The months following Mom’s passing were filled with details I didn’t want to face but had to. The time was also devoid of structure, and try though I might, there was nothing to give me that sense of organization on which I usually thrived. Because the daily schedule was thrown out the window, Morgan was also confused – why I was still in the house when I should have taken him out for a mid-morning pee before leaving for Sunset to check in on Mom? It confused me too. I was feeling listless and I had no control over anything, it seemed.

            As a little reprieve, I got a call from Canadian College of Performing Arts asking if I could do some classes for them. Of course, I jumped at the chance. I had a number of class outlines ready to go, and after some consultation with the School’s Directors, we decided to do a couple of sessions on “The Act Of Singing – A Conversation About Approach and Process”. I’d seen their students a few times, and, of course, had worked with the third years on “Spring Awakening”, but this was another context in which we would relate. I’ve always had the impression that in these educational environments, there was an emphasis on Performance. In the last short while I’d seen them do productions of “The Great Gatsby”, a wonderful “Marat/Sade” and now they were about to head into “Into The Woods”. That was a lot of production to focus on and, as Michael (Shamata) had mentioned to me while we were in rehearsals for “Spring”, these kids had no time to think … everything was about learning lines and songs, being in production mode and getting to opening night.

            It is a luxury as a performer to take time to simply consider, to sit and think about “what am I doing and what is happening to me?” and what does it take to do that in a productive way … and, more importantly, to talk about it with others, to find out if we’re thinking about things in the same way. There were some old exercises I pulled out to get them to express themselves. One was a complex scenario wherein an individual tries to solve a charade … blindfolded and using whatever means to understand what they were being “told” by a mute partner. The only rule was that they had to verbalize what they were experiencing, technically, physically, emotionally, moment to moment.

            It just so happened that this class coincided with another “Gimmick” show in which I found myself singing the role of old ‘Gus, the Theatre Cat’ for a few minutes in a Lloyd Webber Cabaret. “I’ve played in my time every possible part, and I used to know seventy speeches by heart” brought it all home for me. It’s a gentle number that takes a bit of concentration if only because ‘Gus’ is reliving his past in each moment. In rehearsals, it was surprisingly difficult to do. The words kept hitting buttons in me and I found my own circumstances bubbling up from way down deep and propelling the number. Cast mates watching would surreptitiously wipe their eyes after a run of it. I kept thinking that “by rote” had too often been my choice. In those ‘Gus’ moments, my own reality became my process. There was no other way to get near him. I just wished that I had been heading into prep for a big role and could “go for it” with these thoughts in my head.

            I was happy that the students got pretty involved in the conversations that came out of the exercises. We even spent a bit of time talking about how they thought Directors fit into the Process, and how performers had to adapt to the confines that had been set down for them once into rehearsals. That certainly got them going and the conversation could have gone on a lot longer than time allowed. At least I think it provoked them and perhaps we’ll get another chance to explore this some more. This small experience served to remind me that teaching was where I needed to be at this point in my life.

            Morgan turned 13. He was getting old – 13 is 91 in dog years – and showed it more and more as time went on. He became more vocal and was very demanding when it came time to be fed. He slept curled up at my neck at night and was the constant in my life.

            At the start of the New Year (2016) Greg (Tamblyn), my dear friend in Portland, called to ask if I would be interested in doing ‘Maurice’ for him in his production of “Beauty and the Beast” the following Winter. I said I’d be “interested”, but I immediately knew that it would not be the simple task of getting me into the States as an “Artist of Stature” as had been the case years earlier for “La Cage”. This would be an on-going conversation and Greg kept me posted, but, as much as I wanted to, I didn’t hold out much hope for the venture.

            Another “out-of-the-blue” moment happened in the early Spring when Choreographer and friend Mark Godden, formerly of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and now an in-demand free-lancer, called me with a job! No, not dancing, but rather to help him create a new ballet similar to what we had done a few years back with the “sent-up” recap section of “Dracula” for the RWB. This time he’d been commissioned by The Memphis Ballet, and the piece would be about Catherine de Medici! There was a lot of research to be done, but fortunately, Mark had already developed a tentative outline and had narrowed things down a little for me. He gave me the structure of the piece as he saw it in his head. And after a lot of reading, I began writing and ultimately voicing an extended narrative monologue accompanied by the music of Lully and other composers of the era. The ballet had been scheduled for an October premiere in Memphis, so there was a bit of time.

