As a result of my last blog entry, friends have responded with information about a local organization that is working to help Syrian refugees come to Canada – Kingston area in particular.
The group recommended by two of my friends is the Four Rivers Presbytery at Seeley’s Bay.
Lori Rand reports:
A small group of us here in Kingston are mobilizing. We are partnering with a local organization that has brought one family to Kingston in July, and are in the process of getting ready to receive another family at the end of September. They are currently in a bunker in Lebanon. Learn more about who they are and their story here.
This incredible work has been done by Dawn Clarke, a Minster at the Perth Road United Church, and a team from the Four Rivers Presbytery in Seeley’s Bay, and the Kingston Islamic Society. They still need $25,000 to make this happen – to sustain the financial one-year commitment to the current family, and have the funds for the second family. The hard work of receiving approval from Citizenship and Immigration Canada is already done, but missing link is the financial resources.
Here’s where you can donate. This money goes directly to getting this family to Kingston and supporting the family that just arrived. If you are more comfortable writing a cheque, information can be found here in the left hand column.
Rick Cairns adds this information:
John, I can assure you that aside from the cost of printing some pamphlets and setting up a website, this group is putting every single dollar raised toward sponsoring and settling these families.
An overpaid CEO, you ask? In fact, Save A Family From Syria is a 100% volunteer group.
As far as having “a concrete plan in place to actually bring a refugee family or families to Canada”, you’ll be pleased to know that one family is here, with children starting school next week, and another family (with 4 children) will be arriving in the last week of September.
It is the intention of this group to continue to sponsor more families in the future.
I have reviewed all this and made a donation to this group. I will await other responses to see if there are more local groups doing something similar. I encourage you to look into this one, however, and open your hearts and your wallet to help them achieve their goals. It’s the Canadian way, is it not?
Once again – Here’s a quick link where you can donate right now using a credit card to a local group actively sponsoring Syrian refugee families to come to Kingston area. Tax receipts are issued for donations to this cause.
As the crisis in Syria enters its fourth year, the Aljalim family needs your help.
The lead line in the Kingston Kick and Push Festival programme booklet says “This will be no ordinary theatre festival…” They were right! I was excited earlier this year to see that Kingston was to host a summer festival of five theatre pieces scattered I both time and venue around the downtown core. I vowed to see them all and this weekend I fulfilled my goal.
All of the theatrical events (not quite right to call them all plays) had interesting production features and all told stories in varied ways.
A Chorus Line is a fairly typical Broadway-type musical that lends itself well to be presented by young aspiring singers and dancers. I have always enjoyed the productions mounted by Blue Canoe, the company that put this show on at the Grand Theatre in mid-July and this was no exception. Lots of enthusiastic talented young folks giving a polished set of personal vignettes as they audition for a dancing role in a show. A most enjoyable evening.
Jacob James and Sophia Fabiili in a scene from Shipwrecked! An Entertainment.
Shipwrecked is a three-actor tall-tale about an adventurous life on the high seas. I really liked the imaginative presentation that immersed the audience in the story. The audience was literally washed over by a huge wave, flooded with ping-pong ball pearls, taken to meet south seas natives and introduced to a very friendly dog named Hugo. Kudos to Brett Christopher who directed this show for his creativity and to the small cast that included my friend Jacob James who returned home to Kingston for this show. A delight.
Zahshanne Malik, Audrey Sturino and Zachary Arndt in a scene from Totally Nana’s Ride – one of the Autoshow playlets.
Autoshow was a series of ten minute short plays that happened in and around cars in Market Square. I particularly like the one called Totally Nana’s Ride that happened by an old Dodge parked beside the Bank of Montreal. Some of these playlets were better written than others. Three of them ended with death, which was a bit of a downer. The street noise sometimes made it hard to hear the dialogue sometimes. Some of the plays actually had one or two people get right into the car where the action was happening. At one point a homeless woman passing across the square wandered into the middle of the action and for a couple of minutes actually joined our small audience group to peer into the back of the car where the action was happening. This, of course, added to the whole presentation, rather than take from it.
