The truth of the matter is that I had come to feel ambivalent about adjudicating Music “Festivals”. I had done many of them over the years and always ended up feeling rather unfulfilled. They were depressing experiences for me. It wasn’t the participants that left me with those feelings. In fact, I was heartened at the number of young folks getting involved in Musical Theatre performance. It was the teachers with whom I had problems; and the “Festival” moniker was misleading on so many levels. These events were, simply put, competitions pitting performer against performer and by agreeing to adjudicate, I was, sadly, contributing to my own disquiet. I eventually discovered that I could also get into trouble for voicing these concerns.

            Following the Winnipeg Festival, I had accepted a two-week engagement to adjudicate the Kiwanis Music Festival in Calgary. This was a HUGE event, two weeks of morning, afternoon and evening sessions with hundreds of young and older performers in (for me) the Theatre/Speech and Musical Theatre divisions. Calgary has a lot of Dance Studios and I knew I would be in for some … well, I’ll get to that. On the surface it sounded alright; I just had to prepare myself for long days and inventive ways of offering basically the same observations over and over again. There were a lot of other adjudicators and we usually found ourselves eating together in our hotel’s dining room, comparing notes and approaches for the barrage of young performers who were paraded before us daily. I became good friends with Selena James who was taking care of the “legit” singers. She was very funny, made me laugh as we talked about our day’s work and experiences and kept me sane with her advice to focus on the good things, in short supply though they may be.

            The thing about adjudicating is that you just sit there, captive behind a table, taking notes, calculating a “mark” then quickly moving on to the next one. You become a machine. You have a “secretary” who organizes the paper you’re generating and who keeps things in order as you focus on how to make your thinking clear enough in the mad-dash scribbling you’re doing on an individual’s “Assessment” page. It isn’t until the end of a class/session that you get to stand up and offer some individual notes and make some general comments. This is a tense time because all the teachers and parents are sitting in front of you (usually grouped in little cliques) comparing their assessments with yours. You can feel group hackles go up if your thoughts don’t mesh with theirs. And the marks are anticipated with bated breath. Announcing the winner of a class is a scary proposition. Though not fully aware of the existing “politics” you can certainly sense it, and one feels somewhat grateful that you can leave town after the Festival is done!

            On the up side, there is always some wonderful talent which, if only for a moment, serves to remind you why you love the Performing Arts. But there are the other moments when you want to cut your wrists, or the wrists of the person you’re watching! And the thing is, again, I don’t blame the performers. I blame the “teachers”! It’s not always the case but I could usually see the difference between someone taught by a caring teacher and someone who has been shuffled through a “plant” and come out the other side as a product. How an adult can have reached the point in their “teaching” experience when they take a young person, strip away humanity and artistry, and create a robotic duplicate of a film or recording personality is, well,  beyond my understanding.  It was after a huge (35!) class of “Juniors” during the second week that I’d had my fill and, in my comments at the end of the class, I went for broke!

           The session took place in the Jubilee Auditorium, an immense Concert Hall seating 2,600 people. I couldn’t figure out why the organization had chosen such a huge venue (I’d performed there a few times) for these presentations. Having 8 and 9 year olds come out on to that gargantuan stage to try to “fill” the room was doing them a great disservice. They would be lost in the space. It wasn’t until I arrived to find the Orchestra level filled with hundreds of people that I understood. Moms and Dads, brothers and sisters, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, friends, teachers, studio hangers-on, not to mention the other students not performing made up the very large and boisterous audience. Multiply the 35 kids by all their supporters and there was no other Festival venue that would hold them. I was in a row way down front and cordoned off from the hoard so, for me, it felt a bit more intimate. At least I could see faces and hear words. And it started.

            Some of the kids were scared to death … walking out into that gigantic space must have been dreadfully frightening. Despite whatever training and conditioning they’d been through, I could see and feel their nerves as their piano introduction began. Some surprised me with well-defined characters and approaches, but the vast majority made me inwardly shake my head and my glutes tense up. There were kids dressed as cats, a Pinocchio or two, a couple of “merry maids” and some youngsters dressed in formal wear – tuxes and gowns! It became very clear that performances had been rehearsed to death and, at some point along the way, had, for the kids, turned into mindless out-of-body experiences. All we saw were wee automatons going through the motions, saying the words and singing the notes and very little else. Watching a youngster forcing out dance movements on every word of a song or going through graphic motions (“I” was indicated by pointing at the eye, “love’ became pointing at the heart and “you” by gesturing to the audience) made my skin crawl and was embarrassing. The audience was ecstatic after each presentation and you could hear the little cliques cheer and yell as their tiny hero finished.

