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| I sure hope they don't mind me stealing this..... |
Don't give up... 'cause you have friends
Don't give up... you're not the only one
Don't give up... no reason to be ashamed
Don't give up... you still have us
Don't give up... we're proud of who you are
Don't give up... you know it's never been easy
Don't give up ...
'Cause there's a place there's a place where we belong
Peter Gabriel
A year ago I thought that perhaps I should be singing this song to The Iana Theatre. Here was this group of amazingly talented twenty somethings, trying to make their mark in the world of theatre. I still stand behind my statement that Alex Bell was truly one of the best plays that I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few lavish productions in Toronto. I felt so badly for them. They had this wonderful dream of creating Canadian productions, something that is in short supply in this country. It broke my heart to go to one of their productions and see empty seats. I wanted to walk around and smack people and tell them to get their butts into that theatre, they didn't know what they were missing. "Don't you know that this group of young people have amazing talent, go on in try it, you'll like it!"
It was a little over a year ago that Iana Theatre announced that they were taking a one year hiatus. I thought this was the writing on the wall. I felt like this group of talented and enthusiastic new comers were going to wave the white flag of surrender. The theatre is a difficult life. It involves travel and wearing your pride on your sleeve. It involves rejection, who among us can deal with rejection? For most of us rejection eats away at the soul. I thought this was it, and it truly broke my heart. It broke my heart because I felt like we as a community had let them down, we had not supported them, encouraged them. We had destroyed their ambitious dreams.....
Earlier this year I was delighted when I saw the notice that Iana had dissolved, but had metamorphasized into tweedandcompany.com . YAY, those kids have moxi! They licked their wounds, they regrouped and have come back ready to take a bite out of the world.
Last night I had the pleasure of seeing "Tweed & Company's" first show... "All You Need Is Love". That group have the most beautiful singing voices. Their harmonies set the hair on the back of my neck up. I am always so blown away by Tricia Black's pipes. She comes up on that stage ready for comedy. She puts on funny voices and does goofy characters, and then this huge voice comes out. Tricia could easily be a recording artist. I was delighted by the beautiful voice, and even more than that, I was delighted to see our community come out and support them. It was almost a sold out house! Finally, maybe you don't really know what you've got 'til it's gone.
Not only has this amazingly talented group come back, they have come back with a vengeance.
Stalkyard Hurts, one of their original productions has made it! They performed at famed Lee's Palace in Toronto, and this July they are playing at the Toronto Fringe Festival. What's the Fringe Festival? It's this amazing opportunity in Toronto to see 150 shows in 12 days. The tickets are maximum $12 for adults. To put that into perspective for you, basically what you would pay for a movie theatre ticket. $12 theatre tickets are pretty much unheard of. In terms of volume, they sell over 60, 000 tickets in 12 days! YEAH Tweed & Company!!!! The masses are going to see and love, our Tweed & Company. My only hope is that they don't love them so much that that talented group of twenty somethings forget where they came from.
What I am saying is that if you have the opportunity to see this play, go. I'm including my original blog about this play for you to peak at.
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