and chaos of a changing downtown.

Those last few days I was living right in the thick of it. It was electric.

The room mate I was staying with was a volunteer performer in the Opening Ceremonies. He gave me two tickets to the dress rehearsal. We met at my hotel at about 4:30 and set out the two blocks to the gates of BC Place. The line was incredibly long to get to security. One block up Nelson St, around the corner and down the street, around the next corner and we joined the line in the middle of the next block. The line was a longer walk than from the hotel.

Going through security was crazy. It was a lot like being at the airport. Only worse.
All of us were funneled into a number of tents. All of your stuff was put into bins, as is at the airport. But there is no imaging machine, a person goes through your stuff. They pulled everything out of my purse. Then a walk through the metal detectors.


Finally inside we got to watch the Pre-show. Ben Mulroney teaching us how to use the props that we would not be given. But the $8 beer kept us entertained.

They explained to us that we were all in attendance because we know someone who has spent months working on this event. That these people have been sworn to secrecy about the show and they ask that we honour them and keep the secrets.
They also explained that they would be keeping some of their secrets.

It was pretty cool to see the event live. I tried not to watch the screens so that I could see all of the live stuff live.

They had stand ins for most people. They didn't announce the talent if they were stand ins. Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams were stand ins, so were KD Lang and nearly all of the others. But Sarah Mclachlan, the French guy and O Canada were all as they were in the show.

The snow boarded made the jump, the pyro went and the polar bear roamed the stage.
It was all very cool. After watching it on TV though it is clear that it was designed for the billions of people watching on TV, not for the 60,000 watching it live. From where we were sitting the projections were not a clear as they were on TV. The projections on the floor were not connected to the action. For example at the very beginning when the people are walking on the ice and it all breaks up, you needed an over head view to understand it.

But I could watch all of the dancing. My favorite part was the "Sacred Grove" with the huge tree and all of the dancers. I wish that I could have seen KD Lang do her thing because it was certainly the best song of the night (when watching it on TV)

One of the secrets they kept was the torch stuff. Seeing as it went wrong on the actual night, perhaps they should have practiced it. Especially when it wasn't all that secret because they had the other one set up on the water already. Oh well. That is exactly why we have dress rehearsals, to make sure everything is going to work.

Those last days in Vancouver were wild. It felt really fun to be there. Glad that I wasn't going to have to be there when it was really crazy. But glad to have seen it, to have felt it.

When we returned to Calgary and the next day were watching the Opening Ceremonies at Dennis' house it was surreal to not be still in Vancouver. To be apart of the build up and then to be in someones living room like everyone else. It was weird.

This week while we have been back rehearsing and at the theatre for way to many hours on end. The TV has been tuned to the Olympics at all times. We are cheering as a team. And yesterday we held Act II by a couple of minutes to watch the short track speed skating metal final with the two Canadian brothers. Our watching didn't help but it was fun to take that extra minute to be Canadian before we went back to work. The audience will never know what we were waiting for.

Last day in Vancouver

On my last Day Off before we closed the show in Vancouver I went on a big walk. I walked down the Sea Wall to see the sights.

Here I am across the water from Granville Island.

Further down the Sea Wall is English Bay.

I pulled up a seat one of these big logs and watched the water and the big container ships.

Further down the water is the Inukshuk at English Bay. The plague says that it was given to the City of Vancouver by the Government of the Northwest Territories for their pavilion at Expo '86.

It was a beautiful day for a walk.

The last night that I was in Vancouver I was able to hang out with Logan and Matt. Matt took us on our driving tour of the city, the North Shore.

First stop, back at English Bay for the Art Installation "Vectoral Elevation". 20 huge search lights that light the sky. There is a website where you can design your own light show.

Here Matt and Logan watching the lights.

Then we drove into Stanley Park to take a peak at some of the sights. Here are the totem poles of Stanley Park.

The Haida Pole.

Still in Stanley Park we pulled over to take a look at the Olympic Rings on the water.

The Rings with Five Sails in the background.

Lions Gate Bridge.

A shot of the three cruise ships lined up that are housing the 7000 law enforcement. Logan's is the ship with the red tail.

Our last stop was at Lonsdale Quay, looking back onto downtown.

Driving over the Lions Gate Bridge back into downtown.

In the end I had a good time in Vancouver. It may not seem like it. But now that the pain is behind us I can appreciate the show. Usually the subject matter of the show matters very little to me. But after my afternoon at the Museum of Anthropology I feel the strength of our show. And I have spent some time with the company and have really enjoyed hanging out with them. If I forget the first two weeks, it was great.

