May 25th saw the opening of the Anglican Foundation's Diamond Anniversary Exhibition with Spiritual Conversations in Cloth.

Artists from across Canada were handpicked to display their works in the divine, historical setting of Vancouver's Christ Church Cathedral.

Artists provided a diverse array of stunning works, some of which incorporated metals, glasses, paint, pottery, and feathers, for what was a truly breathtaking show of artistic prowess.

The incredible intricacies of these works of art truly warrant a close look in this intimate setting. The foresight required to execute some of these pieces is mind-boggling. 

​The exhibit is an exercise in exploring each artist's path to spiritual enlightenment. As Hilary Rice (creator of art below) says, "There is a meditation involved (and) it's difficult to say how long it takes to create a piece."

This amazing show is a must see and FREE to the public. It runs until June 4 from 10:00-17:00 Monday - Saturday, and Sunday 12:00-17:00. (the exhibit is closed June 3 but reopened for June 4)

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is the story of everyday life in a small New Hampshire town. It is a lovely story about ordinary things in an ordinary life and asks us to think about the true value our lives.

The play is divided into three acts: Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death and Dying. 
Today we were able to sit down with Osimous Theatre's Bob Frazer to talk about his company's approach to their latest production.

tV: For Hedda Gabler you staged that at the Roedde House Museum which proved a very intimate experience for the audience. What do you have planned for Our Town?

BF: It's kind of building on what we did at the Roedde House but with a bigger audience. The audience shouldn't expect to sit in a theatre. It's going to be in an auditorium in a church. As with Hedda Gabler, the actors will be amongst the audience and have that “inches away” proximity at times. We're not performing a play. We are seven actors who are human beings, the same as any audience member, and we're in this play, in this world together. That's the concept behind this show. It's as if you're coming over to my house for dinner, and we're having a glass of wine, and I tell you think awesome story. We're not in costumes and not as formal as we were in Hedda. It's going to be an amazing experience.

tV: You kept many of the details under wraps and disclosed them only at the very last minute. Can you talk a little about that?

BF: One of the things we're trying to do effectively is deal with marketing and publicity. Giving you pieces of information keeps people interested for a longer amount of time. Most importantly, it's an ensemble based piece where I'm the lead director of the piece but everyone is kind of directing the show. Everyone puts in their opinions and when we get a whole bunch of opinions I choose the best one or we all choose the best one. More often than not the best idea just floats to the top. Everything around it: the costumes, the set, the lighting, the sound, it's all being designed by us, the seven actors in the show. There are twenty-some characters in the show and we split those up among us. I gave a base outline but we've changed things and said, “you know, I don't want to play this character. Would you play it?” so we couldn't release information because we didn't have a lot of the information.

tV: So you are acting in it as well as directing it?

BF: Yes, I am. I'm not directing. I call my the lead organizer (laughs), let's say that. Everyone's directing. It's an ensemble-based directed piece, but in any ensemble you need to have someone who's going to make the final decision based on the input from everyone else. That's kind of my job from the director's point of view.

tV: Tell me a little about what the process of putting a show like this together has been like.

BF: The process has been probably the most fun part of it. For instance, there was a section that we were working on in act two where the stage manager says, “The hero of this story isn't on stage, and we all know who that is.” The big question for us was, “Is Thornton Wilder talking about God? Is it that there is a supreme being?” If it is he says, “hero” and not “heroine” so he's defining it in a certain way. We wanted to make sure that we weren't defining anything so we started to chat about it and throw out opinions and ideas and started to come to create this moment that isn't what one person would think it is: it's what seven people think it is, and that's exciting. It's exciting because there's not a dictator out there saying. “This is the way it's got to be. No. Move over there and do that.” It's more universal. It's more ensemble, which is exactly what Thornton Wilder is saying. He's saying that we're all in this together: we're in this thing called life together. We all do the same things and we all live the same way, yet we're severely unique. We all experience happiness and sadness and anger, but each one of use experiences that differently.

tV: So with that, is there going to be an element of ad lib to the story?

BF: There's maybe one little part where Dawn Petton, the brilliance that she is, might be ad libbing a little bit, and as the audience is going to have to move around or change the direction of their seats, we may have to say things like, “you might want to turn around now” (laughs) things like that, but other than that, no, we are pretty much sticking to the script.

We're setting the structure of the play in 1903 and 1906 and 1914 but we're not wearing period costumes and we're not talking with the traditional Our Town accents. We're just us. The voice you hear right now talking to you is the voice of the stage manager, and hopefully what you see is a human being and you'll start to feel what that human being feels, as opposed to us presenting a character or a time period.

tV: So you're trying to make them as contemporarily relatable as possible.

BF: You got it. I mean he talks about a universal theme: life, and what is life. It's universal and he says that. For thousands of years people have been doing the same things and all that matters is acknowledging those small moments in our lives that we sometimes take for granted. So It's a universal message that we don't need to put a tie period to.

tV: How do you go about choosing the plays that you perform?

BF: One of the things about Osimous is that we've always thought that we'd do whatever we want (laughs). We'd just find a play that moves us and do that play, plain and simple. There are six of us, seven of us in the ensemble. We have to pick our next season of plays by December 1st so all the members of the ensemble are reading scripts right now and they're going to present the group with their top three or four plays. They're going to think of budgets, characters, and stuff like that and then we're going to weed those fourteen or fifteen plays down to two or three plays that we will eventually do. I think like anything else, the cream will rise to the top and we'll take that. It's got to be something that everyone is interested in. It's got to have a good message. It's got be something that people walk away from with something to think about and feel. And it's also got to be intriguing to us. When I presented Our Town to the ensemble some of them were like, “Well I did that in high school. I hated it” and I suggested that they revisit it in a new age, of middle age (laughs), and once they were able to do that they could see the beauty of this play.

tV: How has this experience expanded you or grown you as an artist?

BF: Let me tell you something personal. Last year I quit acting. I had stopped. I had reached a point where I couldn't do this anymore. I didn't have the generosity it took to be an actor or an artist, and I always promised myself that if I lost that generosity I would leave the business, so I did. While I was gone I didn't work for six months: I didn't take a job or do anything, I just lived and I went into debt (laughs). One of the things I did do was I started to take acting classes again and I started to rediscover acting. I realized that I had gotten into a place in my profession that I wasn't happy with, and I knew that there was something bigger and better out there for me.

