The “Christmas Carol” readings at Dalnavert Museum had been going for fourteen years and this year would be the last in the Attic space. The Manitoba Historical Society had decided to add a purpose-built “Visitor Center” to the complex just behind the Mansion which would accommodate large public events. I was of two minds about this expansion. On one hand, I’d grown very used to the cozy space at the top of the old house where we could jam in about 45 people, and the intimacy suited both me … and the story. We’d grown to nine performances which were usually sold out in October, so I knew there was little chance of the new space not being used for the shows the following year – more people, more dollars. I didn’t know if they would be able to re-create the same ambience in a large multi-purpose room with space for 100 people, so I wanted to savour the last of the “olde-tyme” performances.

On the other hand, there might be more control over some of our audience members! The advertising had always warned parents that the reading was suitable for children 11 years and older. But some folks march to their own drummers and, of course, these “suggestions” didn’t apply to them. After all, their kids were “mature for their age (4!)” and “very well-behaved”. Mom and Dad would arrive early and ensconce themselves and their little ones just a few feet from me in the front row. The room was very dim, lit only by my reading light. Over the years, I’d basically memorized the script and could “play the house”, making some contact with the shadows. But once the squirming began – normally about 12 minutes into the reading – it was hard to ignore. No amount of glaring at the parents could relay my displeasure at the distractions … for everyone. I wouldn’t miss those oblivious parents, gathering up their kid in mid-show, navigating the short aisle in front of me to the back of the little room and snow-boot-clomping their way down the creaky stairs to the bathroom one floor below. I would always get to the end of the reading, the audience would always applaud generously, and I would always walk out of the room, across the hallway into the office and once again complain to Tim, the Museum Director, about the interruptions. But it was the nature of the beast up there and I took some solace knowing that the following year we’d be able to isolate the little ones somewhere out of, at least, my line of vision. I still looked forward to doing it. The Museum was now selling the CD recording of the reading (my cash cow) in the tiny Summer Kitchen Gift Shop and I was usually mobbed when I’d poke my head in to see if anyone wanted me to autograph their purchase. That usually put me back into a better mood and I would leave the event knowing that I’d at least touched most folks with the Christmas Spirit.

It was my fourth kick at the “My Fair Lady” can and my second go at ‘Pickering’. I loved the guy. No doubt about it. I just loved playing his addled, accommodating obliviousness and the resulting laughs he would get for the silliness he infused into the show. This MTC production was pretty spectacular right from the outset. The fact that most of the Principals had played our parts before gave us a leg up from the outset. Robbie (Paterson) was at the helm and, aside from our ‘Higgins’ (American James Brennan) pretty well everyone was from The Peg. Jennifer Lyon was doing ‘Eliza’, David Warburton was ‘Doolittle’ and Thom Allison was ‘Freddie’. Rehearsals were easy and very smooth with only a few “but-I-usually-do-it-this-way” moments getting in Robbie’s way. James had done the part all over the place and brought a boatload of experience with him. Affable, charming and very funny, he obviously knew what worked for both himself and the character. He and I hit it off right out of the gate and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. Jennifer was glorious both pre- and post-transformation. David ate the scenery and Thom charmed the house every night.

Early in rehearsals, I started tugging at the bit to get in front of an audience – probably one of the few negative aspects of being very familiar with a role. For some reason, living in the ‘Pickering’ reality came naturally to me and I knew what worked, having tested it all out with the Edmonton Opera’s production a few years earlier. He’s in a world of his own, is basically a foil for ‘Higgins’ and has no trouble with that. This time ‘round, I decided to mentally stay within the Shaw World rather than the “Lerner and Loewe Pink” that propels the musical. It seemed easier to play the words rather than the lyrics and with the fact that ‘Pickering’ doesn’t have a lot to “sing” I was able to maintain that “legit” approach and luxuriated in it … until I didn’t.

We began a week of Previews in good form. Everyone was on top of their game, and we were having fun. Until the end of that week. James got very sick but had somehow managed to soldier on until the Friday before Opening. Listening to him talk was pretty painful. His voice had been reduced to a croak, a horrendous sound that made one hurt for him. Rumours of cancelling the remaining Previews began floating about so he could get better before Opening. Early Saturday morning, I got a call letting me know that the matinee, the only show that day, was cancelled. Great! A day off! So I went out for lunch and did some shopping. When I got home, I found my voice mail was filled with messages telling me that the show wasn’t cancelled, and that Robbie would be going on for James as ‘Higgins’!! Holy crap! It was ten past three, and the show was at 4:00! I hurled myself into the car and managed to get to the theatre at the half-hour! There was a buzz in the air!

Robbie was already in costume in James’s dressing room, pacing back and forth and looking extremely nervous as he tried to memorize as much as he could. He knew the show incredibly well, but that was as a Director, with never a thought of performing the massive ‘Higgins’ role himself. That’s another mindset altogether! Having experienced this situation a couple of times myself, I could empathize. He’d be carrying the script so there was a bit of security there, but it was still nerve wracking. Soon enough, the announcement to the audience of the cast change was made and we were off to the races, literally and figuratively. Robbie was astonishing. He hit every moment, knew every line and lyric and brought another energy to the role – something different from James’s now-familiar delivery, but just as right – and charged everyone with great excitement and electricity. We rallied around him from start to finish and at the end of show the Cast AND the audience stood and sang “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” with the Orchestra spontaneously accompanying us! It was a beautiful and heartfelt moment so well deserved. Afterward, I asked him how much he remembered of it all. Not much, he said, but he told me he’d locked on to my eyes whenever we were on stage together and took some comfort in that. We had two days off and James was back on Monday evening, still sounding a bit froggy but not too much the worse for wear. And we opened on Thursday to great response.

I encountered something during the production that stymied me. As mentioned above, I luxuriated in the run … until I didn’t. About the middle of week two, I started to get bored. I don’t know why it happened, but gradually I found my mind wandering on stage. It’s a dangerous thing, boredom in a production. Out of a desperation to find a way back in, one tries to fabricate a re-connection, something new to pull you back into the storytelling. But sometimes this manufactured lifeline latches onto things it shouldn’t. In my case it was some particularly large laughs I was receiving. In rehearsals I had ad-libbed a small, very un-Shavian line just before my exit following “The Rain In Spain” number. During the song, ‘Higgins’ has used ‘Pickering’ as a mannequin while trying to get an idea of the clothes that must be arranged for ‘Eliza’s’ Society Debut and has fashioned a sash out of the armchair shawl, draping it over my shoulder and around my waist. ‘Higgins’ then dashes off leaving me frozen in this pose. ‘Mrs. Pearce’ and ‘Eliza’ are standing up stage watching.  I look over my shoulder at them, look down at the drapery, touch it, look out front, hold in silence for a moment, smile and say, “I like sashes”. I don’t remember how it evolved in rehearsal, but Robbie had just let me go with it. The first time I did it in performance, the house roared. I didn’t know why … and that’s what I latched on to. I did know it was a case of the timing, that little moment of what’s-he-going-to-do-tension before delivering the line, but I didn’t know why they were laughing. I knew that it felt good to land a laugh as big as that and therein lay the danger. My immediate next task was to exit the stage. Could I build on that first laugh? Somehow, it all became mechanical, academic, a test each night to discover which kind of exit would get the response I wanted. The thing is it wasn’t ‘Pickering’ any more. It was Richard Hurst. I tried it all. Would it be walking off with a flounce? Would it be gathering up what little dignity I had left and exiting? Or slinking off, embarrassed? It varied from night to night and that’s when I started thinking I was no longer “in” the play.

There was an earlier moment just before “Rain In Spain” began. After trying to teach ‘Eliza’ how to talk properly – the “say rain, not rhine” bit – we had exhausted ourselves and are sprawled out, ‘Higgins’ on the couch, me in a big armchair. I had put a newspaper over my chest and face trying to nap. A few moments go by and then ‘Eliza’ starts practicing again, very slowly saying, this time correctly, “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain”. There is another moment as it registers with ‘Higgins’ and me. I suddenly do a little jolt which makes the paper jump. A huge laugh … and another spiral downward into a quest for a bigger one. Over the following nights, the jolt got bigger, and the kind of jolt evolved – hands up, hands out to the side, hands slowly bringing the newspaper down. The laughs sort of stayed but they seemed to get a bit flat as my working at it became obvious. Somehow they could tell it wasn’t honest.

It struck me that this “way back in” by manipulating those laughs was wholly unbecoming and very disconcerting. It was am-dram, actually. In the moment, for a while, I luxuriated in the response, but the more I worked at it, the more technical it became and the more it was based in nothing at all except the thought of getting a bigger laugh. I went back to the original single, small jolt and forced myself to ignore the reactions and stay “in the scene” with no ulterior motive. An audience never knows what is going on inside an actor’s head, nor should they. But of course I did. I could never figure out why I had let myself go there. I was a well-seasoned performer and looking back on it, I still feel regret at allowing the mechanics of a “bit” to override that reality I should have been creating. I let it go, but the innate guilt that surrounded the experience remained. I still cringe when I think back on it. In fact, I’m cringing as I write this. There is a fragility in performance that can’t be underestimated. A performer’s conditioning, all those hours of rehearsal and preparation, lays a firm and secure ground on which to war against interference from complacency, distraction and most of all, self. Ignore it at your peril. A lesson learned indeed.

The run went extremely well. The “Sold Out” sign was hung on the Box Office window most nights. The show had been a good experience all ‘round, but I was ready to let it go. Closing night included the Lieutenant-Governor’s visit so the festivities were somewhat heightened with post curtain celebrations and all. I left the party after saying goodbye to everyone and headed home, ready to move on to the next thing which, thankfully, was a few weeks in Hawaii which had nothing at all to do with Theatre in any way, shape or form.

Rainbow Stage edged its way into my life again, this time in a new way. The Winnipeg Musician’s Association (the AFM Local) had decided that Rainbow must now use an “official” Orchestra Contractor to hire the Pit Band rather than the Producer signing musicians one by one to Rainbow agreements. Ken (Peter, Rainbow’s Producer) called Sam in and offered him this new job. After all, it was what Sam did for a living. It became “interesting” when Sam insisted that he also be in charge of hiring the Musical Directors for the shows. The Rainbow Board approved all the MSI terms of being retained as Music Contractor and that was that. But I don’t think it was the way the Local had pictured this new requirement playing out. I think they wanted to decide who was to do the hiring and Rainbow, acceding to Union’s request for a Contractor, had chosen the “wrong” guy – Sam! It would work itself out in the end, but there were some bruised egos along the way. The thing was that Sam had evolved this contracting business into a science. It always came down to exactly the right combination of “citizens” (as he called the Musicians) with the right temperaments and sensibilities being brought together to make the sound that was right for the style, the period and the “feel” of a Musical’s music. It was never just a case of hiring warm bodies to play and Sam had acquired an international reputation for this “sense of show”. It was the Orchestra sound that was important and always uppermost in mind and, as far as I was concerned, it bode well for Rainbow’s time ahead!

Because I was sitting in on all these planning meetings in an official MSI capacity, I got an inside track on what shows were being considered for the next three years. I had earlier thrown my hat in the ring to direct the fall production of “Beauty and The Beast” but Ken wanted Robbie to take care of that one. He thought “Miss Saigon” would be more up my alley for the following Winter Season and I grabbed it! Naturally, my mind started whirling right away about casting. This was a “big-sing” show and getting A-List folks pinned down right away was going to be essential. There could be no hemming and hawing about on this one and Ken actually made some great suggestions right off the bat.

I’d also been asked to create a 50^th Anniversary Fundraiser Gala for Rainbow in the Fall. This was to be a “big” show but knowing how these things were usually haphazardly patched together by committees, I made it clear at the outset that I was to be in charge and had certain conditions. I discovered that the Board had budgeted considerable bucks for the “Entertainment”, so the script/concept I’d created would work with no compromises and with the cast I already had in mind. It was still a ways off, so I put it on the Project List and went on to other things.

At this point, we (MSI) were up for four more Broadway shows … a show called “Masada”, a new production of “West Side Story”, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, and a musicalized version of “Heloise and Abelard”. We got “Chitty” and “Masada” confirmed for Spring of 2005. With three shows at CanStage in Toronto and two more in regionals, the payrolls were flying out of my computer and the money was pouring in. I can say that we were now a “going concern” on the Canadian Theatre scene with almost every Musical across the country on our books. The energy it took to maintain the flow was exhausting and the days were certainly full. I was thankful I’d not booked any acting work that summer and was “at liberty” by my own choosing.

The casting of “Miss Saigon” began weighing heavily on my mind. It wasn’t moving fast enough for me. Having names in mind is very different from having names on signed contracts and getting to that point was daunting, frustrating and, at times, much too political. The amount of negotiating that went on astonished me. All my A-listers were in flux for one reason or another – “There’s this other gig I’m up for”, “You’ll have to get in touch with my agent again … I think there’s a conflict”, “I don’t know if I can sing that part”, “I’m out of the country at that time” and on it went. I even went down to see the LA production and a Canadian performer (Johann Camat) who was playing the pivotal ‘Engineer’ role. As soon as the curtain came down I called Ken and told him to hire this guy right away. But conflicts prevented that from happening. Kevin McIntyre and Kevin Aichele were also living in LA at the time, so I approached them about doing our production. Kevin M. had played the ‘Chris’ in the original Toronto production years earlier. But it depended on who was going to play the ‘Kim’ role. Ma-Ann Dionisio was on my list – she’d played opposite Kevin in Toronto, – but that was another iffy situation because her doctor had put her on “voice rest” for six months. Kevin A. thought the role might be a bit high for him. See? This was the kind of thing I was up against. I was only thankful that it was happening many months in advance rather than weeks before rehearsals began as was usually the case. Ken kept following my leads and kept making offers to folks I wanted but nothing was really getting solidified. And it went on and on!

That showless-but-busy-Summer quickly disappeared, and I approached Rainbow’s late Fall production of “Beauty and the Beast”. It had been a journey getting there. I’d gone through a bit of personal upheaval as I found myself having to audition for the role of ‘Cogsworth’ earlier in the year. It had rubbed me raw that after so many shows with the Company I still had to go through these paces. It was an ego thing of course, but I thought I’d given everyone a good sampling of my capabilities over the past twenty years in town. At one point I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to do it. My anger had compounded my inability to learn “Human Again”, ‘Cogsworth’s’ song in the show, and I hated everyone associated with Rainbow Stage. I was just happy that I had another job that was paying for my Life and that I really didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. But Robbie was being his usual kind, encouraging and generous self and I succumbed, eventually sucking it up and going in to do my thing in front of the “sitters-behind-the-table”, all of whom knew me and my work in spades. Baffling. I eventually got “Cogsworth”.  Finding out that Kevin Aichele, Chris Sigurdson, Mairi Babb, Debbie Maslowsky, Donna Fletcher, Stan Lesk, Peter Huck and a myriad of other great local performers were also in show convinced me that it would be great fun. And, for the most part, it was. Except for a Big Bump along the way!