Public gets a peek at Whistler’s first ever full-length Musical

For the past 13 months, a new “theatre project” has been hatching in Whistler, and it will have its first public airing at a workshop performance to be held at MY Millennium Place on Saturday December 19, 2009.

Snow: An R-Rated Whistler Musical has been loosely described as what happens when Peter Pan arrives on the set of HAIR, with half the chorus from The Moulin Rouge along with the boys from Neverland.

A Whistler musical should defy description, especially one developed and scripted by a sarcastic columnist, a ski-bumming herpetologist, a sexperimental New Yorker and an Australian dirtbag forced into an immediate collaboratory bond by the threat of someone from outside of Whistler, with no insight into Whistler, being commissioned to write a play about Whistler.

The creative team drew as much inspiration from AC/DC, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, John Syms’ and Colby James West’s My Friend is a Pro and Steve Casimiro on the Ski Bum as Zen Master as from Rogers and Hammerstein or Andrew Lloyd Webber in their attempt to capture Whistler in a way that would not just ring true to locals, but would lob highly contagious musical memes into the minds of people around the world.

Those who saw the 72 Hour Filmmaker Showdown finalist of Rob Boyd is God will have a small inkling as to what’s in store at the workshop performance on Saturday, which is free and open to the public, and will feature a cast of professional actors who are spending the week workshopping for the performance of original songs and script.

But Rob Boyd doesn’t tell it all… When Yuki, a Japanese pro snowboard athlete, arrives in Whistler for her first season away from home, she thinks her biggest task for the winter will be training to win the Core Games. She doesn’t realise she will also have to survive illicit love affairs, sibling rivalry, staff housing, not enough snow, too much snow, avalanches, Australia Day, wet t-shirt contests and corporate take-overs, all threatening to derail her at every turn. How will she get by? With a little help from her friends – Jesse, Jacko, PY and Hiro. Be they in Whistler from Saskatchewan, Australia, Quebec or Japan for a season, a reason, or a lifetime, they’re all emblematic of the classic Whistler story, the story in which people come to the mountains to party and play and get a whole lot more than they bargained for…

Why not do it yourself?

One day, I read the byline that appeared beneath a writer’s story. She had described herself as someone ‘waiting to be discovered’, which struck me as incredibly sad. Noone is on a life mission to uncover writers. But plenty of people are waiting for beautiful art and amazing stories to come up to them, knock on their doors, and entice them to open the shutters of their hearts.

As Dallas Clayton did so beautifully.

I read about him at Soul Pancake, where he’s hailed as a “21st century artist” – someone who combines their skills, talent, genius for connecting with people, artistic vision with the power and possibility of the wired world. In short, he wrote a simple and beautiful children’s book for his son, posted it on his blog, and  just 11 months later, has sold nearly 30,000 copies around the world.

His book is called An Awesome Book.

He took the book on tour – for every copy of the book he sold, he gave one away. To a kid.

As my Japanese teacher used to say: I think there’s something in that for all of us.

Requiem for a Writers Festival Dream

Jennifer Miller at the Whistler Question broke the news in the December 2 issue of the paper, with front page headlines announcing: Whistler Writers Festival cancelled for 2010.

Condolence notes have swamped the Festival Director’s inbox since the story ran.

Despite two years of significant growth in attendance and a concerted effort to draw people from outside the Sea to Sky corridor, the Festival’s executive decided not to continue for another year.  Explained Harvey, “It’s a difficult thing to maintain, especially the calibre and intensity and the type of event we put on.”

The Whistler Readers and Writers Festival, over eight years, brought a wide-range of Canadian authors to Whistler for presentations, seminars and manuscript development workshops.  Featured guests included Giller prize winner Annabel Lyon, 2009 Mayor’s Arts Awards winner Brian Kaufman (publisher of subTerrain), Wayne Grady, Merilyn Simonds, Claire Mulligan, Lee Henderson, Mel Hurtig, William Deverell, Nancy Lee, Caroline Adderson, Carrie Mac, Candas Jane Dorsey,  Mark Forsythe, Elizabeth Lyon, Michael Tippert, Jen Sook Fong Lee, the late James Barber, Paulette Bourgeois, Joseph Boyden, Maude Barlow, Eden Robinson, Susan Musgrave, Charles Montgomery, Ross Laird, Howard White, Stephen Osborne and Mary Schendlinger.