UpStageTHE BELFRY THEATRE · AN INSIDER’S GUIDE

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2015 BOOKS / I’M YOUR MAN

THEATRE / WHY THIS PLAY?ONLINE / TOWER TALK

BELFRY.BC.CA

VOLUME 2 / ISSUE 2

LADIES AND

GENTLEMEN,

Mr. Leonard Cohen.

Hello!

B4Play SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24 AT 11AM

Belfry Theatre, Studio A

1291 Gladstone Avenue

Join us in Studio A for a live talk show hosted by

CBC Radio’s Gregor Craigie, featuring Tracey Power

(Creator / Director / Choreographer) and Benjamin

Elliott (Actor / Musician) from Chelsea Hotel,

together with Victoria’s Poet Laureate Yvonne

Blomer, and poet, critic, and scholar Stephen

Scobie (author of Leonard Cohen and Intricate

Preparations: Writing Leonard Cohen). Free Event

Leonard Cohen is the epitome of cool. In this stylish

musical you’ll check into New York’s infamous hotel and

be transported into a world of music, mystery and desire.

With extraordinary new arrangements, six performers play

17 instruments in this inventive tribute to Cohen’s most

transcendent songs. Sexy and captivating, this eclectic

cabaret celebrates loves lost and won. A Firehall Arts Centre

production, Vancouver.

Welcome to the Belfry and Chelsea

Hotel – The Songs of Leonard Cohen,

the second production in our

40th Anniversary Season.

Chelsea Hotel comes to us from the Firehall Arts

Centre in Vancouver, where audiences can’t get

enough of this beautiful piece. The show has been

reprised there three times and is now on its second

national tour.

Leonard Cohen’s work has been interpreted in

hundreds of ways; whether through song, dance

or theatre, his words and music continue to inspire

new artists and new audiences.

Tracey Power, who conceived and directed

Chelsea Hotel, and Steven Charles, who created

the new arrangements, have brought a fresh, new

perspective to Cohen’s masterful songs.

The entire cast - Rachel Aberle, Lauren Bowler,

Steven Charles, Benjamin Elliott, Marlene Ginader

and Jonathan Gould - are all making their Belfry

debuts in Chelsea Hotel.

Tickets are on sale now at 250-385-6815 or at

www.belfry.bc.ca.

Thanks for being part of the Belfry and we look

forward to seeing you soon.

Chelsea Hotel is generously supported by

Who We Are Upstage is the Belfry

Theatre’s in-house

magazine. Our goal is

to give you a leisurely,

deeper look into our

productions. With your

tablet or computer you

can view an expanded

digital version of Upstage

on our website or at

issuu.com/belfry-theatre.

Upstage is supported by

Lover. Monk. Singer. Poet.

Welcome to you who read me todayB Y S T E P H E N S C O B I E

I have attended many fine concerts by Leonard

Cohen, but none more memorable than a show in

Toronto, during his “comeback-after-financial-ruin”

tour in 2008. Never have I been at a concert where

the audience’s love for the singer was so thick,

so palpable. In a rare moment of quiet between

songs, a woman’s voice rang out: “I love you,

Leonard!” Cohen paused just a moment, then took

off his fedora, held it to his breast, bowed, and said,

“I’m rather fond of you myself.”

That moment has become iconic for me: it is

emblematic of Cohen’s status in Canadian culture,

and of the intensity of his relationship with his

audience. It has a note of formality to it – the

outdated hat, the old-fashioned courtesy of the

gesture – yet it also has a note of self-mockery, the

anachronistic gesture ever so deftly exaggerated,

to the edge of parody.

None of which, of course, is to suggest that he

doesn’t mean it. For Cohen, courtesy can be the

vehicle for passion; formality intensifies the

power of the emotion. He is a thoroughly

conscious, and conscientious, craftsman –

known for making multiple revisions of his

work. He has also cultivated his own image

as a tortured, romantic poet, sitting in bare

bedrooms and lonely hotel rooms (preferably

the Chelsea), wringing out of himself the

gracenotes of despair. When critics dubbed his

work “music to slit your wrists by,” he responded

by placing a small black silhouette of a razor

blade at the head of every poem in his next

book.