But I am very glad to be home.

An incredible night

I have pictures of my last days in Vancouver that I need to post.
I have updates now that I have been home for a week.

But I need to tell you about Monday night.

Tom Jackson invited us all to his house for a party.
We car pooled to his house outside of Calgary at 5. Nearly every person in the company came. We shared some appetizers and drinks.

For supper he served, with his wonderful wife, Montreal Smoked Meat Brisket. Delicious.
We had a wonderful meal.

Then the magic started. The instruments were pulled out and sound system hooked up. I knew that it was going to be a great "Jam Session" but I didn't really know what to expect. I thought a couple acoustic guitars and a piano. Wrong.

He had 3 microphones, a keyboard, electric guitar all ready to go. But it didn't end there. Many people brought out their own instruments. Chris, a great Calgary actor, brought a Mandolin, Cam, Frank Sinatra from previous shows, brought his banjo, and our band brought their instruments.

I can't even describe to you the feel of this room. Tom had a couple of friends over as well, three ladies that have a band and their piano player. They kicked the whole things off, and it rocked. But it got better. They start a song and the others sitting with their instruments just join in. Suddenly you have a full band supporting this song that came out of no where. And between every verse they would feature one player - "fiddle player take it". Adrian our band viola player would solo.

Curt and I (another Calgary actor I have worked with in Regina) just sat there with permanent grins on our faces. But we would really share a moment of disbelief when they would switch instruments. Cam sitting on Banjo stops playing when a new song starts and sees a Harmonica. So he picks it up and the song changes and grows. I think all of them switched instruments. And every time it would make me shake my head.

I was so lucky to have been there! There are moments that you know you will never forget. This was it.

John Mann sang three songs. A capella tune he wrote to a Robbie Burns poem. A cute song about how we were all safer when we could play with knives. And his last a funny "ballad" about his funeral.

Tom Jackson took the stage a couple times to sing and play the guitar. It was great. Especially when he pulls out that deep, deep voice he has. He would be singing away and then bust it out for a line and the whole room would go crazy.

Bill Henderson of Chillawack had out his electric guitar and rocked the room all night. He sang a few songs but mostly just went crazy on the guitar. It was incredible.

At any given moment there were not fewer than 8 musicians playing. One keyboard and 3 players, our rehearsal pianist, our show pianist and the pianist for the girls band. They would just tag the other out and take turns, sometimes each would play in the same song, or at the same time!

We heard many original songs people have written in their spare time (and again the others would pick it up and fill out the song). Many, many classic songs.

I didn't want the evening to end.

Watch it!

I hardly know what to do with myself when I have two days off in a row.
But I stumbled onto the Vancouver Playhouse Website.
They have a trailer up of our show.

You have to watch it. It looks great! This is what all of the grief and trouble has been about.

TRAILER

WATCH IT!

New Location

I am in a new place today. A new place, emotionally, physically and literally.
-Most importantly, Logan arrived (on Saturday) and was able to stay with me from 6pm yesterday to moments ago.
-I am finally having fun on the show.
-And lastly, I moved. I am now in the Rosedale Suites & Hotel. It is great. (It is almost costing me as much per night as I was paying per week. Good thing I am only here for 10 days.)

Let's compare:
Nicole & Munish's Place to the Theatre
8 minute walk to the bus
up to 10 minute wait for the bus
15-20 minute bus ride
5 minute walk to the theatre
+ $10 cab ride home

View Larger Map

Rosedale Hotel to the Theatre
6 minute walk.

View Larger Map

Nicole & Munish's Apartment
(turn the dial in the top left corner so that N is at the very bottom & hit the blue X on the dialogue box)

View Larger Map

Rosedale Suite & Hotel


Living room


Bedroom


Kitchenette


View Directly out the window at the cute shops across the street


View down Hamilton St toward Robson St.


I think this last 10 days is going to be great. The show is going along tickity-boo. The entire company has become great friends. Logan is in town. We may not get to see each other a lot, but we will get to see each other. And I am in a place that is my own, clean and great.

Today Auntie Linda picked me up to go site seeing. We started on Granville Island. We saw some great galleries/gift shops and then spent some time in the Market.
It was great. There is just about everything there. Plenty of fruits and vegetables, fish and other meats, chocolate and pastries. I bought some great tarts and then some fish and chips on the water.

