Month: July 2014

It’s 1934, Cleveland, Ohio, the Grand Opera House. 

Tenor Tito Morelli’s appearance, for one performance only, will be the greatest coup for the management, for the Opera Guild, and for opera fans since the Cleveland Opera first opened its doors. Everyone, from the hotel bellhop to the socially prominent president of the Opera Guild, is keyed up with excitement and desperate to make a good impression on the great man. This is Cleveland’s cultural chance!

And of course, it is all going to go spectacularly and hilariously wrong! 

Upper Canada Playhouse’s new show, Lend Me A Tenor, opens July 31 and runs to August 24.

“This is a farce in the truest sense of the word,” said director Donnie Bowes. “Something goes wrong very early, and people make fateful decisions that also go wrong. In just a few moments, everything changes dramatically.”

The play, by Ken Ludwig, was revived on Broadway in 1989, and received nine Tony Award nominations. It has remained enormously popular with audiences world wide, and also with actors who perform in it. 

“This is truly the best written farce I’ve ever been in,” said cast member Liz Gilroy, who will be playing Maggie, a star struck young woman quite “crazy about Tito.”

Patti Kazmer, who takes on the role of Julia, the elegant if “rather pushy” president of the Opera Guild, agrees. “This really is a classic comedy.”

Bowes has brought together a multi-talented cast of eight for this third production of the Playhouse  summer season.

In the lead, as ‘Il Stupendo’ himself, is Sheldon Davis, who has acted the role in other productions, and once, some years ago, at the Playhouse. He was asked how he keeps a familiar character like Tito fresh and alive.

“Actually we find ourselves mining what was there before,” Davis said. “It is such a funny, funny play. The qualities and thoughts of the characters are all in a shoebox in our minds, and we bring them out and blow the dust off. And new people always create new energy and a new dynamic for the play.”

The actors are having fun with their roles.

Susan Greenfield is Maria, Tito’s volatile wife, who is very jealous of his attraction to women. “I also need to be constantly aware of my Italian accent,” she laughed.

Parris Greaves is Max, the harried assistant to the opera’s manager, desperate to ensure that all goes well, and doomed to see that all goes wrong.

Playhouse newcomer Ed Sahely is the slightly overbearing opera house manager, Henry Saunders. He wants a theatrical hit, no matter what he has to do to get it.

AnnaMarie Lea is Diana, a soprano scheduled to play Desdemona to Tito’s Othello. But what she wants is to get out of Cleveland and on to the grand stage of the Metropolitan Opera: she is prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve that ambition.

Rounding out the cast, as an idol worshipping Bellhop, is Doug Tangney. Like just about everyone else in the play, the Bellhop is determined to get close to his ‘hero’, the great Tito, no matter the circumstances.

John Thompson has designed a  colourful period set for this production. “He’s had a lot of experience designing period shows,” said Donnie Bowes, “and has incorporated the trims and architecture of the 30s in the set pieces. It’s striking.”

To a person, the actors rave about the costumes created by Alex Amini for the Playhouse’s Lend Me A Tenor. 

“Alex just has a wonderful sense of us and our characters. She creates beautiful costumes,” said Patti Kazmer.

“Alex has ‘dressed’ 70 shows this season alone,” Bowes said. “She works closely with the director and later with each actor, offering various costumes and various qualities to enhance that character. Every costume is completely unique.”

With a beautiful set, striking costumes and a cast of lovable, rather mad and certainly hilarious characters, Lend Me A Tenor will definitely be a Playhouse hit. 

For tickets, contact the Playhouse at 613-543-3713.

[…]

The passing ships aren't the only spectacle attracting visitors to the Iroquois Locks. Visitors and Photographers are quite taken by the majestic beauty of this osprey family. Osprey mature at two years of age. In youth, their eyes are orange, and then they become yellow in adulthood. Ospreys often next upon man-made structures, and have a high nest fidelity, often returning to the same nest after migration. They mate for life, and are devoted parents. This nesting platform was erected a few years ago when a nest had to be moved from a crane structure. The parents are often seen, keeping a watchful eye from the nearby crane. The young are full-grown at six weeks and leave the nest at 8-10 weeks for their first flight.