Tall Ghosts and Bad Weather is a play with some historical background and was presented after dark outside in the graveyard beside St Paul’s Church on Queen Street – the same graveyard where Molly Brant is buried. It was a curious mix of modern day and a hundred years ago, all intricately entwined as actors from both vintages came in and out of the mix, sometimes almost bumping into each other as they moved past one another, seemingly oblivious to the presence of each other. The atmosphere was great and the actors did a good job of presenting the story. A particular credit to them was that, despite three of them being in Autoshow, which I had seen an hour earlier, I did not recognize them in their transformed characters in the graveyard. The Stone Cellar group that produced this play is a local troupe that specializes in historical dramas. Will look for more from them.
My favorite, however, was Ambrose, a personal journey through nooks and crannies inside and outside the Grand Theatre, once again with a series of vignettes all revolving around the theatre magnate Ambrose Small, who disappeared mysteriously in 1919. His ghost, it is said, still haunts the theatres he owned, one of them being the Kingston Grand. In this theatre adventure, audience was taken one at a time through one of two tracks of stories. I spent ten minutes alone with a psychiatrist, lying on a couch and answering questions about my deepest secrets, had a drink at an abandoned bar in the lobby with a sexy distraught woman who managed the theatre, read love letters with one of Ambrose Small’s showgirl paramours, watched as a young masked woman talked with me about taking risks then proceeded to scale part of the wall inside the theatre, huddled under a blanket with a slightly crazy recluse in a creepy dark machine room, and got tied up by three young phantoms after climbing down a fire escape into the alleyway outside the theatre. Could you ask for more in an interactive theatrical production? I understand that some folks actually bailed out at some points, finding the personal involvement too intense. But if you were willing to immerse yourself in the improv nature of this show it became just so much fun.
Earlier in the summer I also enjoyed the Salon Theatre’s Walking in John A’s Footsteps that runs twice daily downtown throughout the summer.
I was disappointed to see the audiences for these many fine productions so small despite the most expensive ticket being $25. How can we expect to have this wonderful, creative, immersive theatre in our community if we don’t support it. I didn’t see anyone I knew in the audience any of the five nights I attended the different shows. Where were you?
With photos shamelessly lifted from the Kick and Push Facebook page!
The long weekend at the first of August had perfect summery weather here in Kingston although it seems that some of Ontario experienced severe thunderstorms. I spent a few hours yesterday by the lake taking about 300 photos of folks enjoying the day. I won’t drop them all on you but hope this few gives you a taste of the day.
I have been a bit lazy about blogging over the summer. Outdoors. On the move. Every once in a while, pulled out my phone to grab a photo. So since a picture is worth 1000 words, here are a few thousand to illustrate the sultry weekend we have had in Kingston, Canada. Summer doesn’t last long enough!
Today has been a beautiful, cold, crisp, clear wintery day in Kingston. Fresh white snow, blue skies, lots of sunshine. My friends in Africa would find this unbelievable. The sun is shining and it is minus 10 degrees. But if you bundle up and soak in the beauty it is truly incredible.
Here is a home movie of the London, Ontario Santa Claus Parade from 1959. It is grainy and dark but that just adds to the mood. We didn’t have HD video on iPhones back in the day.
Slippery the sea lion escaped from Storybook Gardens in London in 1958 and swam down the Thames River, Lake St Clair, Detroit River and Lake Eerie to be captured in Sandusky, Ohio and returned to London. He was famous.
Gordie Tapp is a London- born entertainer who was prominent on CBC in those days on a program called Country Hoedown. He later became better known across North America as a writer and performer on Hee Haw. Gordie Tapp is now 92.
Bob Goulet was a Canadian-raised heartthrob who was born in the US. His parents were from Quebec. He became famous for his portrayal of Lancelot in Camelot on Broadway in 1960 with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. His rendition of “If ever I should leave you” was his signature song. In the early 1950’s he appeared occasionally along with William Shatner on the Canadian version of Howdy Doody. Bob Goulet died in 2007.
James Doohan (Scottie on Star Trek) was also a regular on the CBC’s Howdy Doody. My parents knew his family and would sometimes come home from parties, saying that they had spent some time with him, having no sense of his fame from Star Trek.
Whipper Billy Watson was a Toronto-born wrestler who was very popular at wrestling events in Maple Leaf Gardens. He was known for being a “clean” wrestler and fought the likes of Gene Kininski, Gorgeous George and the Sheik. He was also known for his charitable work. He died in 1990.
Santa Claus has a broad face and a round little belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly. He is jolly and plump. He lives at the North Pole. Children like him.
