Lilt of Laughter, Trace of Tears 2025

 

Lilt of Laughter, Trace of Tears

In 1999, while working at the Gravenhurst Opera House, a lifetime family friend, Charlene Herrold, sent me a copy of her book, “Lilt of Laughter, Trace of Tears”. None in our family knew she was an author in addition to being a painter, interior designer, director, producer and stage manager. Upon finishing reading, I realized that what I held in my hand was a series of theatre pieces. I vowed that one day these stories would reach a wider audience. Before she passed in 2009, Charlene gave me her blessing and now “Lilt of Laughter, Trace of Tears” is a one-hour one-man show touring Ontario.

No, you don’t need to be Irish to enjoy this production. Universal themes of love, loss, friendship, and hardship, are adeptly tucked into the text. This show has been compared to Dan Needles’ Wingfield Farm in terms of style, charm, intimacy and humour. The audience is treated to a vast array of delightful characters ranging in age from 18-88 and including, Terrible Tom O’Malley, The Big and Little Jimmies, Devlin Haggerty (a corpse), Fiddler O’Flaherty, the Widow O’Donnell and even the cat, Frances O’Feline, to name but a few.

Personally, I love community halls as well as intimate theatre spaces and so far the show has played to sold out performances in Collingwood (Theatre Collingwood’s, Porchside Festival), Barrie (The Edgar Community Hall), Guelph’s ArtBar (a newly created arts venue) and numerous cafes, festivals, and arts events.

It’s a perfect show for smaller theatre spaces and rural communities and for arts groups that are looking for a live theatre show to round out their performing arts roster. It’s great for producing companies and community theatres, who occasionally need a quality offering for their patrons, but want to avoid overhead production costs. For more information visit https://www.jaywalkingguelph.ca or write jaywalkingguelph@gmail.com 519 820-3269.

Top of the morning to you and the cream of the day.

Spitfire

Currently working on this play. It's quite personal.

My mother lost her first husband during WW 2. He flew a Spitfire and was shot down flying back to base. He left behind my brother who was a baby at the time. I don't know if the two ever saw each other.

I was born many years later. Mom had remarried. My brother and I were 14 years apart in age.

The play deals with the effects of war, how sometimes the injured never see battle. War scars families for many generations.

When I was about 10 or so my brother came home for a weekend. He was a figure skater with Ice Capades. He brought everyone a present. My present was a model airplane, a Spitfire.

I'm midway through a first draft. We'll see if this has legs.

I've made it!

I hit the big time with my playwriting already and I've just started.

I got my first rejection notice. 

Eric Goudie held a ten minute playwriting contest with an eye to having a reading of the top 3 plays on stage at the Fergus Grand Theatre, to celebrate World Theatre Day March 27, 2025.

My play "The Shelter From The Stormy Blast" didn't make the cut.

So why am I celebrating?

Because I had so much fun trying and that little push has lead to further attempts. 

It's great waking up in the morning and going to work, having no idea what will transpire, yet knowing that at the end of every day I tried my best and enjoyed myself.

I expect that as I continue I will run into others who are also writing plays and now when I read a play I learn so much more. It goes so much farther than just reading the plot. 

What fun. Thanks Eric and I look forward to hearing the winning entries.

Right As Rain

Well my new year's resolution to try my hand at playwriting continues.

The latest one is in two acts. 4 Characters. "Right As Rain"

It's set in the 1890's in southern Ontario. Plans to create a normal family life go horribly wrong. Love is such a complicated emotion.

I say I have finished it and yet I keep rewriting the ending. :)

Social Media

Currently you can find me here:

jayskis.bsky.social 

Self Producing

It just doesn't work anymore.

The days of cost effective promotion are over. Social media is so toxic that I refuse to create and share events, visit group pages, and tell my "friends" about upcoming performances. 

Email newsletter platforms are now too expensive, and if I am spending a lot of my time unsubscribing, so is everyone else.

Eventbrite or other on-line ticketing services are now too cluttered and too expensive.

Covid decimated local theatre spaces. The result is that they will accept anything if it pays the rent, even if that means ignoring their mandate to present only live theatre.

Local media is dead or dying. Certainly it's standards have been chopped off at the knees.

It's just no fun anymore. Sigh

Playwriting

Something new for 2025.

Local live theatre booster Eric Goudie, put out a call at the end of 2024 asking people to submit a 10 minute play. A few would be selected for a play reading at the Fergus Grand Theatre to celebrate World Theatre Day, Thursday March 27, 2025.

A 10 minute play felt doable. Although I knew that might be deceiving, because they say poetry is taking a full length novel and reducing it to ten lines. 

ANYWAY, I gave it a go and thoroughly enjoyed the exercise.

Many times throughout my theatrical journey I have had to compose scripts or texts. Sometimes for child drama presentations or adult workshops. Under pressure and time constraints, I was able to whip something off because procrastination was not an option. Were they good? Well let's just say they were not dreadful.

What scares me most about writing is the constant rewriting. It's so damn hard to stay motivated after the initial "ah ha" moment of inspiration. Now the drudgery begins, like every creative endeavour.

Still, that experience of writing a ten minute play was, on the whole, lots of fun and extremely rewarding. I was able to say after several hours and many rewrites, "I did it"!

I love performing. I know I am in my comfort zone when I do it, however the media landscape has changed drastically in the last few years and self promoting live shows is increasingly depressing. I have come to loath social media. I miss the days of newspapers, local theatre reviews, and print advertising.

The nice thing about playwriting is I can keep it a solitary activity (and yet here I am - the irony is not lost on me).

Still, I have just finished a full length play, two more 10 minute plays and am now struggling with two more full-length drafts. Will I now die trying, or will this move forward? I don't know.

What I do know is many years ago when dabbling with the story of The Unfortunate Man, I initially wrote it as a play. I threw a play reading party, which was loads of fun and I learned then that I was not a playwright. That play went on to become a walking tour.

My latest full length play, based on the notorious story of Burke, Hare and Knox, a 19th century tale of murder, will make for another marvelous play reading party if nothing else. Stay tuned for details and if this sounds like fun, reach out.