Jovon Everett: TO

Now that I'm safely back in the states, I have a moment to reflect on my month in Toronto. I had a good time in Canada's largest city and can easily see myself living there. Toronto itself is home to 2.5 million people and greater Toronto boasts 8 million residents. The diversity of those 8 million people was obvious whenever I walked down the street (Toronto is second only to Miami in terms of foreign born residents). I lived in the city's downtown core, but found many of its neighborhoods an easy walk or streetcar ride away. I dug Toronto.

Toronto has an extensive network of streetcars in addition to their subway system. While the trolleys were quite crowded at rush hour, at the times that I needed them I found them quite pleasant.

I made myself right at home in my rental apartment in Toronto. I shared the two bedroom apartment with Roy from team wardrobe and the two of us got along famously. There were some other company members in our building as well, so there was always someone to walk home with or hangout with - it was a great arrangement.

The first two weeks went by quite quickly. I mostly laid low and enjoyed being all the way unpacked again. Having a few items in the kitchen cupboards was also a welcome treat! I made dinner for a couple of friends on the first day off. Toronto's St. Lawrence Market and the cooler autumn weather inspired me to stuff some pork chops and make up a pot of corn chowder. Home cooked meals are so rare on the road, I'm glad I could share a few with friends in Toronto! With so many of us in apartments, Toronto had all kinds of opportunities for barbecues, cocktail parties and quieter dinners.

Christopher Gurr hosted a couple of after show soirees - this one welcomed our new Sir Lancelot, Matthew Greer, to the company

Spamalot's home in Toronto was the Canon Theatre. The Canon opened in 1920 as the Pantages Theatre, a vaudeville and movie house. It was a part of the Pantages circuit until the sudden and scandalous end of the Pantages empire in 1930 (when Alexander Pantages was accused of raping an underage chorus girl - he was later exonerated). The theatre was then renamed the Imperial and became a movie house for most of the next 60 years. In the 70's and 80's the building was divided into 6 movie theatres (1 theatre was built on the stage and another was constructed in the trap room). A property dispute allowed Garth Drabinsky (later of Livent infamy) to buy half of the building. This sparked an ownership fight that resulted in Drabinsky gaining control over the whole building and reopening it in 1989 as the Pantages and home to The Phantom of the Opera for more than a decade. When Livent went bankrupt, the theatre was bought by Clear Channel and then by Mirvish (sort of the Schuberts of Toronto - they seem to own every theatre). The Canon Company of Canada bought the naming rights to the theatre in 2001.

Like many older theatres, space at the Canon was tight. Fortunately, Spamalot has played the theatre for more than two months in the early days of the tour and much of the paperwork for condensing things was still in the computer. Francesca spent a good deal of her load-in working through the problems realted to the lack of space. The company quickly adapted to crossing from one side of the stage to the other through the basement and we settled in for our month-long run.

The Canon has two "front doors" - this one is on the busy Yonge Street. Patrons enter this door and cross over the alley on a raised bridge to reach the theatre's lobby.

The Canon's building actually fronts on Victoria Street

Sound check on the stage at the Canon

Until recently, the Canon was home to We Will Rock You, The Queen Musical - they left these signs behind all over the theatre. I can only imagine...

As I said, the first two weeks were pretty quiet, I didn't do a lot of sight-seeing. I spent much of the second week planning a little Monday get-away. For our second week in Toronto, we played a Wednesday matinee but no Sunday evening show - this meant an extra long weekend! We all walked out of the stage door at 4:30, while the sun was still in the sky, and didn't have to be back until show time on Tuesday. I took a trip "up north" to Algonquin Provincial Park. I had a great time and I'll detail that side trip in another post.

In our third week, Spamalot welcomed several new cast members. Candy Olsen, Carissa Lopez and Matthew Greer all joined the company and began rehearsal in Toronto. Their rehearsals took up several afternoons both onstage and in a rehearsal studio. After 20 months with the show, it has become second nature to me now - but watching new people learn it for the first time and give it their spin and energy is good for me. While rehearsals can be sort of a drag, they can also help keep the show fresh.

Roy helps Matthew with his maiden voyage in the Ni Knight costume and stilts

Shortly after she joined the company, Candy celebrated a birthday!