            The class finally ended and after a few minutes conferring with the secretary, I collected my notes and headed down to the floor in front of the stage. There was no mic so I had to talk very loudly and slowly … which was counter intuitive to what I had to say, especially to the kids who, fortunately,  had been brought down to the front rows of the auditorium. I didn’t do individual assessments – which would have taken forever – but rather a group commentary pointing out a few examples. I told them that I honoured them for getting up on that huge stage to begin with. I asked them if they had been nervous and they all nodded and said yes. I told them that getting up and doing what they did was hard. It was even hard for adults. But I said that making sure you’re prepared and know your material was the key to a good presentation. “BUT” I said “one important thing in performing is to know WHY you’re doing what you’re doing! Does anyone know where you get that information?” There was a bit of silence. A small voice said “From the video?” The audience broke up.

            I could feel my skin tightening and the heat rushing to my head. I gave it a moment, sighed, and weakly smiled at them. “Well, that might be one choice. But you might want to think about what the people who wrote the song gave you as clues. What do the words mean and how does the music make you feel?” It was me being as diplomatic as possible. I let them think about that for a moment. My voice got louder as I wanted to make my points to the audience spread out through the hall. Essentially I told them that “the solution to the challenge of leading young people toward thinking for themselves is not found in dressing up in costume and being pushed out in front of an audience. It’s not addressed by telling them to ‘do this or do that’ but rather by provoking them to consider for themselves what they’re saying and why they’re saying it. Imitating someone else’s performance doesn’t really involve creative thinking. It takes a long time to bring a young mind around to fending for itself, but the eventual product is an honest one and based on personal discovery in a very complicated process.” There was a smattering of applause. I thanked the kids for being there and I left it at that. I felt worn out and frail but I had said what needed to be said and headed out for some fresh air. A few people stopped me as I was walking out of the auditorium and thanked me for the comments. A couple of teachers introduced themselves as local members of “NATS” (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and asked if I would be available to do some workshops for them at some point in the future. I enthusiastically said I would (I eventually did) and that buoyed me somewhat.

The afternoon was spent doing some final “Dramatic Arts” sessions which required a lot of concentration. There was some poetry presented, some monologues and scenes. There were even a few entries done in French for which, thankfully, I’d been given the material in advance. Classical French Poetry is not my strong suit but I muddled through. The difference between these presentations and the Musical Theatre performances was marked. For some reason we seem to move away from reality when singing is involved. That reality has to be clarified and heightened to help suspend the disbelief for an audience. It requires an artist to become even more committed to the honesty of the performance when making (and maintaining) transitions from the spoken word to singing. But then, that’s just me. That evening gave me hope however, as I was dealing with Intermediate and Senior Musical Theatre performers. The contrast to the morning’s event was glaring. These were serious young adults who had apparently escaped the studio confines and were mostly students of voice teachers and coaches who had, in collaboration, approached the material with great care and consideration. We were all totally captivated by the presentations and I left the event uplifted.

The next (and final) afternoon, just before going into a session, Donna, the Head of the Festival took me aside in a hallway. “I don’t know how to say this” she said. “Some of the teachers from yesterday morning’s class were upset at some of the things you said. They felt you were attacking their teaching methods”. “Well” I said, “I guess to a degree I was.” “They want an apology from you” she said. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! “They want it to be made publically.” I could see she was very uncomfortable as she went on to say that the Festival had a great stake in its involvement with these studios and that the teachers were adamant that I say something to appease them. “I feel badly about this” she said. I eased her pain and told her I’d come up with something.

That evening was a “Gala Farewell Session” for the Senior Musical Theatre performers at which I would reveal the marks indicating who would be going on to the Provincial and National Finals in their categories. There was a full house in a secondary auditorium, thankfully more intimate than “The Jube”. I jotted down some notes, this time sitting in the audience, and, at the end, took the opportunity to do a couple of small lecture-dems with some of the students, short coaching sessions giving a glimpse of how I would approach a young singer/performer using the music they’d already sung that evening. I felt fully alive as we broke down the material and I offered some suggestions. These young people were astonishing. They had all risen to the occasion and had made it obvious why they should be heading to bigger contests. Some brought me close to tears by their clarity and commitment to the material and the audience understood how special this was. I finished up with them indicating that I was proud to have been witness to their work. Then I started in with the “apology”. “I understand that some people might have taken umbrage (I actually used that word) at what I said during a session yesterday morning”. I proceeded to explain (again) how both working in the performing arts and teaching them should always be centered on the quest for and achievement of truth and excellence no matter what our age. “However, in my zeal to get that point across, I may have been a bit less diplomatic than I could have been and I apologize to anyone who may have been offended”.

The fact that I used the word “apologize” was as far as I was prepared to go. I was neither going to absolve them of their responsibility for the dreadful performances I’d seen that morning nor was I going to condone their teaching methods. As one, the audience rose and applauded. I got the distinct impression that the response was not so much for my apology as it was for me personally and what I’d said about my commitment to the process. This impression was borne out following the session when people came up to me and thanked me for the things I’d said about the craft and what it meant to me. There was one very distinguished-looking East Indian gentleman who rather sheepishly approached. He was the father of one of the young ladies who had performed. “I am embarrassed that you were required to give that apology and I offer my apology that you had been put in that position. People should check their egos at the door. If you were in Bombay, you would be worshipped.” It was, for me, vindication enough. Donna reiterated what some of the teachers had mentioned earlier – that NATS wanted me for some teacher workshops – handed me my cheque, thanked me for my expertise, and I was out of there, desperate to get back home to find out what was going on. I’ve not adjudicated another “Festival” since.

That second group that had thrown its hat into the Rainbow ring (a group called “THAT” which stood for “The Historically Aware Theatre” … a name I couldn’t figure out) had, a week earlier, been in touch to offer me the Producer job should they get the nod from City Hall to take over the running of the Stage. By the time I returned, the “Past Presidents” had won the bid and, finally, any hope I’d dimly held vanished utterly. At least I knew now and moved ahead. I was back in the thick of Music Services work and Sam unloaded on me. While I had kept the ‘Les Miz” payrolls on track in Calgary, Sam had waited for my return to involve me in the projects that had piled up during my absence. We had been awarded the Contractor position for “Phantom of the Opera” which was about to start a National Tour, first stop, Winnipeg. Having been through the massive preparation process with “Les Miz” I thought this would pretty much follow the same formula. At least I knew what to expect. The Producer for “Phantom” was the Livent Corporation, a much bigger and supposedly more organized group than the Mirvishes. It was run by Toronto-based entrepreneur Garth Drabinsky and he would figure prominently in my life for the next six years. For now, he was just a rather pushy guy who called from time to time (“Richard, its Garth” reminding me very much of Irving Guttman’s phone salutations when he called, but much more clipped and authoritarian) demanding to know where Sam was and when I was getting him the revised budget for the “Phantom” Orchestra. He scared me slightly because he was the “Big Boss”, very demanding, all business, and there was never anything “social” about his calls … although he did soften eventually when he realized that I knew what I was doing. But at that point, I was just an underling he had to put up with because I had the numbers. I was deferential and compliant and treated him with great respect … which I guess I’d convinced myself that he deserved.

“Phantom” Orchestra rehearsals went well enough but, as had come to pass with the Mirvishes, it was again a case of too many cooks stirring the broth. While they had produced quality work in Toronto this was Livent’s first big Tour and I got the feeling that they didn’t want to relinquish any “power” to anyone outside the organization. Wrangling the music numbers was my job and, as diplomatically as possible, I told them to let us (MSI) take care of the orchestra details for them as outlined in our contract. Now, there is a big difference between “the Presenter” and “the Producer”. The Presenter is the organization or individual who “buys” the show for local presentation. The Producer” (in this case, Livent) is the entity responsible for package the Presenter buys. Above it all sat Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Really Useful Group” who licenses his work to the Producers. It was becoming apparent that the delineation of responsibilities had not been defined enough between the bottom two entities and was resulting in more cooks coming into the kitchen and creating havoc specifically with our – my – very neatly organized framework for receiving the payments and producing the payrolls. By the time we opened, all had been wrestled into place. But it took much too much energy and LOTS of talking.