I started to develop a new way of working: taking all the good things from the old times and a bunch of new things that I felt were missing, then I slowly started to get back in. I did The Great Gatsby in Calgary, a play here called Bug, the I did Whose Life is it Anyway, and it was an amazing growth in those three plays to then doing Equivocation and Cymbeline at Bard on the Beach.

I'm a different person now in my work. Whose Life is it Anyway was a great ensemble piece, then I went into Equivocation and that too, the group of people I worked with was beautiful and it was smooth. There were conflicts but they were all good conflicts. Cymbeline was the same thing: the company was fantastic. I was afraid that it would disappear and die... but it hasn't, and working with group of people, and Dawn (Petton) and Craig (Erickson), who are also from the Osimous ensemble, has just lifted my heart and allowed me to realize that this can be a constant way of working. It is going to change every once in a while, but what I've learned over this year of not working can continue on in these plays. That's a really, really positive thing. It gives me hope.

tV: How would you like to see Osimous grow over the next five or so years?

BF: It's funny that you ask that because we have been working amazingly hard over the last two years and especially hard over the last year. We've incorporated: we now have a board, we have a membership base, we have a web site, and we're applying for our first grants. I'm learning how to run a company. I have a woman, Jennifer McDonald, who helps me with the managerial side of things and we are starting to solidify what the artist ensemble is responsible for, and what I'm responsible for, and what the company is responsible for. We're applying for charity status and we're growing. We're doing two shows this season as opposed to two in four years. Ww will never do more than two in a year, it's a huge responsibility, but we are growing and we will continue to do two a year for quite a while. We're going to get charity status and we're going to get that funding and we're going to start to build shows that have a bit of money behind them. We've built a donor base and a membership base and all that is support that can't help but make this company better. I'm so confident that this is going to happen.

tV: How can we participate in making this happen?

BF: You know what you can do? You can buy tickets to the show. Here's the thing. Theatre in Vancouver exists because of people coming to see it. Our Town is going to be a fantastic show and people of all ages are going to come and see the show and enjoy it. We didn't get any government money for this show. This show is being produced simply with past revenue from other shows that we did, from fundraising, and from a launch party that we had. Basically what I'm saying is that it comes from the people. People are making this play happen, not a body of money, not a granting body: the people, and that's what this play is about. It's about life. So all the help we've gotten so far, financially and in kind, is great and the only thing I can say is you've got to come and see what you've created: not what we've created, but what everyone's created together.

tV: Awesome!

BF: Osimous!

Director Jason Stone's latest film, The Calling, is a thrilling story of a rural Canadian town dealing with a serial killer of a different kind.  

The film boasts an amazing cast of Susan Sarandon, Gil Bellows, Topher Grace, Christopher Heyerdahl, Ellen Burstyn and Donald Sutherland.
We had the opportunity to talk with Stone before his film screens tomorrow night at International Village.

tV: What drew you to this story?

JS: It's obviously a well treaded genre: there are a lot of films in the world of serial killers. I thought this one had an interesting change and was a little different in the way that the characterizations around Simon (Heyerdahl) and Hazel (Sarandon) didn't feel like something I'd seen before, especially with Simon being a guy who is both menacing and sympathetic. I wouldn't call him an altruist, but he's somebody who is trying to give people an opportunity to end their suffering, rather than create suffering, which is often so common in these kinds of stories. It's more common that sadism is driving them, not mercy, and I thought that it was very interesting that Simon was driven more by mercy. Even though he's got his own selfish thing behind it all, there's a merciful aspect to him.
The character of Hazel, kind of on a collision course with him, gave an opportunity for us to find an amazing actress, Susan, to pull off that double-hander.

tV: She did a brilliant job.

JS: I thought so too.

tV: I loved the opening scene. I laughed only because I thought it was a brilliant way to start a film.

JS: You're talking about her getting up?

tV: Yes. Was that from the book itself or was that a directorial decision?

JS: I'll be honest, I never read the book. By the time I got to the project there was already a script in place that Scott (Abramovitch) had written. He developed that script for several years, but I made a concerted decision not to read the book so I could bring a more objective point of view to it and wouldn't be too precious about leaving stuff out or adding new ideas as they came about in development. Scott was so versed with this book that he could represent that side.
So I couldn't tell you exactly whether or not that scene was written out that way in the book, but I could tell you that in the script it was written that she wakes up and reaches for her pills.

I always envisioned it as slowly revealing parts of her in isolated close-ups so that you get pieces of her before you get the full picture, and with an actress like Susan, who is so expressive and good with movement, it obviously lent itself to that. It was nice to be able to withhold that a little bit in getting the details of what her character is all about. In these two or three shots I thought that was an elegant way to establish the character in the world at the same time.

tV: There is a fair amount of humour within this very dark story, even in some of the most tense moments. It was most evident in Topher Grace's lines, which he was so adept at delivering, but where it stood out the most was in the critical scene where Hazel faces off with Simon.

JS: It's nice to diffuse that kind of tension. You build the tension and then you release the tension. I don't think it's the kind of film, say like a horror film, with a continuous ratcheting up in every scene. I think that especially in the way that Susan's character Hazel is written, she uses humour to reduce her own tension and also to cope with some of the hardships that she feels on a day to day basis. That's what we all do. It's the only way we can pull through the tougher days.

I think that in the case of the film I wanted to use that as well so that it didn't feel like it was stuck in itself and mired in self pity. I don't think that's something that Hazel does and I don't think that's something that I really relate to. I tried to bring as much levity at the right time, as I could.

tV: The Guy Lafleur line also made me laugh. How did that line come about?

JS: It's funny you picked out that scene. We were re-writing that scene (on location) and had so little time at the end of the day to get a really big scene. Gil was standing over me and Scott when we were going through the scene and we were convinced that a guy like detective Ray Green would be a real spiritual guy, but who would this guy worship? Immediately Gil jumps in and says, “Guy Lafleur” and we're like, “that's terrific” (laughs). I think it was Gil's line.

tV: It was such a Canadian line. I laughed out loud when he said that.

JS: I'm glad, I'm glad.

tV: What was the most challenging scene for you to shoot.

JS: Definitely the climax: the scene with Susan and Chris in the cabin at the end. Going into that scene we had obviously had it written, but it had taken various forms and we had been re-writing it up until the day we shot it and didn't have a lot of time to rehearse. We did get Chris and Susan in the weekend before to run through the idea but we just didn't have a lot of time and I felt like I wanted to go a lot further with how that scene played out. Hopefully it delivered some of the arcs of the characters and closes Hazel's journey up in a way that feels satisfying and in a way that is true to who she is.

tV: The film has a very Canadian tone to it. I love it when directors choose to go that route when opportunity presents itself.