I went for a walk one of the afternoons I wasn't in rehearsal hoping to see the Ontario Legislature Building (there's a photo in my Toronto Cityscape Blog) and ended up at the Royal Ontario Museum. I didn't really know anything about the place, but decided to check it out. Turns out, the place has a huge collection (more than 6 million items in 40 galleries) and is the 5th largest museum in North America. I had no idea. I spent 3 or 4 hours there, just wandering around. During my brief visit I saw exhibits on dinosaurs, Canadian First Nations, Canadian Colonial History, ancient Egypt, dynastic China and Korean history. I left at the end of my visit with 2/3 of the museum unexplored!

No matter how many times I see them, mummies are endlessly interesting

The museum had a big collection of dinosaurs on display - including this stegosaur

On our last Monday off in Toronto, Patrick hosted a barbecue as a farewell gift to the company. Our building had a fantastic roof deck with grills, lounge chairs, a hot tub and a great indoor room - all of which we took full advantage of. Patrick provided the meat for grilling and the libations. I put together an big dish of my Mom's potato salad and headed up to the roof for the afternoon. A large portion of the Spamily as well as some alumni (Jamie Karen is now on the Jersey Boys tour that was also playing Toronto) and guests joined us for fun in the shadow of the CN Tower.

Sarah Lin, Paula and Darryl with the CN Tower in the background (my apartment building was two blocks from the base of the tower). This is just one of a raft of great photos Francesca took at the party...

Patrick doing a keg stand

(I lifted this photo from Nate's facebook page)

As the time in Toronto drew to a close, it started to be embarrassing that I hadn't visited Toronto's signature landmark: the CN Tower. It was doubly embarrassing since, as I mentioned, the tower was 2 blocks from my front door! The weather when we arrived was crystal clear, but nearer then end of our stay it got more unsettled and it seemed foolish to go up in the tower if I couldn't enjoy the view... I awoke the final Thursday to find the skies nearly cloudless, so I called downstairs, woke up DVZ and convinced him that the time had come to ascend the tower. Soon we were riding in the glass elevator up to the 1,100' observation level. I'm glad we went - the view was lovely. The sky was clear enough that we could see the mists rising from Niagara Falls 80 miles away and the outlines of Rochester all the way across Lake Ontario in New York State!

At the base of the 1,800' CN Tower

The shadow of the tower fell across my apartment

(My camera finally returned from being repaired after it's Vancouver kayaking dunk in the ocean!)

The observation deck includes a section with a glass floor - that's more than a thousand feet straight down below my feet! It's difficult to convince your brain that this is a good idea...

Heading into our last weekend in Toronto, we noticed strange works being set up all over Toronto. Scaffolding was being in installed at the end of the alley behind the theatre - a tower was built in the square nearby - lights in the windows of City Hall flashed and chased as we walked home each night. Ken did some research and found that it was all part of Nuit Blanche, an overnight art exhibition sponsored by Scotia Bank and the City of Toronto. From sundown on Saturday night to sunrise on Sunday morning Toronto was transformed into a giant art party. Nuit Blanche translates to "white night" or "all-nighter" from french. The idea began in Paris and has spread all over the globe. This year's Toronto version had more than a million people on the streets over the course of the night - the streets were flooded with people looking at art! Ken and I checked out some of the installations and projects on our way home. They were set up everywhere - banks opened their lobbies, alleys and parking lots became home to performance art, even the mall hosted!

This piece hung in the Eaton Centre Mall. It was a series of giant inflatable rings stacked on top of one another, lit from above and slowly rotating. The effect was mesmerizing.

An artist covered this alley with a drop ceiling and fluorescent lighting to bring the outdoors in and then artistically arranged "garbage".

On Sunday, Spamalot said goodbye not only to Toronto, but to 3 company members as well. Patrick Heusinger (Sir Lancelot), Bree Branker (Ensemble) and Tara-Lee Polin (Assistant Dance Captain) all headed for greener pastures with our closing in TO. Patrick's Mom emailed me and asked me to take some snaps of his final performance. I called the last show, but I did bring my camera along while I ran the deck at the matinee and managed to get a few really good photos during the show. An album of all of them is on snapfish, but I'll wrap up this post with some of my favorites: