Love You Forever...

So these are the people who brought to life our production of LOVE YOU FOREVER... AND MORE MUNSCH.

We've had two full houses, filled with children who love this show, who love hollering at the dragon, who laugh at the lady with 17 cats, who giggle with delight when Mortimer keeps making noise! And we have the moms who get a little misty eyed during the LOVE YOU FOREVER part of the story.

Luisa Appolloni has directed this amalgamation of five of Munsch's most-loved stories with joy and finesse, finding the delight in tiny details and the life in the big moments. Bridget Bezanson, Stuart Constable & Brianne Tucker get to be silly and wise and noisy and charming, often at the same time, and wear cool costumes while doing it! Our resident technical genius, David Vanderlip, scored again with a great, simple set design and beautiful, simple lighting design, and then he & Donna Moorman & Nancy Garrod found all the bits & pieces to dress the set so it's all these wonderful books in one go. Donna Carlisle did much the same thing in creating a paper bag dress, or two, and working with (resident technical genius) David Vanderlip and the amazing FANCY PANTS KIDS company to put together a superior dragon. Kudos to two kiddos - Travis Whiteman & Bronson Kozdas - for their efforts all summer long, with & without compen$ation. Stefan Patterson again created a great sound for the show and Darrell Nelham is brilliant at painting posters - no, really, painting posters! We have our own little Tolousse Latrec in house! And Mare Lawrie has managed to keep her sanity and the show running by apparently giving up anything else that might be of interest to her; we understand that the daisies & the weeds in her garden are in a duel to the death but knowing Mare, we expect the daisies to win out!

Speaking of Nancy Garrod, as I was a minute ago... I love volunteers who want to have new experiences. Bless 'em all, those volunteers, because we could do nothing without them but especially thanks to those who want more from their volunteer experience and want to give more to it in return. That's Nancy...

Our ushers for this show have been young people - kids ages 13 - 18 or so. I think that's just plain cool. I really do. For them, to get some work experience to add to their (currently) slender c.v. but also for the youngsters in the audience. A bit of an easy-to-imagine role model working right in front of them.

Had a very tiny little boy stand in line for about 10 minutes yesterday to get autographs of the cast and as he was leaving, I asked him if there was anything about the show that he especially liked. He nodded his head, and his mother encouraged him to tell me what. So he did: "Ev'thing!" His mother said it was his first live theatre production, and she expects to take him to lots more now that he had such a good time with this one. Yea!!

More kids, more young adults, more boomers, more cotton tops... theatre needs you all, so come out and have fun, enjoy the experience, share the moment with friends.

And say hello to me coming & going... I'm almost always around.

LOVE YOU FOREVER... AND MORE MUNSCH runs August 24 - 28. Adapted by Stephen Colella & Sue Miner, directed by Luisa Appolloni, starring Bridget Bezanson, Stuart Constable & Brianne Tucker. Call 613.395.2100 for more info & to buy tickets.