While cleaning out a closet I found a treasure. Old movies of my family that my Dad must have had transcribed from the little 8mm 3 minute films that were popular in the late ’60’s. The movies are grainy and dark but what a treat it is to see and remember Christmases from 55 years ago.
My Vardon grandparents in this film are younger than I am now. My Dad in 1959 was younger than my eldest daughter is today. I have a granddaughter as old as I was then.
My brother and I were lucky to have both sets of grandparents living fairly close by so we would all get together at one home or another for Christmas, taking turns as to who cooked the turkey. How wonderful it is to hear my mother’s laughter and to see my grandparents images again. All of us having fun.
There was always music. One grandmother played the piano, the other the accordion. My Dad and Grandfather played the fiddle. We had a bass drum, flutes and when he got a bit older my brother played the trumpet. I could play the ukulele and the piano (not at the same time). My mother sang and danced. And laughed.
Rudolph as brightened a family yard now for almost 60 years!
My Dad had made a plywood Rudolph with a red lightbulb nose that always was strapped to the railing of the front porch. My brother Bob still has that Rudolph and posted a picture last week of it in his Hamilton yard.
In 1960 my mom’s cousin and her family came from Montreal to spend Christmas with us. Always fun to get together with “cousins”.
In 1960, John F Kennedy was elected President of the U.S., John Diefenbaker was Prime Minister of Canada, Spartacus and Psycho were on at the movies and Elvis Presley and Chubby Checker (The Twist) were at the top of the music charts. A new group formed that year but not yet known to the world was The Beatles.
Anyone who has worked with Domino Theatre in Kingston, Ontario is familiar with the practical but rather stark actors’ dressing room. White plaster walls, big mirrors, lights and a floating rack of costumes for whatever production is in the works.
Last weekend the crew of Fault were challenged with turning that little room into a location for their movie, presumably a dressing room in the rural “Barn Theatre” where some of the movie action occurs. Last year, scenes on the stage of the “Barn” theatre, in the lobby and lounge and outside the theatre were filmed. An additional pick up scene was required to finish the film and the original location was not available. Fault‘s producer, Barbara Bell, coaxed her Kingston theatre friends to let Fault use the Domino dressing room for this scene.
The crew arrived at Domino around 6 pm after a day shooting outdoors and started to scrounge for set pieces to give the place more character.
Director Leigh Ann Bellamy contemplating how to dress this set.
Now, if you are going to look to dress a set, the best place to be is in a theatre. Soon the small crew came up with pieces of wall and drapes and lights and set pieces that turned one corner of the DominoTheatre dressing room into a wonderfully warm set, rich with great character.
The scene, with Jennifer Verardi and Amelia MacKenzie-Gray-Hyre and directed by Leigh Ann Bellamy was shot from several angles, including one from between the costumes on the rack.
By 11 pm it was a wrap, the props and set dressing all returned to various cubby holes in the Domino Theatre and the crew on thier way home, anticipating one more day if shooting before the movie was in the can and ready for all the work of post production.
In the past year or two I have had the pleasure of working, in varying capacities, with friends who were shooting movies in Kingston and in Kenya. I worked with “director greats” McGuire, Hincer, Nielson and Bellamy and was even a background performer (along with 200 other Kingstonians) in the major studio Guillermo del Toro film, Crimson Peak, shot in Kingston market square in April. It has been fascinating to participate in this process and given me great appreciation for all the work and planning that goes into even few seconds of motion picture.
Here are some glimpses of what you might eventually see and what it took to make that magic happen in Fault. Watch for it.
Leigh Ann Bellamy and Director of Photography, Christian Paulo Malo, contemplate a camera angle.
Daniel Karan is boom operator. Sound is captured with lavaliere microphones hidden in the actor’s costume and an overhead boom. Jennifer’s microphone was in a box of Kleenex on the counter.
Here is what you will see in the movie , or close to it. A far cry from the bare Domino dressing room.
Jennifer Verardi and Amelia MacKenzie-Gray-Hyre in a scene from Fault. When you see two characters quietly talking in a movie scene there is a whole crew only inches away making that happen.
Can there be anything more fun than getting together with your cousins at a cottage in the summer?
* no fish or amphibians were (intentionally) harmed during the making of this video. )Two of the frogs may have ended up a bit worse for wear with some over zealous squeezing.)
It has been a treat this week to walk to work in summer sunshine past gardens filled with brightly coloured flowers. Sure is different from winter! I want to share some of these beauties with you.
johnageddes 