Toronto Premiere of The Storyville Mosquito RECAP!

Hey Everyone!

Just got back from our trip to Toronto for our premiere of The Storyville Mosquito at TO Live's Bluma Appel Theatre! Here are some pics and stories about the trip...

The night we arrived I hosted a Pizza Break Live for patrons and some of our crew at a local pizza restaurant. We had picked this restaurant because of the classic checked tablecloths that looked just like the one from the virtual Pizza Break set! 

from L-R Alizée (set builder/assistant puppeteer), David (artist and patron), AJ (cinematographer), Brian (production manager), me and Melissa (poet, patron and organizer of fun events in Toronto).

On the topic of pizza, Toronto has a 24 hour pizza vending machine! (I didn't try it)

After dinner, David, Melissa and I took a stroll through downtown Toronto where I saw a billboard of one of my favorite record store chains (now closed) called the Sam The Record Man.

I used to leave my bands' cds here on consignment in the 90s. I would go to the Sam the Record Man in downtown Montreal (also now closed) every week and bring a few copies of our album. Anyhow, this Vegas style sign brought back memories! Now it is just there for show as it lives on top of one of the university buildings. 

The next morning we went to the Meridian rehearsal room to set up our World of Bugs workshop. It's an interactive workshop where families are invited to create a live episode of a fictitious insect nature documentary. It's a fun, interactive afternoon where attendees get to build puppets, sets and then perform, film, project, and score the episode all live (much like how our team does it in The Storyville Mosquito). The rehearsal room had a real upright piano which was great! 

Here's an image of the work in progress just before one of the workshops. This brought back all my elementary school teacher training. It was a lot of fun and the sets and puppetry were just adorable!

Shout out to Anne, Alizée, AJ, Brian and Melissa for all their help that day!

The next morning I was invited to do a morning talk show called Breakfast Television to talk about the upcoming Storyville Mosquito premiere.

It was early!

This show plays on all of the screens in the subway while people are on their commutes. At first glance, this screen grab makes it look like I'm in a K-pop band.

The next day we began our set up at the Bluma Appel Theatre.

It takes us about 6-8 hours to assemble the miniature city and get all the cameras and projectors working.

Backstage at the venue there are posters of previous productions that had been in the theatre including a production of Lord of the Rings, where the byline reads "Live! On Stage! Where Star Wars meets Broadway!" (?) I can't even imagine what that show must have been like but I'm sorry I missed it!

Well, our show is equally hard to describe so we're playing in the right space!

All five shows went really well! And the Toronto audiences were all super fun and vibey! Lots of laughs were heard in the theatre throughout the performances.

Elan Mastai, an old friend from high school and one of the writers on the show "This Is Us", said he teared up at the end. I replied "Okay, We're even then! LOL" because that show has reduced me to tears at the end of literally every episode.

On Sunday, I worked with my friend Krystal, who runs a great initiative to empower indigenous youth called River Rocks 6 Nations, to arrange a field trip for a group of youth who were interested in performance and theatre. TO Live hooked up the tickets to the performance and we were able to host a special stage visit/Q&A for the group. 

They had great questions about the technical aspects of the production and we had fun introducing them to the puppets as well as giving them a tour of the musical set up!

Krystal tells me that the kids have been making their own film over the past year and I can't wait to watch it! I'm sure it's going to be rad!

Finally, my friend and patron Elisa, who had travelled all the way from Chicago to see the show dropped by during the Q&A. Here she is sporting the human scale tarantula hands! She's ready to rock out on the vibraphone. 

Anyhow! Such joyous times last week on the tour. Next stop will be San Francisco Nov 25-27 at SFJAZZ. Looking forward to meeting some of you there!

Thank you for your continued support!

E