There was a lot of theatre related activity this week. First, the Nanaimo Theatre Group  (NTG) announced auditions for the play Bus Stop. I got very excited about this. NTG is a lot bigger than Echo Players in Qualicum, with more resources and a bigger theatre. I liked the character of Dr. Lyman, a professor of Philosophy with an aversion to authority and an eye for the ladies. He also gets progressively more drunk as the play goes on so I thought I could have some fun playing him. On a practical level it takes me about 15 minutes to get to the theatre vs the 30+ it takes to get to the Echo players rehearsal site or the theatre. It’s only about five minutes away if I head over from work. Doing Bus Stop made sense so I read as much as I could about the play and prepared myself for the audition. The closer I got to the date of the auditions however, the more something bothered me. Something in the back of my head just kept bothering me, something just didn’t feel right. Finally on the very evening of the day of the audition, literally an hour before it was to start it finally hit me. While there were a dozen logical reasons to audition for Bus Stop, there was one huge reason not to; I didn't want to do Bus Stop. I wanted to do A play, but Bus Stop isn’t THE play. I just don’t find the story interesting enough to put the time and effort into doing. You see, I have this list of plays I've wanted to do, Same Time Next Year,  Noises Off, A Shakespeare play, Charlie-Victor-Romeo, and a few others. Bus Stop is not anywhere on the list. The title of this weeks letter, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum is on the list too. I'd love to play Pseudolus, the Zero Mostel part. Now THAT would be a lot of fun. 

Then a few days after I passed on Bus Stop I got an announcement for an audition from the Yellow Point Theatre Group. They were doing an evening of short plays, 15 to 30 minutes each and needed a variety of characters. I like doing multiple characters, the stories sounded fun, and not to mention it would be a lot less stressful than a big part like Ethan Claymore. The whole thing sounded much more interesting. Unfortunately they didn't send out the announcement until the afternoon of the audition and I didn't see it in my mailbox until just a few minutes before it was supposed to start. As a result I didn't make that one either. That actually bothered me more than passing on Bus Stop. 

Early in the week Wendy, the director of Ethan Claymore, sent out a couple hundred pictures she'd taken of the last dress rehearsal. I thought it would be nice to do a video for Ethan Claymore like I had done for Memory of Water, so I took Wendy’s pictures, plus the shots Marsha had taken at the same performance, edited the whole mess down to a nice five minute slide show, set it to music, and uploaded the whole thing to YouTube. 

Fun fact: Did you know that Google scans every video you upload for copyrighted material? As soon as the upload was done I got a flag from Google saying that their systems had detected copyrighted music in my video. They even knew the artist and the name of the piece. I have to say, I was really shocked. I mean, I'd deliberately picked an obscure piece of smooth seasonal jazz by some unknown trio from the 50s. OK sure it had been used in some cartoon once in the early days of television but how many people who weren't fans of obscure early TV cartoons would even remember that? I mean, why would anyone even bother to keep track of the copyright let alone watch YouTube for it. (Edit: You tried to use O Tannenbaum from A Charlie Brown Christmas. That's like the second most popular cut on the album from one of the top five holiday shows of all time. You honestly thought nobody would notice? Seriously? Marsha). So anyway as soon as I got the warning I deleted the video from YouTube. After some searching I found some royalty free music I can use. All I have to do to stay legal is make sure to credit the composer/performer. But now that the music has changed, I need to re-edit the slides. With a bit of luck the video be ready by next weeks letter.

There has been one theatrical success this week. Some of you may have heard of  the PostSecret project. It started as a web art project where people would anonymously send in postcards with secrets from their past, which were then put on a web site. It has expanded into a book, and a TED Talk, and finally into a stage production. My nephew Mario (professional musician, composer, and performer) did the music for the show. This week it’s running in Vancouver and he’s performing his own compositions live on stage. Mike (his dad) and Barbara (his grandmother) are going over to see him on Wednesday.
http://firehallartscentre.ca/onstage/postsecret-show/
Look down the page in the credits and you’ll see Music by Mario Vaira. Between this, and the music for the Hallmark series Cedar Cove, and the Bob’s and Lolo albums he produces with his wife Robyn and her friend Lorraine, and more, we’re very proud of Mario. 

And finally Imoto is settling in. She’s more comfortable with us, especially Marsha. I’m gone all day so she’s still a little spooky around me.  Momiji is hissing and growling less. Here’s a bit of video of Imoto happily playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Dm9KHDVto
Yes, this is a shameless ploy for video hits.