Can you spot the bully?

Or the victim?

Renée plays a victim who is about to get cyber-bullied…

Santino bullies gives instructions to some volunteers from the audience.

Renée helps some other volunteers act out a bullying scenario of their own.

• I am having a fabulous time.
• My producers have the utmost faith in and respect for the craft and process of theatre.
• Their feedback is carefully thought out and delivered in a manner that is both sensitive and consistent.
• They are turning a mediocre show into a great one, and not the other way around.
• It is a pleasure to work for them and I hope to do so again.

Greetings from Norseman JMS in Etobicoke!

You’re looking at the setup for our first school show. I’ve tried not to dumb down the script for our young audience, but now, realizing just how tiny these little munchkins are, we may have to re-adjust…

Here’s the fabulously talented Renée Summerfield, one of the actors who will be taking the school show that I’m directing out into the world next week.

Joining her will be Santino Paglia, a student plucked straight from my Second City Conservatory Class. He doesn’t have a website to call his own yet—not even a MySpace page!—but with fame and fortune beckoning he’ll be getting one soon enough…

… Here’s the film I made for Darryl’s Hard Liquor & Porn Festival. This three-minute short contains adult themes and content, but no nudity.

Sorry!

Before my gig with the Second City Touring Company starts up I’ve another show to direct—this one an anti-bullying touring show for schools. It’s my first stab at melodrama, and if you or someone you know wants to audition you can read our casting call here or here.

For everyone else, we’ll be having free previews towards the end of the month. I’ll see you there, and you’d better bring your lunch money, squirt!

A no-brainer or career suicide? Whatever the case may be, I’ve just turned down the chance to spend four months on board this cruise ship performing with The Second City.

I’d be away from November to March of next year, and would miss Christmas with my family and friends. But I’d only have to perform two shows a week, and would have full access to the ship’s many amenities the rest of the time.

The long contract certainly gave me pause, but the deciding factor turned out to be the sleeping arrangements—sharing a tiny cabin with a roommate that I don’t necessarily know is something that this crotchety old SC alum just wasn’t prepared to do. I had no problem sleeping six to a tent in Bosnia, but on a boat-load of American tourists I would absolutely need some kind of guaranteed personal space.

I will, however, get a small taste of the Caribbean when I accompany Ray Deonandan to T&T for his appearance at CARIFESTA at the end of September. We’ll be sharing a room, but for a couple of days I think I can manage…

(Drowsy circa 1999 at Theatre Passe Muraille…)

Kudos to all the folks involved at one point or another with what will forevermore be known as the Tony Award-Winning Broadway hit The Drowsy Chaperone.

I myself was a bit surprised that they didn’t win the hardware for Best Musical. I’m guessing that the powers-that-be switched the winning envelope after Don McKellar made that crack about thanking “The American musical comedy… Which has given us so much to make fun of.”

But I’m a conspiracist that way…

About the show, click right here and be rewarded with your very own souvenir poster, suitable for mass emailing! It also has all the deets about the time and place of the big show.

… See you Saturday!

Pictured above is six-tenths of my current Conservatory Class, who as you know have their grad show on Saturday, May 27th on The Second City Mainstage.Tonight they will experience a Second City rite of passage as their director (me) produces the running order of scenes for that show.

In an instant, all the work they’ve been doing since last September gets crystallized into two 45-minute acts. There is usually much discussion that follows, along with complaining, gossip and (hopefully) sighs of relief. But it’s still a magical moment, because for the first time we will have a concrete product… On paper, at least!