Images by Terri Laurin

 

[…]

Splashdown is only days away. Organizers of the 44th annual Tubie Festival can hardly believe it’s Tubie time already.

“Bringing back the good old days of Tubie has been fantastic for us, as organizers,” said Geraldine Fitzsimmons, manager for the South Dundas Chamber of Commerce, which took over organization of the decades old event just this year.

This year marks the return of the ‘marathon’ style race, which will feature one race only, from Arlor Haven campground in Mariatown to the Morrisburg Beach.

Fitzsimmons says that the work of Kevin and Lois Casselman, in guiding this new committee through the organization process has been key, and the committee can’t thank them enough, as well as those at Arlor Haven for allowing the use of that site as a launch point for the race.

The committee feels that the move back to the traditional race has created a real buzz around this year’s event around the community.

The parade, featuring participating Tubie crafts, and their plays on this year’s theme “It’s going Tubie a Splash” takes place Saturday, August 2, at 1 p.m., and follows the same route as year’s past, parading along Lakeshore Drive to Augusta Street, Fifth Street, Main Street. 

The dance, featuring local band, One Night Standards, takes place under the stars Saturday night, at the Morrisburg waterfront between the Docksyde, the washrooms and the Lions shelter.

The race starts Sunday, August 3, at noon at Arlor Haven in Mariatown. The title of ‘Kings and Queens of the River’ goes to  the first team to paddle their way to the Morrisburg beach.

“The president of the Chamber of Commerce, and the whole Tubie Festival Committee are really glad that we have taken on the Tubie Festival. It is such an important tradition for South Dundas,” said Fitzsimmons. “We are all ready for a party this weekend.”

The committee is already planning for the future of the Tubie Festival and has some ideas on how to continue to build the event next year, and beyond.

[…]

Five years after the federal and provincial governments announced that they would grant $18 million to South Dundas to fully fund construction of a new waste water treatment plant in Iroquois, the plant is up and running and producing the highest quality effluent for discharge into the St. Lawrence River.

Late mayor Charles Barkley played a key role in securing this funding, which he knew about before his death June 17, 2009. 

The new plant has been running for 1.5 months. It took about two years to complete construction. Monday, July 28, construction and government officials gathered on site to celebrate its completion, and tour the new $18 million facility that provides a secondary treatment process, which improves the quality of wastewater effluent. 

MP Guy Lauzon spoke fondly of Barkley and his determination to make government officials aware of the need for this much needed project that the small community of Iroquois could never afford, at Monday’s completion event.

“For years, I don’t think there was ever a time when I saw Charles that he didn’t mention this project,” said Lauzon, who still remembers the emotion of the official funding announcement event that took place three days after Barkley’s funeral. 

The final project cost was $18,062,067. The governments of Canada and Ontario each contributed $9 million, with South Dundas providing the remaining $62,067.

South Dundas mayor Steven Byvelds spoke about the importance of that funding for this project. He explained that if the sewer users of Iroquois had to foot the bill for this project under the traditional one-third funding formula, the new plant would have cost each user $8,500. “We need to really recognize the importance of this grant. It is a big savings to the users of the Iroquois waste water treatment plant,” he said.

The new plant is currently operating at about one-third of its total capacity.

Not only does the upgraded plant better protect the environment and ensure the health and safety of local residents, its increased capacity allows the Municipality of South Dundas to treat sufficient wastewater to support future growth.

“Without our partners, this would not have happened,” said Byvelds.

The new Iroquois waste water treatment plant is fully automated, but can be run manually, if necessary. It features UV disinfection and has a storm water tank to allow the storage of storm water in large rain events to avoid over taxing the system and virtually eliminating the possibility of ever having to bypass the treatment process.  

Project contractor was J.C. Sulpher Construction.

Ian Kemp, supervisor of water and wastewater operations for the Municipality of South Dundas is happy to report that the new plant is running extremely efficiently. “The product we are producing here is exceptionally good,” he said. He explained that by Ministry of the Environment standards up to 200 e.coli per 100 ml is allowable. “This has two,” he said holding up a 100 ml sample of clear water, the product being discharged from this plant.

[…]