Now that we were getting more established as music contractors, Sam decided that our meetings, which always happened at my dining room table, were taking up too much time – usually a minimum of two to three hours as he offloaded and explained details. He told me he wanted to me to learn how to use a Dictaphone. I told him in no uncertain terms that he could find someone else for my job if that was going to be our relationship. After building the business with him over the past year, I was not going to be reduced to his secretary. I was doing WAY too much to be just a note-taker. I had essentially evolved into the CFO and if he wanted a secretary, he could hire one, but it wasn’t going to be me. We never talked about it again. And he eventually did hire a secretary.

It was about this time that we opened the second Company – Lutfiyya Enterprises, Ltd (“Lutent”) – to deal exclusively with overseeing and coordinating the many “A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline” productions that were now happening all over the place. An American group called Mainstage Management Ltd. had started working for us in the U.S. and was putting together a large Bus and Truck Tour of “Patsy”. Bus and Truck Tours were on the lowest rung of touring shows, but they were a relatively inexpensive and efficient way of moving a show around, hitting the lesser markets away from major cities. The small cast and five musicians and some production personnel travelled on a bus. The two separate sets and set-up crews were in two trucks which leapfrogged each other, setting up in one city on the schedule while the production was playing in another. It was in constant motion and very tiring for the personnel. “Sits” were only a few days long, sometimes only a night in the smaller towns, but despite the grueling work, the quality was kept has high as possible. These tours kept show revenues going long after major city demand had dried up. We didn’t do a lot of those tours but, for a while, they kept the coffers full. For “Patsy”, the “American back roads and hinterlands” were prime real estate.

As if the orchestra contracting wasn’t enough, the intricacies of licensing the music for the show with our international partners took a different set of mental skills and the stress continued to build.  As well as dealing with the rights from the Cline Estate, we now were also coordinating the payment of music royalties to the publishing houses for all the songs in “Patsy”! And there were a lot of them written by all kinds of composers and lyricists! Sometimes a single song’s license was held by more than one publisher and the calculation of their percentage of the percentage of the total royalties was incredibly complicated and nerve wracking, especially when the “favoured nations” clause was in a contract – meaning that none of the publishers on a song could get more than any other publisher! I don’t think I ever got it all right on the first try.

It was getting harder and harder to balance the amount of work I was doing for both companies and all the other projects I had going on for myself. The ceremonies for the Pantages Theatre re-opening required a lot of meetings and planning. They told me I wasn’t working fast enough! (I held my tongue.) The “Winnipeg Cares” Gala was also on my docket once more. It was getting to be a bigger and bigger event. That year we had approached Elizabeth Taylor (she had date conflicts) and were offered some precious sections of “The AIDS Quilt”. The Quilt was a very big deal and had to be “curated” [handled and organized] by the Winnipeg Art Gallery. I was again hosting and performing for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Fundraiser. An observation in my Journal indicated that “Lord, this is getting out of hand”, but I sucked it up – because I had to – and carried on. It was a very busy time.

With so much going on, I felt a bit guilty about leaving Winnipeg to do ‘Pickering’ in Edmonton Opera’s production of “My Fair Lady” (my Rainbow replacement) being directed by the great Kelly Robinson. In fact there was a slight twinge of not wanting to go because I’d finally managed to comfortably adjust everything in my life to the pace that I now had under control. I was meeting various deadlines and timeframes and found that the whirlwind of activity actually produced a surprising amount of energy by itself. Despite my kvetching at times (to myself), it was all invigorating and exciting. Everything was in total order when I left on a bright Sunday morning in mid-June. My suitcase was filled with office supplies, my accounting and payroll ledgers, deposit books, FedEx envelopes, company stationery, phone/fax numbers and addresses of way too many people … and a few clothes. ‘Eliza Doolittle’ and friends would fill most of my waking hours for the next month!