The darkness is there; there is no denying

it. Cohen is never far from the horrors of the

Holocaust past or from the apocalyptic visions

of The Future. Yet this is only one aspect of

Cohen. He is also very funny – even the little

black razor blades may be seen as a self-directed

joke. It is almost a reliable index of Cohen that

the funnier he is, the more serious he is.

L to R: Francisco Trujillo, Ann Warn Pegg,

Karin Konoval, Cliff LeJeune and Camille

Miller in Sincerely, A Friend (Conceived by

Bryden MacDonald)1997.

Story Highlights

Sincerely, A Friend, based on the

music and lyrics of Leonard Cohen,

was performed at the Belfry in

November 1997.

Leonard Cohen wrote the musical,

I Am a Hotel, in 1983. First broadcast

in 1984 it starred skater Toller

Cranston and Celia Franca, founder

of the National Ballet of Canada.

Cohen’s song Hallelujah, first

released in 1984, has been covered

by almost 200 artists. You’re

probably humming it now.

belfry.bc.ca

And not only humour: also glory. He once said of Sartre: “I know he’s

never going to say ‘and then the room turned to gold.’ He’ll say, ‘The

room turned to shit.’ But the room sometimes does turn to gold and

unless you mention that, your philosophy is incomplete.”

So return to his response to that woman in Toronto. He is treating

her with respect and generosity. He is telling her, albeit in an

understated manner, that he loves her, as he loves all his audience.

He is telling her that the room turns gold. He is addressing her as he

addressed his readers almost fifty years ago, in the final paragraph

of Beautiful Losers:

I have come through the fire of family and love. I smoke

with my darling, I sleep with my friend. We talk of the

poor men, broken and fled. Alone with my radio I lift up

my hands. Welcome to you who read me today. Welcome

to you who put my heart down. Welcome to you, darling

and friend, who miss me forever in your trip to the end.

Poet, critic, and scholar Stephen Scobie is the author of Leonard

Cohen and Intricate Preparations: Writing Leonard Cohen.

Cast

Rachel Aberle Lauren Bowler Steven Charles

Benjamin Elliott Marlene Ginader Jonathan Gould

Tracey Power CONCEPT / DIRECTOR /CHOREOGRAPHER

Steven Charles MUSICAL DIRECTOR / ARRANGER

Marshall McMahen SET DESIGNER

Barbara Clayden COSTUME DESIGNER

Ted Roberts LIGHTING DESIGNER

Xavier Berbudeau SOUND DESIGNER

James MacDonald DRAMATURGE

Donna Spencer ARTISTIC DIRECTION

Why I Chose This Play

“Like a bird on the wire,

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free.”

Born in Montreal in 1933, he recorded his first album, Songs of

Leonard Cohen, at the age of 34. On September 22, 2014, one day

after his 80th birthday, Cohen released his 13th studio album,

Popular Problems. I am writing this on September 21, 2015, 30

minutes after talking to Shelley Ambrose of Walrus Magazine.

Sitting in the courtyard outside the Belfry she told me, “I talked

to Leonard today to wish him a happy birthday.” I must confess –

given this one degree of separation – I was more than a little bit

star-struck. (I’m a bit star-struck around Shelley too).

Leonard Cohen’s words and music have been a part of my life for

as long as I can remember, and I’ll wager that most of our Belfry

audience would say the same. Is there anyone in this country who

doesn’t have at least one Leonard Cohen song that holds a special

resonance for them? He is the poet laureate of our generation.

Like all great artists, he invites – and survives – reinterpretation.

I realized while watching Chelsea Hotel in Vancouver that,

with a career that has spanned four decades, he is now being

reinterpreted by artists who were born around the time he

first recorded “Hallelujah” – one of the most haunting and oft-

performed songs in musical history.

Tracey Power and Steven Charles have crafted a show that is more

than a tribute to Leonard Cohen. It is a piece of theatre. I love the

world they have conjured onstage, together with the stylish work

of their designers. They have created their own vision of the

Chelsea Hotel, inhabited by a struggling young writer. Through

Tracey’s choice of songs and the order in which they are sung,

and through Steven’s surprising new arrangements, I felt that I

was not so much being told a story, as I was being taken on an

emotional journey. Cohen’s music in this creative setting makes

for an irresistible event.

MICHAEL SHAMATA, Artistic Director

& Creatives

Belfry Librarian The Greater Victoria Public Library Librarians have compiled a list of books to help you get even more out of our production

of Chelsea Hotel. List compiled by Jennifer Rowan, GVPL

Book of Longing

BY LEONARD COHEN (2006)

Can’t Forget: a Souvenir of the Grand Tour

BY LEONARD COHEN [CD] (2015)

Famous Blue Raincoat

BY JENNIFER WARNES [CD] (1986)

I’m Your Man: the Life of Leonard Cohen

BY SYLVIE SIMONS (2012)

Inside the Dream Palace:

the Life and Times of New York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel

BY SHERRILL TIPPINS (2013)

belfry.bc.ca

Let Us Compare Mythologies BY LEONARD COHEN (1956, 2006)

So Long, Marianne: A Love Story BY KARI HESTHAMAR (2014)

This Ain’t No Holiday Inn: Down and Out at the Chelsea Hotel,

1980-1995: An Oral History BY JAMES LOUGH (2013)

Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk BY SHOZAN

JACK HAUBNER (2013)

Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen

BY IRA NADEL (2007)

Leonard Cohen

BY STEPHEN SCOBIE (1978)

Get EngagedB4Play Podcasts If you can’t make B4Play in person (see page two for details), you can

hear the full interviews on our website (the respective show page)

and our soundcloud page – soundcloud.com/belfrytheatre.

Select segments from B4Play will air (usually during our opening

week) on CBC Radio’s On The Island.

Tower Talks Catch an in-depth conversation with an artist from each Mainstage

production in our new video series, Tower Talks. We post these to our

website and YouTube channel.

Free Childcare Performance Sunday, November 1

Take advantage of free, professional childcare (ages 3–10) at the

Springridge Early Childhood Centre at 1222 Gladstone Avenue, just a

block from the Belfry (free parking is available right across the street

in the Victoria High School parking lot).

We only have a limited number of spots available. To book your tickets

and a spot for your kids, please call our box office at 250-385-6815.

Afterplay Following every evening performance of Chelsea Hotel (except

Opening Night and Talkbalk Thursday), we’ll host Afterplay - this

facilitated discussion series offers patrons the opportunity to share

their thoughts with fellow audience members after the show.

Talkback Thursday Thursday, October 29

On the second Thursday performance of each show, we bring the

backstage experience onstage. After the curtain call, some of the

actors return to the stage to answer your questions and offer insight

into the play you have just experienced. These Q & A sessions last 15

– 20 minutes.

Mustard Seed Donations During our run of A Christmas Carol (December 1 - 20), we encourage

patrons to bring a non-perishable food item to put under the

Christmas tree for the Mustard Seed Food Bank.

Vocal Eye Sunday, November 8

Trained Audio Describers provide descriptions of the visual elements

of the show, allowing people with low vision to enjoy the theatrical

experience without missing any of the details.Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to learn more during the run of Chelsea Hotel

Get Social

P a r t s & L a b o u r

I think it’s fair to say that most everyone who

attends the Belfry is aware of the exceptional

talent onstage. Watching the cast of Speed-the-

Plow working their magic was an incredible joy.

But what you see onstage is only a portion of what

actors undertake when they work at the Belfry! We

ask all sorts of favours of them, and they inevitably

respond with generosity.

Belfry 101, our education program, provides high

school students with a window into professional

theatre, while nurturing their self-confidence and

social awareness. The actors in each production

meet the students prior to the performance, and

hold a private question-and-answer session with

them afterwards. Often one actor from each cast

will conduct a masterclass in a specific theatre skill.

The actors graciously take part in B4Play, our

live talk show hosted by CBC Radio’s Gregor

Craigie, and Talkback Thursday, our post-show

question-and-answer session between the actors

and the audience. Check page five for details on

these events.

Earlier this year we introduced The Director’s Circle,

a new opportunity for donors, and people like you,

to get closer to the backstage world of the Belfry.

Our first event, at the beautiful Villa Marco Polo Inn,

featured Brian, Celine and Vincent from Speed-the-

Plow, talking about the play, and “life and art.”

The feedback was enthusiastically positive – thanks

in large part to the goodwill of our actors. The

next Director’s Circle event will include a “Fezziwig

Shop Party,” to coincide with our remount of

A Christmas Carol.

We love to watch them onstage. We love to interact

with them offstage. I know actors love this theatre,

and love performing on our sweet stage for our

wonderful audiences. So often they go above-and-

beyond – and I sincerely thank them all.

MICHAEL SHAMATA

Longtime Belfry patron Kirk Northcott first got the theatre bug by acting in community theatre productions in other cities. He appeared in The Mousetrap in Kitchener, and performed in the chorus of South Pacific

at Rainbow Stage in Winnipeg.

Kirk and his wife Beate have been attending the Belfry since the 1970s when they

relocated to Victoria. Some of the memorable actors they recall seeing over the decades

include Rod Beattie in The Wingfield Series, Thea Gill and Nicholas Campbell in Proof, and

the plays Sylvia, Homechild, 2 Pianos 4 Hands (twice), Number 14 (twice), and last season’s

The Rez Sisters. Kirk points out that actors such as Beattie and Brian Linds - who has

played a role in many productions - have helped make the Belfry what it is.

Kirk, who has used a wheelchair for the past twenty years, says he has found the theatre

to be very accessible. He observes that “the Belfry is supported by so many people

around town because it provides Canadian talent with an outlet. Beate and I became

annual donors not only because of our love of theatre, but because the Belfry brings a

very professional type of theatre to Victoria, and features Canadian talent. We have been

so moved over the years by Belfry productions, whether to laughter or to tears.”

Asked if there is anything he would like to see more of, or done differently in the future

at the Belfry, Kirk has one simple answer: “No.” He commends the Belfry for creating so

many different outreach programs such as B4Play, as well as studio and youth programs

(e.g. Belfry 101 and the Belfry Leadership Training Program) to attract more people to

the theatre.

Thank you Kirk and Beate, for all your enthusiastic support over four decades!

For more information about the many ways to support the Belfry, including becoming a

monthly donor, please contact Development Manager Susan Stevenson at 250-385-6835

ext. 229 or development@belfry.bc.ca.

Kirk Northcott looks back on 40 years at the Belfry Beate and Kirk Northcott with granddaughters

Breanne and Emma Northcott

Chelsea Hotel PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

October 20 – November 15 · Tuesdays – Thursdays at 7:30 pm

· Wednesday Matinees at 1 pm ( October 28 / November 4, 11 )

· Fridays + Saturdays at 8 pm

· Saturday Matinees at 4 pm

· Sunday Matinees at 2 pm

Audience Engagement Schedule B4PLAY · Saturday, October 24 at 11 am TALKBACK THURSDAY · October 29 CHILDCARE MATINEE · November 1 at 2 pm AFTERPLAY following evening performances VOCALEYE described performance · Nov. 8

A Christmas Carol PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

December 1 – 20 · Tuesdays – Thursdays at 7:30 pm

· Wednesday Matinee at 1 pm ( December 9 only – s o l d o u t )

· Fridays + Saturdays at 8 pm

· Saturday Matinees at 4 pm

· Sunday Matinees at 2 pm

· Sunday Evening at 7:30 pm ( December 20 only )

How to buy ticketsBy telephone

250 385 6815 Please have your credit card ready, as well as the

date and time of the performance you wish to attend.

Online Visit belfry.bc.ca/tickets

and buy your tickets online, anytime.

In person Drop by our Box Office.

We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express,

debit card, cheques, and, of course, cash.

belfry.bc.ca

Set Dressing Our new column features the world of the Belfry in numbers and

facts. In anticipation of our upcoming production of A Christmas Carol

we thought we’d give you some insight into what it takes to create

and run the show:

23

330

Five Hundred

Production people to put the show together. That

includes carpenters, painters, technicians, cutters,

seamstresses, stage managers, wranglers, a wig

mistress and a coach.

Electrical motors

will power different

parts of the set.

fifty1 5 0 0

Loads of laundry

each week.

Costume pieces in the show.

Meters of handmade garlands.Meters of cable.

Production people to run

the show. That includes

stage managers, technicians,

dressers and wranglers.8

Calendar

Belfry Theatre 1291 GLADSTONE AVENUE

VICTORIA, BC V8T 1G5

40TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON SPONSORS

PUBLIC FUNDERS

AChristmasCarol

BY Charles Dickens ADAPTED BY MICHAEL SHAMATA

1291 Gladstone at Fernwood, Victoria

“Couldn’t possibly be better…

the best holiday show I know…”

TORONTO STAR

T I C K E T S O N SA L E N OW250 385 6815 / belfr y.bc.ca

2015

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