As Spring lurches into full view, in spite of snow coming down yesterday, there is no shortage of arts-related events coming up to suit just about every taste. Oddly, all of the events I will be writing about this week are linked by the locale that offered inspiration to all of them: New York City.
I have not been back to the Big Apple since about 1998, when I travelled there for a few days in February with old friend Father Michael Basque and we traipsed around the streets of New York in the cold from morning till night. The days started early with mass at 7:30 each morning at St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th Avenue, celebrated by the Cardinal, no less. We found a deli for breakfast afterwards and never looked back for the rest of the day.
Before that I made several trips to New York City, with the first being in 1983 when I flew into Newark airport on a super-budget flight out of Niagara Falls, New York where the payment was collected during the flight by the flight attendants going up the aisle with a cart and a cashbox. The best part of that trip was the return flight, when I was seated at the very back of the plane and darned if the attendant never made it all the way to the back of the plane! Nothing like a free flight, I always say.
The next trip I stayed at the storied Hotel Edison which was famous in those days for the dinner-theatre presentation of Oh Calcutta! on the main floor. I didn't bother with that show since I had already seen it in Toronto, but I caught a ticket for a great box seat at the Martin Beck Theatre where Dustin Hoffman was starring in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Great show I remember vividly to this very day. That was also the trip I was invited by the great big band arranger and leader Larry Elgart to have dinner with him and his wife at their cosy brownstone, after interviewing him some months before when he was touring up this way.
I tried Bed & Breakfast in New York on my next visit in 1991 with the girl I was seeing at the time, and if you want a secure place to stay, stay in a New York City resident's apartment. Several deadbolts and a heavy steel rod protruding from the floor that locked into a slot on the door, so that thing was not opening at all from the outside. I always remember arriving on the night the Tony Awards were on and our host, with the memorable name Patch Carradine, urged us to sit and watch the show with him. The apartment was typically eclectic and the king-sized bed was fabulous. Strange thing, though, was the noise from the street which almost totally dissipated about 11:30 and you felt you were out in the country. Very odd...
So what's coming up, you ask? Well, my neighbour, noted artist and gifted photographer Sandy Middleton spent some time with her husband Mark in New York City last year, and no doubt took lots of pictures. So many, in fact, they are now part of a retrospective titled, naturally enough, I Love New York, and opens at the Niagara Artists Centre in the Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery on St. Paul Street in downtown St. Catharines April 27th. The opening reception is Saturday afternoon from 2 to 4 pm with refreshments available; it runs to May 10th and should be a must-see exhibition this spring in Niagara.
Sandy's exhibition opens during the fifth annual In The Soil Arts Festival, incidentally, which begins April 26th and runs to the 28th with over 85 events planned at several venues around the city. The festival, brought to you by Suitcase in Point Theatre Company and festival partners has become a staple of the early spring in St. Catharines and just keeps getting bigger and better each year.
For festival passes and more information, call the Brock box office at 905-688-5550, ext. 3257 or log on to www.inthesoil.on.ca.
Up in Niagara-on-the-Lake the first show to go into previews at the Shaw Festival is Frank Loesser's musical ode to all things New York, Guys and Dolls, which began last week. It opens May 11th and runs to October 12th at the Festival Theatre. The show follows in the tradition of past musicals My Fair Lady and Ragtime and offers great storytelling, unforgettable characters and memorable music.
The original production of Guys and Dolls opened on Broadway in 1950 and ran for 1,200 performances, winning five Tony Awards including Best Musical. It was also made into a movie by MGM in 1955, starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra.
Based on the short stories of humourist Damon Runyon, Guys and Dolls pays tribute to his quirky and innovative use of language - a bouncy New York brogue that mixes slang terms with proper English. For tickets to this and all Shaw shows this season, call 1-800-511-SHAW or go to www.shawfest.com.
Once again this season I will be reporting on all Shaw and Stratford shows in this space, with the ratings listed on the calendar page of my website at www.finemusic.ca.
Finally, I received word a couple of weeks ago The Essential Collective Theatre's Artistic Director Stephanie Jones, just back from her exclusive apprenticeship at New York's Neighbourhood Playhouse School of Acting, home of the Meisner technique, will be offering Niagara's dedicated actors a six-week course in the Meisner technique beginning May 7th at the Sullivan Mahoney Court House Theatre in downtown St. Catharines.
Jones, who trained under Ron Stetson, senior instructor and renowned Meisner teacher, says she found Meisner's series of interdependent exercises "one of the best practical ways to support an actors' command of dramatic text. Meisner emphasized acting as doing. It is not important for the students to be experienced, but the need to be dedicated and passionate about the craft."
The Neighbourhood Playhouse hosts a wealth of celebrated alumni including Diane Keaton, Jeff Goldblum and Robert Duvall.
For more information and to book your place, call 905-684-6255 or email Stephanie Jones directly at stephanie@ectheatre.ca.
Now, after all this talk of New York, I am craving another visit, and breakfast at another unforgettable New York deli!
Enjoy the week.
April 21st, 2013.
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