JS: As opposed to running away from it and hiding behind American money.

tV: Yes, and opposed to Americanizing the beautiful Canadian landscapes and trying to make it feel like somewhere else. I thought that was very brave, because some filmmakers feel that films aren't as well received if they are Canadian. I would personally like to see more of them. Was that a very conscious decision of yours?

JS: It was. It was considered early on. In the way you design a film it's going to make a difference whether or not you set it in the US or Canada, just in some of the details. Especially in a movie like this where there is a lot of play on the infrastructure like mailboxes and police departments. I considered making it more generic and less specific, but I thought that that was a cop out and I felt that the story was stronger and required a Canadian setting in a lot of ways. It would have worked in a US setting but I thought it was benefitting from the Canadian setting so I decided to embrace it.

I think Canada has changed in the eyes of movie-goers. In the past it was considered very quaint and boring, and I think that has changed a lot as we've become more of a bustling country and a vivid, exciting place. People can envision exciting things happening even now.

The story lends itself to being quaint and getting disrupted. I wanted to embrace the idea that there's a universality to Canadian stories as much as anywhere.

tV: Well I appreciate that personally.

JS: I'm glad. I feel like I used to be one of those people when I was younger but later when it came to making the decision myself, it was easy to just go all in with Canada.

tV: We have such amazing landscapes and backdrops it's a shame to represent it as something other than Canada.

JS: Exactly.

The Calling opens tomorrow night (Friday Aug 29) at Vancouver's International Village. Click HERE for a number to call for the exclusive screenings.
Click HERE for trailer.

Dragons' Den spices up the ratings with its latest addition, renowned chef and entrepreneur, Vikram Vij. 

Today we talk to Vij about his venture into the Dragons' Den and what it takes to dine at his table.

tV: How have you adjusted to your new role?

VV: They have nine seasons under their belts so when I first started, during the first two or three days, I felt like I was skating with Wayne Gretzky, Jarome Iginla, and Gordie Howe all at the same time but didn't even have my skates on (laughs). I was going to be as ferocious a player as everybody else and get my ice time, shoot the puck, and get in there and battle it out.

After about two pitches I was in my element. I blocked out the fact that others were sitting there and just jumped in there. I didn't want to spend any time trying to learn the ropes, I was like, “I'm here. I'm going to fight like everybody else.”

tV: What's the most important thing that you have learned from this experience?

VV: Normally when people make a deal they come and pitch to you as an individual, so you are already in that powerful position. When somebody has says, “I want this and this from you,” then I know that I am in that powerful position to say yes or no to them. On Dragons' Den this is totally different because the pitches are not only coming to me but they are being divided among five of us who have five different angles. Not only did I have to argue and fight with the rest of the dragons to get the pitch, but I also had to make the right pitch in return and outsmart the rest of the dragons in order to get the deal. It was a tough learning experience for me... to have to argue with somebody like Arlene, Mike, David, or Jim.

tV: Is there one dragon in particular you enjoyed battling with?

VV: What I actually enjoyed was showing them my perspective of where I was coming from, because I felt that they were coming from their own distinct perspectives. Where David would talk about numbers, I would talk about the soul. Where Arlene would talk about marketing, I would talk about substance. When Jim would talk about taking something to a much higher level from a franchisee's point of view, I would talk about the fact that I'm still building my business and my brand.

I think at the end of the day we all got along pretty well. There were times that they looked at me and said that I was crazy, and I looked at them and said, “You're absolutely wrong” but there was no animosity, though there was definitely a fierce battle.

tV: What do you look for when you go into the dragon's den?

VV: Whether or not the deal is worth it for my overall plan of Vij's: whether there is something that will compliment my business. If I'm going to put my hard earned money into something I should be able to talk about it with as much passion as I talk about food.

If I felt that I was passionate about something and could talk intelligently about it, then I would make a deal. There were some pitches that I felt I could talk about passionately because of either my background, or what I had done, or what I have learned over the years. I invested in some of those.

tV: Is passion the deal maker or breaker for you?

VV: Passion is the starting point. If there is a passion there then I will say, “okay, let's explore this.” Is this passion substantiated by common sense and knowledge? Malcolm Gladwell said, “For anybody to be successful you have to put in ten thousand of hard work.” Even The Beatles weren't successful right off the bat. They had spent more than ten thousand hours playing. They were passionate about music but they still needed to perform in order to get to that point.
I need to know whether they have performed, whether they have tenacity, have worked hard, have endurance, and whether they have burned any bridges in the past.

tV: Are there any inventions or ideas that have come through the Dragons' Den that you wish you had come up with yourself?

VV: Lots! (laughs). There were lots of creative ideas where I thought, “Why didn't I think of this?” One thing we have to really feel good about, is the entrepreneurship in Canada. They're bringing the stories of their moms and grandparents. Some of the things that people are pitching have developed from direct experience and this comes from practicality. There are some things that you see and I think, “I would never think of this.”

tV: Have any of these experiences with the inventors inspired change within your own personal life?

VV: They've inspired more focus on what I do. They've inspired me to tell myself that I need to sharpen my pencils because when I take my brand to the next level, I need to be on top of it: I cannot afford to be stumped like some of them were when we asked difficult questions. I need to do my homework. I cannot sit on my laurels.
I still need to perform at the same level as I did 20 years ago, and I can't just sit back and say, “It's going to be easy,” because these people are looking to build something with you. It's like a bride looking at five suitors and saying, “I want to go with you.” It hurts when the bride doesn't go for you (laughs).

tV: Will you be making any strategic changes in your approach this year?

VV: Not particularly, but I will go in with that experience of one season under the belt and lots more to go, and I would want to come out with people feeling that I am rational, hard, practical, and not just going to throw my hard earned money away. I don't want people to think that if they just come with passion that I will support them: I'm not a jelly bean (laughs). On the other hand, if somebody really has a great story and it's heart-felt, I would support them any minute, because that means a lot to me personally. So no real strategic changes: I just want to make this happen.

Click HERE for a link to show times.

CBC Vancouver vamps up its newscasting team with the fresh face of Montreal's Andrew Chang.

We caught up with Chang at his offices to talk about his new role. For Chang, it's an exciting time of transitions, both professional and personal, as he and his family settle into a new life here in Vancouver.

tV: So how has this new role in Vancouver changed your life?

AC: It's such a huge change. I'm from Montreal and I'd been there for ten years working in the CBC newsroom. To just make the shift to move out west was a big deal. Doing it while raising a two-month-old daughter has been a pretty interesting experience because trying to do anything takes three times as long. As far as touching down in Vancouver, that's been really amazing. On a personal level, it almost seems like this city was built for me. My wife and I both run, hike, and camp. We go canoeing a lot and during the winter we snowboard so I can't wait to go up to Grouse, or Whistler, or Blackcomb, which are a lot bigger than what I'm used to in Quebec (laughs).

tV: Don't hurt yourself.

AC: (laughs) Yah, that would make a nice first day: going up the hill and coming back in a neck brace or full body cast.

Vancouver has been amazing and the newsroom here is so warm and welcoming. And it's been busy pretty much right from the time I got here. Day one was the grand tour and I met around 6000 people: or at least it felt that way.
Very quickly we got down to the business of figuring out what the newscast was going to look like come September 1st, which is my first official on-air day. There are some pretty big changes that are quite exciting. Despite the fact that I've been living in Montreal so long, I've been involved in the editorial process of the planning of the show right from the ground floor. We've been figuring out how all the pieces are going to go and how we're going to use the sets, because that is going to go through a complete overhaul. We have a whole bunch of new equipment for which we're figuring out the placement. We have a new steady-cam, which completely changes the way the newscast is shot and completely changes the experience for the viewer. You can literally be anywhere you want inside that studio so it's pretty exciting to be able to map out how it's going to look.

tV: Are you going to be choreographing the steady-cam?

AC: Today was the second day of our rehearsal. We've been blocking out different shots and different ideas. We have some really brilliant minds behind the camera figuring out what works and what doesn't because it's so finicky. The lighting has to be just right and one of the things that I've been pushing for is as much transparency as possible: I love the idea of showing the whole set and not just the one interview location that we have set up. I want to show people everything. Making that a reality has probably been taxing for a lot of the technical guys who work behind the scenes to make sure the lighting and the angles and the cameras are all lining up. It's been a process (laughs) but we're muffling our way through it. It's fun.

tV: Why Vancouver, say as opposed to somewhere closer like Toronto or Ottawa?

AC: There are a few reasons. The opportunity was here. Vancouver came knocking, so that was certainly one of the options that was on the table. For a long time I've been considering other cities but Vancouver was such an interesting opportunity for a few reasons: the city alone is amazing. I haven't been here all that long but already, with what I've been able to experience with North Van, Richmond, Granville Island, the water front, it's been amazing. The Grouse grind is on my list of things to do.

tV: There is also another, more beautiful way up the mountain if you hike up around the back.

AC: I also have family out here: an aunt and and uncle and a few cousins who live about ten minutes from here. You know, Montreal was a really great city and I could very easily have seen myself living my life there. My wife and I talked about raising a family there and are both fluently bilingual, and that's how we intend to raise our daughter, so it was a really tough choice. My career started in Montreal and I owe everything to that newsroom.

For the longest time at CBC I never held a job for more than eight months. I started as an election logger and from there I went on to research. A few months late I started reporting, both for radio and for television, and from there I went to working on the different shows and became a video journalist so I could do my own shooting and editing. It wasn't until I started anchoring in Montreal that I actually held a job for longer than a year (laughs). So I also felt like it was time for a change. I think I'm at my best when I'm a little off balance and that turns out to be a great asset when you're in this business. There have been many shows that I've done where something's gone wrong or something completely unexpected has happened. Breaking news happens all the time, like during the provincial elections in 2012 in Quebec, and the attempted assassination of Marois who was the victor that night. That was such a wild ride.

tV: How do you think that reporting the news here is going to differ in the biggest way?

AC: In Montreal there are a lot of issues that surround language, that occupy a lot of the newsreels but most of the issues transcend the country. I spent ten years becoming a damned good journalist. I have interviewed the best of them. I've gone through so many live, breaking news situations. I understand the importance of the facts and how important it is to get to the bottom of the story and explain to people why things are happening so that it actually means something to them at the end of the day. That is what I try to be good at and I have no doubt I can do that here, and I'm looking forward to the challenge. I think it will be very different.

tV: Where do you see the CBC in the next five years, in terms of all the change that's happening?

AC: There are a lot of changes going on right now as you know, some of them more difficult than others. I think that a lot of the challenges that CBC is going through right now, many other networks are going through as well. I'm talking about how technology is changing and how audiences are demanding their news. They can get it anywhere, anytime, anyplace. They can also interact with you at their leisure and discretion. To me, all of that is such a huge opportunity. For people to reach out to me and vice versa, instantly on social media, is so easy.
What I hope stays the same is the core reason we're all here: to tell strong, compelling, informative stories.

Resources is another issue that networks are dealing with: the tightening of the belt, if you can call it that. I worked in Sochi during the 2014 Olympics and what CBC was able to accomplish there was a really good example of where everything was going. The producers were in Toronto and all our communication was done via Skype, and while I was on air we had that link. Everything went off without a hitch.

People often ask me if I have one area that I'd like to be more focused on, but the truth of the matter is I actually tell them, “No.” It's my job to be as adept and as curious as possible about everything that happens. That's the nature of our newscast as well. We don't limit ourselves to just politics, just business, or economics, or housing, or transit. All of that goes into this city and that is what we reflect in the newscast. I love everything (laughs) but you kind of have to when you cover the range and diversity of stories that we cover here. There's so much for me to look forward to.

tV: What are you going to explore next in Vancouver?

AC: The Grouse grind is the next thing (laughs). All the people who have done it before are cringing; their knees are still aching from climbing those stairs. How many stair are there anyway?

tV: I have no idea, I just know I hate every one of them. It takes roughly an hour, depending on your aptitude, but seriously, there is a back way up that mountain that is much more beautiful.

AC: (laughs) I'll keep that in mind. If I get half way up and say, “ah” then maybe I'll turn things around. After that I want to check out the Richmond Night Market. When the winter rolls around I'm going to get up to Cypress and Grouse and the surrounding areas and see if my board can stand up to the snow here.

tV: Winter is Coming, but I doubt it will be as intense as you're probably used to.

AC: So I've been told. When we were moving here from Montreal, among all the things that I was packing, I had two snow shovels. The guy who was moving our stuff looked at me and said, “You're not going to need these in Vancouver.” I said, “Well, just in case. You never know,” and he just laughed at me the whole time. We'll see come winter.

Award winning director Sturla Gunnarsson's latest production, Monsoon, is an epic film, both beautiful and tragic, that takes you to the heart of the phenomenon of the Indian monsoon. 

Spectacularly shot in 4K with Red Epic cameras, renowned director of photography Van Royko utilizes every opportunity to capture the minutest detail, instilling an intimacy and palpability that draws you to the centre of the experiences you are witnessing.

Today we had the great pleasure of talking with Gunnarsson about his film.

tV: Monsoons, typhoons, and hurricanes happen all over the world. What is it about the Indian monsoon that sets it apart from the other phenomenon?

SG: People in India will tell you that there is only one monsoon: the Indian monsoon. What appealed to me about it is that it's life itself. It provides India with all of its water. It brings water, it brings life, it governs the conditions of existence for the people living there. It affects every aspect of living. It affects the artists, the religious, scientists, fishermen, farmers. It affects filmmakers. Indian culture is built around the monsoon. Some people say that it's the soul of the country. I love India and I've been there many, many times and I've always thought of the monsoon as being such a big spectacle and such a romantic thing that I wanted to experience it. That's why I made the film.

tV: You say that life comes from the monsoon. Have you noticed the effects of climate change on this over the years?

SG: The monsoon is a chaotic system and it's constantly changing anyway so the biggest impact of climate change on the monsoon is that it makes it that much harder to predict: it makes a chaotic system more chaotic. In a country where prediction is the key to survival that's where there is the most profound impact. In the long range the scientists that are studying it believe that it will result in hotter, drier monsoons: so less water and more heat and all that implies.

tV: There are some areas in India that get an overwhelmingly large amount of water during the monsoon, and other areas that get none at all. Did you discover any systems the government might be working to implement in an attempt to disperse the water more evenly: pipelines, reservoirs etc.

SG: Yes. They have water management systems in places. 20 to 25% of the agriculture works off of irrigation and aquifers but probably 70 to 80% of the agriculture relies directly on the rains. Even the farming that functions under a water management system still requires the rains and then it becomes a question of capturing the rain and diverting it, but that isn't possible without the water actually coming.

tV: You showed quite a wide range of people who were affected by the monsoon. The monsoon has been called the soul of India and to many is a spiritual thing. Did you find a similar perspective among the richer classes?

SG: No. Richer people never suffer. The wealthy are always insulated from the visitant life and the poor are always more affected. That's just a fundamental rule of life.

tV: Sure, but there was a lot of ceremony during the monsoon: a lot of people felt almost a religious connection to it. Was that something that resonated with wealthier people? Were they also believers in the monsoon as being a spiritual thing?

SG: There are so many dimensions of the monsoon. In the movies it's about romance and everybody goes to the movies. And the people who make the films are sophisticated people. The idea of romance, and love, and monsoon, cuts across everything. The gambler (Bishnu Shastri), his experience with monsoon is that of destiny: for him it's like a race horse. Everybody's experience of it is different. For the farmer it's something different again, for the fisherman it's a question of having the opportunity to do well at sea but the ocean is so stormy that you're taking your life in your hands. All of the religious festivals are built around the monsoon and around planting and harvest. I think people relate to those religious festivals in much the same way as they do in Canada, where are some people who are true believers and there are other people for whom it's more of a cultural event.

tV: There were a lot of very devastating things that happened, such as people losing there homes. For you as a filmmaker witnessing all of that, how did that affect you and how did you manage to film through that? It must have been such a moving experience?

SG: It was. These are people who we're close to. There's a conflicting emotion. On the one hand, as a documentary filmmaker, these are the events you are hoping for because it's dramatic and it's cinematic, and you know that you have a story. But on the other hand you have this incredible sense of loss and a terrible feeling of empathy for people who you care about losing their homes and losing their livelihoods. It's very conflicted.

tV: It's unfathomable to understand what it must have been like to be in the middle of all of that. As a filmmaker, what did you take away from this journey that you never expected?

SG: I think that anytime you engage with chaos, which the monsoon is, it's exhausting, it tries your patience, and tries your confidence, and it also tries your faith. I think probably what emerged for me from the film more than anything else, was a realization that I actually do have faith: not a religious faith, I'm not a believer in God, but I have faith that things are possible. I have faith that things will work out and I think that feeling of faith that emerges in the midst of this chaos was what I found surprising.

tV: You were obviously very prepared to shoot in extreme weather conditions with very high-tech but stripped down cameras (Red Epic cameras shooting in 4K and utilizing from 14mm to 800mm lenses). Were there any substantial hiccups during the shoot?

SG: We lost two cameras to water.

tV: Oh, my go...

SG: Two Red Epics got destroyed. One was eaten by a wave and the other got rain water damage. The big challenge was trying to dance with the monsoon because you're trying to cover a place that's over three million square kilometres and you're one little spec on a map trying to capture a story. So you may be in one place and it's not raining and you're studying satellite imagery and the weather forecast and trying to decide weather to get on a plane and go to where it's raining. There's this constant process of being the subject of the rain gods. Those were the real challenges: chasing the storm over three million square kilometres in a chaotic environment.

As far as the mechanics of it we came with all kinds of rain gear but at the end of the day we didn't use it. You just end up being like everybody else: you wear your quick-dry shirt and quick-dry pants and sandals and you wade into the water and just don't think too much about what's in it (laughs). Shower real quick when you get back to the hotel.

tV: What were you hoping to show the world with this film? What was the message you were hoping to give?

SG: I wanted the audience to experience the mystery, the awe, and the spectacle of the monsoon, and to meditate on that.

Gunnarsson's film delivers on all accounts in its stunning look at the phenomenon of the Indian monsoon.
Watch for your opportunity this October to see it on the big screen during the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Urban Ink Production and Black Theatre Workshop present Omari Newton's Sal Capone !

Check out this PREVIEW!!  

Director, dramaturge, writer and cultural animator Diane Roberts, brings us Sal Capone, an original, unique blend of music, dance, and narrative that explores the aftermath of a tragic incident resulting in a friend losing his life at the hands of the police. We follow a young hip-hop group struggling to cope with the death and confronting issues of their own biases, racism and a distrust of authority.

Today we sat down with Roberts and her cast to talk about what it means to be a part of this show.

Diane Roberts: We're describing this show as a hip-hop theatre play because it really is a perfect balance of hip-hop and theatre that tells the story of a young, up-and-coming group of hip-hop artists who lose their DJ to a police shooting, and how they deal with the aftermath of that.

It's a tragedy but it has a lot of humour in it and you really fall in love with the characters. It was written by Omari Newton, who grew up in Montreal. It was based on an incident that actually happened in Montreal north. The shooting of Fredy Villanueva, a Honduran youth, who was killed when a protest turned into a riot. It was a pretty big thing.

Omari was here when it happened and was so incensed by the violence that he really wanted to respond to it by writing a play. We talked about it and started developing the play five years ago.

tV: These are very powerful roles to play. What has been your inspiration or motivation when approaching them?

Tristin D. Lalla (Sal): I've been working professionally for about twelve years as an actor and although this is theatre, we are breaking so many new boundaries with this. All of the music, all of the poetry, all of the feelings that come up in this are not your everyday type of theatre. We really got to have a blank slate and create our own conventions theatrically, which was terrifying and amazing at the same time.

Billy Merasty (Mac): The thing I like about this play is that it's a multi-cultural piece, which is very rare in Canadian theatre and I've been involved in the business for 30 years. Some writers have attempted to write multi-cultural pieces but haven't really succeeded, but Omari has quite beautifully.

I'm Native, we have two black characters, an Italian, and a Filipina woman. We meld beautifully and it really reflects what Canada means to me now: a multi-cultural country. I sure would like to see that continue: writers coming in to learn how to write for other cultures. I think that's the future we're heading to and the future I would like to see.

tV: Could you talk a little about what drew you to these characters?

Letitia Brookes (Naomi): The playwright is from Montreal and a black actor, as I am. Just like Naomi, when I was young someone in my extended family was shot by police and so I saw first hand what that did to family members and our community. It was really interesting for me to think of myself back at that time as a child, because I play a child in the play. I really like how the play shows two sides of the story and how both sides are hurting or how they try to overcome what happens to the DJ, their friend and family member.

Jordan Waunch (Chase): I was drawn to the story because it's set in hip-hop culture and I think that connects with a lot of youth these days. The story could take place in almost any major North American city. A lot of the problems with the police and the interactions with each other are things that are happening and have happened and probably continue to happen, and need to be addressed. It's a really strong story.

Kim Villagante (Jewel): I was drawn to the play because it's a great play that's very relevant. Growing up, I've never seen theatre where they cast a Filipino(a). This is my first theatre production so I've never done this professionally. My background is high school drama and those were all Shakespeare. Sal Capone, like Tristin says, really pushes the limits and makes it relevant to youth. I think that because hip-hop culture is something that youth really connects to, it makes talking about really difficult topics such as police brutality, racism, sexism, homophobia more accessible.

I think this play is legitimate because a lot of the actors in it, including Omari, are really familiar with hip-hop culture. We all love hip-hop: we're hip-hop heads. Some of us are MCs and poets, in the community and that makes it more of a believable play as well. The set and the people we are working with are the best. Troy (Slocum) is such an awesome sound designer. The music is amazing: the visuals. It's real raw art. We're all contributing our own stories to it as well: we wrote the raps ourselves. It's really multi-layered and it's raw and it speaks to what is happening right now in our society.

```````````````````````````````
Sal Capone runs May 22 – 31, 2014 at the Roundhouse Performance Centre

Click HERE for tickets

“Experience a comic book come to life.”

The Only Animal Artistic Director Kendra Fanconi has put together a fascinating, multi-media theatrical show that blends live stage action with 3D projection mapping and panelled action sequences that draw you into the centre of a comic book.
The story of Superman comes to life before you as we follow Joe, Jerry, and Joanne, on a journey of creation, love, and Superheroes.

Today we had the great pleasure of speaking with Fanconi about her latest creation.

tV: Where did the idea for this show come from?

KF: I had an acting teacher years ago who always told me to “move like a cartoon.” Like the Roadrunner cartoons and that kind of energy. I remember that I thought that would be fascinating to see. So there was that kind of physical interest.

Our team is largely composed of designers and we spent a long time building the world of the play together. We did some experiments off the side in some teaching that we did that was about live drawing, projecting live drawing, and new computer interfaces for live drawing. We thought it was really interesting so I started to look for a Canadian artist and eventually found my way to Joe Shuster and the golden age of comics, and Superman.

His life story is beautifully tragic so I thought, well here's a great biographical underpinning for a story. What the team eventually developed was that we'd tell the story as a living comic book. That allowed us to integrate all our interest in projection and live drawing into story-telling, into translating cartoon bodies to the stage, and all of these things.

tV: Your story is a blend of fact and fiction?

KF: The story in short form is that these two poor immigrant kids, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegal, came up with the idea for Superman in the early 30s. Joe was Canadian but his family had immigrated from Europe and had been in transit as displaced Jews. So these two Jewish kids came together and had this idea for Superman and then unknowingly signed away the rights for $130.
For ten years they worked for a page rate for Superman. When they started to ask for more money they were shown the contract and ejected from DC Comics.

They fought a lot of court battles and eventually made a tiny bit of traction but Siegal's daughter is still in the courts fighting for the rights today.
Shuster and Siegal eventually lost everything: their names were taken off Superman, and were really impoverished. At the same time, Joe was going blind so he lost his ability to draw at all.
The story is of these two friends and the original model for Lois Lane, who they both fell in love with when she was 16 and they were 18, 19 years old. There was kind of a 40-year love triangle between them.

Jerry Siegal was the loquacious one so so everything you have from interviews is from Jerry. There's one published interview with Joe Shuster given very late in his life to the Toronto Star. We have a lot of biographical events: we know the court cases, but there's very little that Joe said because he mainly drew.

One of the things we did when we started the research was we got the eight volumes of the original comics and we looked at Superman as Shuster's alter ego.

We tried to lift what biographical information we could, and what we could about his character from the comics. That was hard as a writer because you don't want to guess wrong and you don't want to represent him improperly, so I did lots and lots and lots of research. For a while I thought I was writing a book about him instead of a play. Eventually I just began to hear his voice, and Jerry and Joanne, and took the plunge into fiction and wrote it. It is a fictionalized biographical account of his life I would say.

tV: What is the most surprising thing that you discovered along the way? 

KF: I have a wonderful collaborator on the project. The other lead artist is a video artist named Keith Murray, who is designing all the projections. I think seeing the physical world of the play take shape was our starting point, where the stage was the blank page where we would develop the story as one would develop a comic. 

First you have the idea, and then you do a pencil sketch, and eventually you ink in your pencil sketching, erase out the pencil, and add colour. Then you create the panels and the word bubbles and things like that. 
Then we realized that Joe's story was about loss so we thought that we would also chip away at those elements and strip things back down to the blank page. 

I was really kind of surprised and delighted to see the visual motifs of the show. Everything on the stage is a projection so if you see white chairs or a big white drawing board, there are drawn chairs projected on these blank surfaces: there's a drawn door, and a drawn window, and a drawn sofa and such. 
When we start adding colour after we've been in this stark black and white world for such a long time, there really is emotional life. That was a great surprise.

tV: How has it been working with the 3D element?

KF: We were really interested in both a theatrical representation of a 2D world, which we usually don't have in theatre either, and then bringing it in to 3D. We are in a traditional proscenium theatre that puts the audience at a distance looking in to the world, and we have these sliding panels that allow us to create comic books on stage where there's action and projected text. Here (indicates stage left on set model) there is a fire pole where the actors can quickly zip down and be in it again, so there's that kind of motion and fluidity within this panelled world.

Our projection comes from both the rear and the front. When it comes from the front, the actors have to be quite careful not to create shadows on the set, but when it comes from the rear you can really go right up to it and it's quite a visceral world.
We've experimented with all kinds of tropes within that 2D and 3D and use 2D props that bring us to that in-between world. The 2D wine glass that is secretly flipped to show a lower level of liquid.
It's a playful world because it is the comic books: it's entertaining.

tV: What was it like to get this kind of project off the ground?

KF: The way that our company works is it usually takes three to five years to develop a new piece. We do workshops every year and in-between the workshops I'm writing drafts of the play and communicating with designers hearing their ideas. We like to work with the same actors over long periods of time so we're hearing their ideas, character ideas, and questions. This really allows a richness to it that I don't think you get in a playwright led process where the playwright just presents a play and then stages it. It's a much more collaborate process: one where we really value theatricality, love imagery, trickery, and all kinds of things. 

Before we have a play at all, we have a knowledge of what is theatrically interesting in the world, and then we can structure the play to hit all of those things. 
I never start writing a play until I know what the set design is because if I know I have a fire pole, well there are ten fun things I can do with that. It is also true in Canadian theatre, that when you go into rehearsal that's the most expensive part, so we want to know a lot before we get actors and stage management in the room. 

We're very lucky that we were able to raise the funding: that's a big part of our process. To be able to have five weeks to create this feels, in our economy, a luxurious amount of time to create and to be able to really refine. We're two weeks into rehearsal right now and we're getting to the point where the play is blocked and we're able to refine, and tighten, and go further, and really explore cartoon bodies, and that kind of thing.
..............................

Fanconi wrote and directs this ambitious piece and has an incredible team of artists on board: Award winning animator Paul Dutton (Triplets of Belleville), video designer Keith Murray, costume designer Christine Reimer, and lighting designer William Hales. It also boasts a line-up of prominent local talent like Amitai Marmorstein, Robert Salvador, and Dawn Petten.

You'll want to catch this show while it's here, but as Fanconi points out, “Even though Superman appeals to all ages, this particular play is for adults.” After Shuster lost his job at DC Comics, he worked for a while in fetish comics. “We have stage scenes of very graphic cartoon bondage and it's not for kids.” 

Click on Nothing But Sky for tickets and show times.

CBC prepares for the premiere of its highly anticipated six-part miniseries, The Best Laid Plans.

CBC prepares for the premiere of its highly anticipated six-part miniseries, The Best Laid Plans.

Based on the award winning book by author Terry Fallis, and starring award-winning Canadian actor/filmmaker Jonas Chernick, and big time star of stage, theatre, and television, Kenneth Welsh, this show is sure to be a hit with audiences who appreciate quality story and performances.
We delve deep into the characters with the author and stars, and talk about the journey from book, to television, to the stage.

tV: What inspired the book?

TF: It was really the idea of writing a book. I wanted to write a book but didn't know what to write about. I am definitely a member in good standing with the write-what-you-know school of writing. I spent the early part of my career in politics and grew to view it with a bit of a jaundiced eye. I was not happy with the way we practiced politics in this country even though I'm still an active participant in the process. I wrote a satirical novel that I hope illuminates some of the shortcomings we have in our political system. I told it in the guise of a funny story with characters you might come to care about and like so that you would actually take in the information and assimilate it rather than just ignore a book about politics.

JC: I was going to add to that. I've never told you this before, but I think you achieved, both in the book and on the show, not only a satirical political story but one that's never cynical. To achieve satire without cynicism is a great accomplishment. You don't watch this show and bury your face in your hands and stay up at night worrying about the state of the idiocy of politics. There is a purity and a love of politics that underlays it all.

KW: You care about each of the characters as this political satire develops.

JC: Yah, that's true.

KW: They form an interesting pattern as it moves along. We begin to care so much about a lot of them and It's so delightful that that combination happens.

JC: Ultimately both the book and the miniseries comes from a place of appreciation or passion or love for the innocence or purity of politics, and the satire comes from what we have done with that purity and innocence.

TF: It's my love letter to democracy (laughs).

JC: It is. That's it. It's not a scathing indictment of politics, which it could have been because that's an easy target.

tV: So how close did you stay to the book with the series? Pretty close?

TF: The arc of the story is all there. The characters are all there. The high points of the story I think are all there. How you get from point B to point C, and F to G sometimes differs, which is almost required when you take something from print to the small screen.

JC: Absolutely. The show is very faithful to the book, and certainly very respectful, and really kind of expands some of the notions and some of the characters. For example, the show starts with my character finding his girlfriend in a compromising position with the house leader, which sets off the story. She becomes a bigger presence in the show, where she's not that big a presence in the book. That event is a pivotal, trigger moment in the book ...

KW: Yes, which sets off the next part of the story which then begins to develop the context of ironic politics. She's then looking for a place to live and a new kind of life, so she can get back into the political scene, and in the process discovers my character's guest house for rent. We make a deal where I will run for this seat, in exchange for her teaching my engineer class, but will do nothing as a candidate whatsoever. I won't campaign; I won't do any posters: I will stay in my house and work in my workshop. We run the campaign and ... (spoiler, spoiler)

JC: (laughs) No, don't say that. The whole show is about what's going to happen.

tV: Part of the reason for this last question was a curiosity about whether there had been room to incorporate current events, given the absurdity of our recent political headlines.

JC: I think we've been there. You (Fallis) could never have known, obviously, that that was going to happen ...

TF: I'm just extraordinarily prescient (laughs).

JC: (laughs) There are a few things. For one, the whole show is based on this idea that my character is trying to get out of politics. He's a speech writer for the leader of the opposition party. He's a hotshot, an up-and-comer, but he wants out because he's done with the game. What happens is that his party won't let him out. They coerce him into doing one last pass, which is running this big campaign and finding a candidate for this riding, that will never win. Part of the way they coerce me is a through a tax audit, and all my character can think of is various current events that are happening in the political landscape, but also the idea of a scandal. The show's about a political scandal. There's no crack cocaine in our show but ...

TF: But there's leather (laughs).

JC: (laughs) there is leather; there are sexual proclivities that you don't usually see on the CBC, but there is a scandal that I think people will enjoy. I see our show as sort of an an antidote to the cynicism and the kind of negative atmosphere that we have over Canadian politics right now, because of these things that are going on. Come and watch our show and first of all you'll laugh, and you'll also cry a little, but you'll be reminded that politics isn't all bad and that there is some hope for us.

KW: ... (spoiler, spoiler)

JC: (laughs) Don't talk about the ending. That's like saying Rosebud is the sled.

KW: Yah, but how did we get there?

JC: Yah, most people will have read the book so I think we're fine. Let's face it, most people who are watching are going to know that that's where it's going.

KW: I basically told the whole plot (laughs).

JC: (laughs) Well, we're done here.

tV: What drew you to your roles?

JC: For me it's a no-brainer. This is a classic leading man type. He's not a Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt role but that not the kind of role that I play. I was drawn to the arc of the story. This is a story that take a character on a real journey. Everyone's got their journey on this show. For me, I read it and thought, “I'll never have an arc or a journey this beautifully written and full.” My character starts at one place and ends, after six episodes, at a completely different place. It's a moving, powerful, inspiring journey that has romance and comedy and scandal and lies. This is the closest I'll ever come to Shakespeare. This is my Hamlet.
This guy here (Welsh) has played every Shakespeare role so he probably has other motivation, but for me as an actor mid-career, I could not have asked for a more glorious opportunity.

KW: I just wanted to do the Scottish accent and all the funny parts. No. I was drawn to this part because I felt there was a great kind of emotional range to him. He has a lot of tender feeling. His wife has died less than a year ago and she's constantly in his heart. She inspires him to go on and build something that they were talking about together. As tender as he can be, he's also a wild man. He'll get drunk; he'll take all his clothes off and jump into the river for a swim. He'll sit there and have a game of chess and just fart because he does whatever he wants to, but underneath it all there's this very complex, sensitive, and beautiful man and I love it.

JC: If I may add to that, this is a man who's done Broadway; he's worked with Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese and is really a living legend. As we've seen him play dozens upon hundreds of roles, I think this one's going to end up defining him. It's a career role for him and he nails it; he's brilliant. As actors we seek out characters that are a realistic blend of contradictions. It's one thing to play the arc villain with his eyebrows down, or the saving hero, or the prince charming. Those are the boring characters. This character that Kenneth embodies, that Terry created and then adapted to the show, is an amazing. He is wise and brilliant and a renowned engineer, but he also loses his temper and gets drunk and curses and farts.

KW: What happened to the sensitive side (laughs).

JC: He's very soft and sensitive and will weep when he's taken by his own emotion. He's just this wonderful blend of everything. It's a great character.

KW: I have two favourite characters and they're both called Angus.

JC: What's the other one?

KW: The other one was a character in a movie called Margaret's Museum.

JC: Oh yah, I love that movie.

KW: But there is no doubt that this is my favourite character I've ever played. Windom Earle (Twin Peaks) would be the third.

tV: Tell us something about your characters that has been particularly challenging or new, or perhaps taken you to a place you've never been before.

JC: Oh, that's a great question. For me, my character Daniel Addison is a word-smith; a speech writer. He loves language and is very articulate and able to craft an argument, and obviously from this interview I'm not an inarticulate person (laughs), but I felt I had to rise to the challenge, that I had to connect with this passion and love for the language, democracy, and politics. I'm not a political person so to play a character who is obsessed with politics required a way in.

I had to find Jonas Chernick's version of politics. I'm a cinephile; a movie fanatic. I love film. I love television. That's my thing, so every time I would play a scene where Daniel would get fired up about politics I'd have to trigger a substitution. I can't get excited about the election coverage. It is literally the most boring thing I could imagine, but watching the Academy Awards? It's absurd how excited I get. I'm like a giddy school girl. My wife mocks me every year. I can't wait. I think about it for weeks, but I won't let people watch it with me because I need to hear every word. So that was my way in.

KW: I forgot what the question was (laughs).

JC: Something about your character that was challenging or new or ... how about full frontal nudity?

KW: (laughs)

JC: Right? Have we seen your ass before?

KW: Oh god.

JC: In all your movies, have we seen your butt?

KW: (laughs) I think it's really maintaining the consistency of all the disparate elements of this character and hanging on to the way he speaks and the way he acts, and also the way the relationship develops because the only relationship he has in the story is with Daniel. They go through this political adventure that unfolds throughout the story and their relationship develops very subtly. There are no sudden changes in it; it just grows and they become very close in a very different kind of way.

tV: The Best Laid Plans has been made into a musical for theatre ...

JC: What?!

TF: It's in the process, with Touchstone Theatre here in Vancouver.

KW: No way! Really?

TF: Yah. Vern Thiessen ...

JC: I know Vern Thiessen. No way! I wonder if he remembers me. That's amazing.

TF: Vern Thiessen is doing it so it's happening. They're working on it and have been for about a year I guess.

JC: Can I be Daniel Addison?

TF: I think that would be wonderful.

JC: (to Welsh) And we can both sing.

KW: Yes, we can (laughs).

JC: We're in. We accept the job (laughs). Thank you. Talk to my agent.

TF: (laughs) Yah, it's still coming, but it's just part of this surreal journey that this book has taken us all on.  
.................
Be sure to tune in the CBC in January to catch this amazing new show.