            Then, Robbie and I headed off on a Road Scholar Vacation to Atlanta. “Road Scholar” was a reputable and venerable tour company that had initially catered their destinations and itineraries to older folks. They had operated their business since the early 70’s as “Elder Hostels”. By 2010, they had rebranded the company realizing that the original name’s connotation was not helping them reach a younger clientele. Since Robb and I were deeply interested in The Civil War, we’d booked a week-long all-inclusive Tour of the sites of the battles and drama of that period in American History. Our Host and Main Guide was Gail Bell, a charming “Southern Belle” complete with a drawl you could cut with a knife and, for me, the benchmark by which all Tour Guides, anywhere and at any time in the future, would be measured! She was vivacious and affable, very talkative, funny, so well informed and made the entire experience most memorable.

But, of course, the real treat on this trip was Robbie! We have a tendency to talk a lot when we’re together, he and I, and the seven days were, when other people weren’t guiding or lecturing us, filled with our constant jabber! From the time we woke up to the time the day was done, all we did was talk, talk, talk – mostly about theatre stuff! We became the ‘stars’ of the Tour because we were in “The Theatah”. Robbie was always “on stage”, offering stories and anecdotes to a captive audience at dinner or on the bus about our time doing shows together, pulling me into any and all situations that would elicit a laugh, sometimes at my expense. In fact, at one point, when we learned that a couple from China in our group, would soon be travelling to Victoria on another Tour, Robbie made a point of telling them that I lived there and they could stay with me at my house! That was a running gag for the next five days.

            The Tour was first-class all the way, so well organized and structured from start to finished. The Speakers were all experts, with insights and observations on every aspect of that history. For some reason I could never explain, I’ve always had a visceral sense about The Civil War … the places it was fought, the politics, the terrible aspect of such an event fought between families, brothers, friends, neighbours, all so senseless and dreadful. Maybe it has something to do with a past life. I get emotional and overwhelmed at the thought of twenty-three thousand soldiers dying in twelve hours on a battlefield near Antietam Creek, Maryland. Being in this environment makes one small. I was constantly being affected by it all.

            The week passed in a blink. There were 35 other friendly folks on the bus and we all got to know each other very well. At the end of the week, Dave, our bus driver, told us that in 35 years of driving for Tour Groups, this was only the second time he’d ever got on the bus public address system to tell a group of passengers how wonderful we were. Nice! And then it was home. I can honestly recommend Road Scholar Tours to anyone who wants something more out of a vacation! Their catalogue is global!

            Once home, it struck me how my life had come down to a tiny bubble in a small part of a small town. The calm of it all was very attractive and the climate certainly had great benefits. But there was a lingering of what had been and how I really hadn’t expected things to happen the way they had.  Over the summer friends came to visit – Teresa was out, as were Kevin McIntyre, Ron Krug and a few other folks – but my circle had shrunk dramatically and now, with Mom gone, I began feeling more and more isolated … not that that was always a bad thing. I enjoyed my own company and rarely needed to be around folks. But the actuality of it, the optionless reality started to occupy my thoughts.

            “A Distant Glimmer”, the name that Mark Godden had come up with for the ballet about Catherine de Medici, was now in rehearsals in Memphis. I’d signed a nice contract for the creative work and another for voice-over royalties for the performances. Mark had arranged for a small recording studio here in Victoria to do the narration, and while it wasn’t quite the high-end production quality that I was used to with Bob Stewart back in Winnipeg when we did the “Dracula” recordings, it was good enough and Mark was pleased. In fact the performances went extremely well, he told me, complete with standing ovations and cheering. I was happy to have been a part of it. A video of the opening arrived a bit later and I was taken with how inventive Mark’s work is, his attention to detail physically with the characters combined with what I was saying and how it all worked with the baroque music underpinning it all. Masterful, unique and highly entertaining!

            Donald Trump became the President of the United States and sent everything into turmoil, literally and figuratively. One could feel the Universal Psyche shudder in disbelief. A small but powerful indication of the country’s building concern was illustrated one night when Vice President-Elect Mike Pence went to a performance of “Hamilton” on Broadway and was soundly booed when he walked into the Theatre. At the end of the performance Brandon Dixon, a black, HIV-positive cast member, delivered a message from the stage to Mr. Pence telling him that his responsibility now was to represent ALL the people, not just those who voted for him. The following morning, Trump sent out a message that the cast of “Hamilton” should apologize to Mike Pence for being so rude! And we’re off!!!

            Morgan managed to get pneumonia, and with the help of antibiotics, we got him a little better. But, as my vet, Claudia, put it, this might be a case of chronic bronchitis and will probably hang around until the weather gets warmer. The weather did get better and so did Morg, but I couldn’t help but think that time was certainly catching up to my baby. His hearing was going as were his legs but he still ordered me around and I just kept a good thought … until I couldn’t anymore.

Gradually, making entries in my Journal began to ebb. In the Spring of 2017, I decided to head in a different direction and began putting some effort into creating a Web Log, a “BLOG”. I wrote, aimlessly at first, about whatever happened to be on my mind in the moment, but quickly settled into tracing the trajectory of my life in the theatre. The BLOG was initially called “The Roar of the Greasepaint” (yeah, I know, not original) but that eventually morphed into just “Greasepaint”. Right from the outset, I decided to avoid delving into anything of my personal life because, well, who’s interested in that, and focused on how I got from one place to the next as a performer and what happened along the way. Oddly enough, as of this posting (May 26th, 2024) it’s been exactly seven years since I started making monthly entries. Now, with nothing left in the Journals, and with my professional life being pretty well over (although, never say never) we’re all caught up. I think perhaps it’s time to log off.

            The time since starting the BLOG was certainly filled with titanic events.

I finally had to let Morgan go. His quality of life was nothing I could make better. One morning, at a vet appointment, I explained to Claudia how things had progressed although she had pretty well been on the journey with me. He could hardly walk, he couldn’t hear anything any more and had lost control of his bladder. It was gut-wrenching to see him like this. As I talked with Claudia at length with Morgan lying beside me on the big ottoman in her office, he started to pee. The conflict in my head was almost more than I could bear, but Claudia understood it all and validated my ultimate decision to let him go. By now, he was just a few months short of 15 and it was time.

            I couldn’t adjust to the house being so quiet when I returned home without him. I couldn’t remember what life felt like before I had him. I didn’t know how long it was going to take to get rid of the emptiness. It took a very long time. In fact, even now there are still little triggers that take me back to routines we had, like a particular television commercial for flea powder that had some hillbilly background music that would make him get up and start barking at the TV because he knew that dogs were about to come on the screen. To this day, I still get little flashbacks of Morg lying between my legs on the recliner and looking over his shoulder at me, a signal that he wanted to go outside.

                        Then the drawing thing started to take my attention again. While I resisted considering myself truly “serious” about it, I found that I was putting pencil to paper just about every day. I started drawing faces, more complex and challenging as time went on, and discovered that the images I could make satisfied me on some fundament level … their organization, structure, my detailed considerations and fastidiousness in the execution. This is “Addie”, from a photo of a homeless woman in New Zealand I found on line. It took a long time but she spurred me on as her face came to life and challenged me to keep going, to make her look as real as I could. All the folks I drew did that.

            Went back to Winnipeg for Doreen Brownstone’s 95^th birthday and saw a lot of folks. Got to do some coaching on a “Gimmick” Cabaret of Frank Loesser’s music … life just seemed to happen. But now there were no Journal entries to make my job easier in documenting details in the BLOG. And that’s probably why everything you’re reading now might seem so scattered and unfocused, unlike previous postings. But at the same time, with my life having become so routine, there was nothing of depth or consequence on which to comment. And I’m just treading water now.

            Oh yeah, there was a global pandemic. It started in China in December of 2019 and “ended” in May of 2023. I still get a booster shot a couple of times a year. The world closed down and the effects of that are still being felt today on so many levels. There are two moments that stand out in the experience for me. The first was going out for groceries for the first time after “lock-down” had been imposed. I went to Walmart. We had to wear masks, stand in cordoned-off lines six feet apart and present vaccination cards to get in. In the big plaza in front of the Walmart store, there were hundreds of people waiting to buy groceries. The store would allow only 50 people in at a time. It was like church, eerily quiet. No one spoke, or if they did, it was only in whispers. I’ll hold that memory forever. And the other thing was seeing the photos above of the India Gate in New Delhi, before and after lockdown. With six months between the shots, the difference is astonishing! Lockdown! No people. No cars. No pollution. That’s all it was!

            Sitting one afternoon on my balcony in the all-pervasive quiet of the Summer of 2020, it came into my head that I should be doing something worthwhile, something meaningful. I began to structure an idea that had been floating around in my mind for a long time now.

“For the longest time I would dread the conclusion of a Musical Theatre Performance Class or Audition Workshop or a Coaching Session. Invariably, the students would approach me and shyly ask what they should be singing and where could they find it. As I tried to offer suggestions, the lineup would grow longer. “Are you all asking the same question?” They’d nod and I’d motion them forward into a group. “Look! You have to do the work!” and I’d start a mini-lecture on how to go about doing the research to find what was “out there”.

This hadn’t been easy. Back in those days, discovering music from new shows usually involved the radio or television, vinyl recordings or cassette tapes; published Vocal Scores of Musicals were very expensive (they still are) and were usually to be found only in larger centers. While “Vocal Selections” folios and Sheet Music singles from current shows were more prevalent, they were usually simplified arrangements transposed into a “popular” key (rather than the “show key”) and were heavily edited. I had faced these challenges myself, but at the time there were no alternatives.

So I began to put together a Handbook, a one-stop resource for Musical Theatre Performers. I started to compile lists of songs, not the run-of-the-mill material but rather, the off-the-beaten track show music, more challenging and interesting, unexpected and unusual. Each song would be detailed with technical specifications, some background information, comments about the piece, cautions and coaching observations. The choices and suggestions would certainly be subjective, but would be based on many years of teaching, coaching, directing and performing.”

The above is from the Preface of the Handbook “What Should I Sing”, the result of those random balcony thoughts. The research took a long time – nearly a year to amass the lists and to select the songs, almost 1,300 of them. Then the listening began in earnest. You Tube was a great resource for Original Cast Recordings, but also recital, cabaret and concert performances which gave a broader view with regard to personal style, interpretation and performance difficulty, and I was able to synthesize an approach for any particular song.

It ended up being much harder than I thought it would be. While I took great delight in hearing a particular song sung in a variety of ways and degrees of proficiency, I would find myself going down rabbit holes and being distracted by the oddest of interpretations. However, I persevered and, as of now, I’m approaching the end of the Baritone Collection, with “Duets, Trios and Ensembles” to go before I’m done. I am luxuriating in this challenge. I might be looking for a Publisher at some point, so if anyone has any leads, I would be happy to hear about them.

And I think that is about it. I would like to thank you for staying with these postings over the years. Your comments and observations at the site have been most supportive and encouraging. And I would like to offer a special thanks to Celoris Miller who has kept me honest for the past few years, editing each entry and especially for, eventually, teaching me the difference between “its” and “it’s”. I think I’ve got it now! I’m going to leave the site open for the months ahead in case anyone gets curious. Host Gator and Word Press control the subscription so it will run out at the end of the year.

And the time ahead? I don’t completely know, but I’ve been toying with a move … back. It will take some more consideration and weighing where I need to be. While the weather here is glorious, what’s to come seems limited. I’ve been gone for almost 14 years and am sure the landscape back there has changed. Something to think about. But for now, remember …

I’M STILL HERE!