Σύνοψη επεισοδίου
One question, asked of every person who built the show. On the last day, the answer goes to the people in the seats. Every conversation in this series ended the same way. Same question, same words, read off a cheat sheet so jD wouldn't botch it: if this production does what you hope it does, what do the people in the seats walk out of the theatre feeling? He asked the producer. He asked the director, both writers, and the cast. And somewhere along the way it became clear that the people who made It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken can't really answer it (not from up on the stage). They can hope. Then the lights go down, and it's out of their hands and into yours. So Day 5 of 5 hands the mic over. The company tells you what they were hoping for. Fans of The Tragically Hip tell you what they walked in with - excitement, nerves, a healthy suspicion of anybody who messes with an arrangement, and, in one case, two packs of tissues. Then opening night from the other side of the curtain, where it turns out…
One question, asked of every person who built the show. On the last day, the answer goes to the people in the seats. Every conversation in this series ended the same way. Same question, same words, read off a cheat sheet so jD wouldn't botch it: if this production does what you hope it does, what do the people in the seats walk out of the theatre feeling? He asked the producer. He asked the director, both writers, and the cast. And somewhere along the way it became clear that the people who made It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken can't really answer it (not from up on the stage). They can hope. Then the lights go down, and it's out of their hands and into yours. So Day 5 of 5 hands the mic over. The company tells you what they were hoping for. Fans of The Tragically Hip tell you what they walked in with - excitement, nerves, a healthy suspicion of anybody who messes with an arrangement, and, in one case, two packs of tissues. Then opening night from the other side of the curtain, where it turns out…
Επεισόδια
Episode Five - Curtain Up
ΑκούστηκεOne question, asked of every person who built the show. On the last day, the answer goes to the people in the seats. Every conversation in this series ended the same way. Same question, same words, read off a cheat sheet so jD wouldn't botch it: if this production does what you hope it does, what do the people in the seats walk out of the theatre feeling? He asked the producer. He asked the director, both writers, and the cast. And somewhere along the way it became clear that the people who made It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken can't really answer it (not from up on the stage). They can hope. Then the lights go down, and it's out of their hands and into yours. So Day 5 of 5 hands the mic over. The company tells you what they were hoping for. Fans of The Tragically Hip tell you what they walked in with - excitement, nerves, a healthy suspicion of anybody who messes with an arrangement, and, in one case, two packs of tissues. Then opening night from the other side of the curtain, where it turns out…
Episode Four - The Music
ΑκούστηκεA percussionist who couldn't swing, a chart that changes time signature every bar, and basic tracks cut at the Bathouse in Bath, Ontario. You know what these songs are supposed to feel like. jD has been carrying 'Courage' around since the fall of 1992, and he walked into this one bracing for jazz hands, a key change nobody asked for, and somebody belting 'Bobcaygeon' from the lip of the stage with their arms out like they were hailing a cab. Day four of It's A Good Life is the one every fan of The Tragically Hip walked in nervous about. The music. Trust was yesterday. Courage and hope come back today, and all three have to hold. So jD went and found the people who held the songs in their hands: the music supervisor, the musical director, the man who wrote the Middle Eastern music, and the producer who made two records with The Hip and then made the original cast recording. One of them saw the band in Calgary in the eighties, back when he was playing bars there himself. None of them came at this lightly. Gord…
Episode Three - The Craft
ΑκούστηκεMay 3rd, Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. Mary Francis Moore walks jD right up to the wings and stops, because of a rule he didn't know about. Mary Francis directs "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," and the tour so far has been the design studio, the stage management office, and the green room where the cast can watch the stage between scenes. Then the wings. That's as far as jD goes. (Nobody wants to be the guy who breaks the magic.) That's day three of It's A Good Life, five episodes, one a day, all week, from The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Yesterday was the cast. The Craft is everybody you don't see - the director, the choreographer, the guy who built the world on the stage, and the guy who lights it. jD went in braced for gear talk, cues, rigging, and words he'd have to look up later (he still couldn't tell you what a fly gallery does, and Mary Francis showed him one). There's a little of that. Mostly there's one word, from almost everyone he talked to. Trust. Scott Penner had to hand in his set…
Episode Two - The Players
ΑκούστηκεMay 1st, opening night in Hamilton. On jD's left, a fan of The Hip who doesn't do musicals. On his right, a woman who's never heard of them. His buddy David is the first one, and he mentions the musicals thing on the drive in (great timing, David). The second is 82, the mother of a Theatre Aquarius subscriber, and she knows nothing about The Tragically Hip. Nothing. Then intermission. Guess which one of them ends up at the merch table. Two people, same row, opposite ends of the room, and when jD told that story to the cast, Brandon McGibbon said it was the whole job in one sentence. That's day two of It's A Good Life, five episodes, one a day, all week, from The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Yesterday was where the idea came from. The Players is about the people who have to stand up there and carry it. Seven of them sat down with jD between April and May, and when he asked how they found The Hip, most of them didn't tell him a story about a band. They told him a story about Canada. Ali Momen came here from…
Episode One - Setting the Scene
ΑκούστηκεApril 19th, around four o'clock, outside Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. jD is about to sit with the whole creative team, with no idea what's coming. The first preview is three days out. jD bought a ticket for April 22nd thinking it was the premiere. It wasn't (musicals have previews, it turns out - lesson one of about 400). That's the spirit of It's A Good Life, five episodes, one a day, all week, from The Tragically Hip Podcast Series: one fan, uncool and underqualified, let into the rooms where "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" got made. It's the first musical built from the songs of The Tragically Hip, and it's moving to Kingston. Setting the Scene starts at the start. Where the idea came from, who said yes, and how a story about a man who can't go home again ended up in Kingston, of all places. But first, the question nobody wants to ask out loud: what is a musical, anyway? Jen Towndrow, Armand, and Autumn McDonald love them, and they make the case. One fan who walked out of a jukebox show wondering…