BOYS in the NEWS

Hey Everyone,

For those of you who didn't catch it last month, a story promoting THE BOYS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH appeared in the mother of all Broadway theatre websites, Playbill.com.

Copy and paste this url into a new tab to read the full article entitled "Madden, McMillan and Peck to Star in Lloyd Webber and Elton's Boys in the Photograph": www.playbill.com/news/article/120410.html

Hmmmmm. This is a fascinating story. You may recall that my offer was to play the lead dude in TBITP in Winnipeg in April-May 2009, followed by a Toronto run in May-June. There were full-page colour ads in the newspapers advertising the show in the Mirvish season. Excited, I eagerly agreed. Then, things started to get, well, interesting. The contracts were slow to arrive. And when they did, they were quickly revised to eliminate the Toronto portion of the run. Meanwhile, the Toronto run of the show was still being advertised. Confused, we waited for answers, explanations, anything. None came. Nothing changed.

The popular sentiment was that maybe Mirvish had to pull out of the Toronto run because of their legal issues with their competitor, Dancap. But then this Playbill.com story appears August 13th, out of the blue, saying the show will play Toronto after all. But, no changes had been made to our contracts. Still confused, nobody I spoke to could figure out why this story ran when it did, nor why it still contained erroneous information.

Then, exactly one week later, the newspapers reported the court case between Mirvish and Dancap has been resolved in the Mirvish's favour. Meaning that they will go ahead with their purchase the Canon and Panasonic theatres, and program whichever plays they like. Good news! TBITP is going to play the Canon after all. Just like it says in the Playbill.com article, right?

Uh, not so fast, Mister. If one goes to the Mirvish website today (copy and paste this url: www.mirvish.com/ComingSoon/) it appears that their May-June show is none other than... RIVERDANCE! Huh?

It appears there may be other goings-on behind the scenes. I have some suspicions, but won't waste space on them here.

So, now what? These are the facts, as I know them. The Winnipeg run is still on. The Mirvish's are still co-producing TBITP with the Manitoba Theatre Centre, meaning they are throwing a bunch of money into the production. The Mirvish's still hold the rights to produce the show in Toronto, and apparently intend to do so. But nothing is set in stone.

OK. So, what am I going to do? Well, I actually decided months ago that I would go ahead and do the show anyway. I mean, in spite of all this crazy stuff, this is still a very good offer to play a great part in an exciting show with top-notch musical theatre artists. Trust me, these types of offers do not come along very often.

However, accepting it means I will not be back at Shaw next year, after eight consecutive seasons. It's taken quite a while, but after much soul-searching, I have come to peace with this decision. I believe getting this offer happened for a reason. I am ready to go wherever it takes me. Whatever happens, I know I'll land on my feet.

One thing's for sure, though. This story surely isn't over yet. I'd bet this journey continues to be very interesting!

Let me know what you think, friends. That little icon below that says "comments"... please use it.