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1 February 2016

Thanks Winnipeg! Thanks Calgary!

Arrived home today after a month away: 26 performances in the last 27 days (a week in Calgary at the amazing High Performance Rodeo, and three weeks at the fabulous Prairie Theatre Exchange).

I am feeling effusively grateful for all the people who continue to make this work and this life possible.

And I’m so happy to see my beautiful wife Suzanne who keeps me sane and puts up with my creative wanderlust.

Filled with thanks for all the brilliant theatre artists and musicians who are and have been part of the evolving journey of SPIN: my wingman, collaborator and unflagging tour-mate Brad “the ‘stash” Hart. That’s Canada’s Foremost Bicycle Percussionst.

Touring TD extraordinaire, Shanna Miller, fab designer Beth Kates, trusted director Ruth Madoc-Jones, and ingenius composer of string arrangements, Michael Holt. For this tour we were so lucky to have the brilliant talents of Kathleen “keepin it klassy” Kajioka, Angela “the fascinator” Rudden and Kevin “the very foxy” Fox as our string trio. And, everywhere we go, I feel the creative spirits of essential collaborators Don Kerr and Anna Friz  inside the music.

And then there’s the Canada Council for the Arts who helped make it possible to bring the strings on this tour.

And the curatorial leadership of my colleagues Ann Connors and Robert Metcalfe, (for the generally amazing things they are doing, and) for inviting us into your seasons.

And then there are those fierce Manitoba women who fought to become the first women in Canada to win the right to vote in our country, 100 years ago last week.

And all the women who learned to ride bikes in corsets and floor length dresses, and those who were the first to scandalize society with their ankle-length bloomers- upon whose shoulders we ride.

Peter Zeutlin for researching and writing a book about his great grand Aunt, Annie Londonderry, so that I and so many others might finally learn her story and be inspired by her record setting bike ride around the world in 1895.  And Mary Goldiner, Annie’s granddaughter, for writing to me after she heard my song and bringing the story full circle.

I’ll have to do the exact math another day, but we’ve now cracked 200 performances of this show. And it’s not over yet.

Meanwhile big thanks to my fabulous colleagues at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre for holding down the fort in style while I’ve been on the road. And for audiences and theatre colleagues in Calgary and Winnipeg for welcoming us so warmly.  THANK YOU.

Now I need a nap.