Then we headed downtown to check out some of the sights I haven't explored alone. Robson Square's skating rink, the performance areas, the shops. Here are a couple of buildings that have HUGE billboards.

The other side of the flag wraps around the building.

While walking down Robson St we discovered Auntie Linda's Eagle. Richmond Holdings donated to have their name on an eagle among many eagles that are placed around the city. Here she is with her eagle at Robson and Burrard. Great location. And great Eagle. Haida art. (many of the other eagles we have seen have not be so great.)

Tuesday off

Yesterday we were given a bonus day off. The show had been held for a "bought house". No one bought it. No show.

I decided to go to the Museum of Anthropology. This museum was created to house the Totem Poles "rescued" from the beaches of Ninstints. The entire plot of our play.

Quick overview: The real life Anthropologist Wilson Duff (Lewis Wilson played by John Mann in our show) and his friend Bill Reid (Max Thomson played by Cam MacDuffee) go to Ninstints to remove select totem poles so that they can be preserved in a museum to be studied etc. The argument was and still is to this day, that they shouldn't have taken them. That the cycle is not supposed to be broken, a tree grows, it is chopped down, carved, it decays and nourishes new trees that will be chopped down and carved. The argument on the other side is that the families were killed by small pox and the village abandoned for 60 at the time of the expedition. The cycle was broken.

The experience was so much for these two guys - and all of the people on this expedition - that it affected them for the rest of their lives. The Anthropologist ended up committing suicide and Bill Reid found inspiration to learn to carve, to re-discover his own past. He is one of the most famous First Nations artists (turn over a $20 bill and you can see his work!)

In the "backyard" of the museum they recreated a piece of Ninstints - Bill Reid carving 2/3 scale replicas of the totems they rescued - and turning it into a long house and a small house as it was/might have been in the village.It was beautiful. The real village was built with all buildings facing the ocean. So was this one. It was quite the sight.Inside the museum you can see the poles that they chopped down. It was pretty powerful. To see the actual poles that I watch fall every night onstage. Usually I just do theatre, but to see that this is actually someones history, heritage, turmoil. It was pretty cool.

There is always a lot of research that goes into doing a play. Even if it is a work of fiction you still have to learn about the time and place that you are working in. This one was intense as Bruce Riddell, our playwright, has been working on this for 20 years. He worked with Duff, with Bill Reid and many other elders and chiefs in the creation of this story. The bits and pieces that we have learned about this expedition is incredible. We have even seen pieces of footage from the actual expedition. Of them chopping down the poles, cutting them into pieces, putting them in crates and floating them down the water in a train-all tied together behind a boat. To see those actual pieces...
Also in this picture: The painted board on the wall was the original entry way into the building that stored the poles when they first returned. The canoe was carved by Bill Reid in the traditional way - we talk about canoes a lot in the play. And the two boxes in front are bentwood boxes. They are a thin sheet of cedar that is steamed and then bent into a box. That is how our story starts - with a bentwood box and a mask.
The four pieces seen here are all one pole. The left is the base, the right is the top - the watchman, just like Tom Jackson is in our play.

There was tons of other things to see. Most of them I had no patients to take a long time to read about. There was so much other stuff to look at. Like other work by Bill Reid. He started out as a metal smith. He worked mostly in Gold and Silver. Here are some things I thought were cool.
The museum was originally a building to protect Vancouver during the war. One of the key architectural features is the gun turrets. They weren't sure what to do with it when they were
"remodeling". So they commissioned Bill Reid to create a piece out of a huge, solid piece of yellow cedar. He created a carving of the creation story. I think it is interesting that in the gun turret there is a carving of creation. (The Raven is a huge player in the story telling of the Haida. The Raven was walking along the beach after the great flood and he noticed something shiny. It was a clam shell. Within the clam shell there were little creatures, some curious, some unsure, some not interested in what was going on outside of the shell. The Raven convinced them to explore the new world. And thus the first people stepped onto the beach.)

I am glad I went. I enjoyed the sunset on the water before the houses of Ninstints before I left.

After my trip I met up with Matt for dinner. He took me out for sushi. He is so grown up and cultured.

After Sushi I got to see his apartment. He had part of my Christmas Present waiting there for me. It was the new Monopoly City game (that I was sad no one got me for Christmas). We opened up some beer and played for three and a half hours. It was great fun. Matt whooped my ass. Final net worth: Matt $75 Million, Stacey $35 Million.