By Michael Radoslav

Signage has begun to change over at the Annex Live. Photo by Michael Radoslav/GLEANER NEWS

After a three year hiatus, a legendary Annex hangout is reborn. Dooney’s Café, a once popular destination for artists and politicians in Toronto has returned, replacing the Annex Live.

However, owner Graziano Marchese (brother of Trinity-Spadina MPP Rosario Marchese) has no easy feat returning Dooney’s to its former glory. With a loyal but aging cast of regulars, a new location off highly trafficked Bloor Street, and plenty of seating presently available most afternoons, the café that was once an Annex institution will have to work hard to reclaim its title as community hub.

As the original owner of Dooney’s Café, Marchese left the Bloor Street location in 2008, selling the rights to the Dooney’s name along with it. Under new management Dooney’s ran a short while before becoming the T Café. Marchese opened the Annex Live in the location of the former Poor Alex Theatre.

Originally he intended to cater to an older, more upscale crowd. However, the new establishment struggled to find an identity in the neighbourhood. “The Annex [Live] wasn’t sure what it wanted to be,” Marchese said, “whether it wanted to be a restaurant, or a music venue, or a breakfast place.”

Following more than a year of negotiations, Marchese regained the rights to the name Dooney’s Café. The original Dooney’s was renowned as a popular hangout catering to the local artistic and political community. It famously staved off an attempted takeover by Starbucks in 1995—the words “Save Dooney’s” remain etched in the sidewalk on Bloor, in front of the old establishment. It became a central meeting place for many in the Annex.

As time passed, the crowds began to shrink and, when Dooney’s finally closed its doors, the halcyon days had already passed. Marchese said he wants to recreate that old atmosphere and reconnect with the community in his new location. “[Dooney’s] success wasn’t necessarily the food or the coffee,” he said. “I think it was based on that social part of it.”

“Some left, but the larger community is starting to come back,” said Peter Fawcett, a Dooney’s regular since the early 1990s, who wrote the book Local Matters: A Defence of Dooney’s Café and other non-globalized places, people, and ideas in 2003.

Author and screenwriter Ian Adams has been a loyal Dooney’s patron since day one. “It’s not like its identity is through corporate logos, it was, and still is, about community” he said. “It’s getting to be interesting again.”

“It really means something, something totally different than a [coffee chain], which has the aroma of sitting in an airport watching passengers walk by.”

Unlike its previous location, the new Dooney’s is tucked away on Brunswick Avenue, which will pose some challenges. “Seeing as we’re a bit off the beaten track we’re going to have to work a bit harder,” said Marchese.

Fawcett said the café has lost the “see and be seen” element it once had. There is a small patio out front and a larger one in the back, but it is not the same as the days on Bloor.

There was also a younger crowd that frequented the old Dooney’s at night, Fawcett said, but young customers are few and far between at the new location. New patrons, and in particular younger patrons, will be “necessary in the long run” for the café.

While admitting the importance of drawing a youthful element, Marchese said he has no plans yet to specifically target a young audience.

Regardless of whether Marchese can rekindle the popularity of the original venue or not, Marchese said he is just glad to work under the name Dooney’s again. Ultimately, he said success will depend on how the community embraces this new location.

“I don’t think I can create the culture, I just have two doors. Whoever comes in creates the culture,” he said. “You just leave the doors open for whatever people want.”

By Cara Waterfall

Lucas Lung has the best of both worlds: the amenities of being a downtown lawyer coupled with the gratification of doing public interest work. Photo by Cara Waterfall/GLEANER NEWS

Lucas Lung has an aura of unflappability: he is tall, distinguished, and speaks in a carefully modulated voice. This unruffled persona has served him well in the courtroom, where he has battled Internet hate crimes and elder abuse, among other issues.

But the Seaton Village resident is unsettled by the attention he received for his Young Advocates’ Award for achievement in social justice this summer. “I don’t think what I’ve done in the last several years has been all that extraordinary,” he says. “I think it’s hard to put my record up against other people I know who devote a great deal more of their time and energy to this type of work.”

Lung, 38, sits in an airy boardroom, light flooding through immense windows. The sleek, modern office is one of the perks of being a “downtown lawyer” although his portfolio is anything but ordinary, with about a third dedicated to pro bono files. “Whatever I do, there’s always going to be some public interest component to it,” he says. “I have a very strange practice profile, but Lerners [LLP] has been ridiculously supportive of the work that I do.”

It has been a big year for Lung, who also won a landmark case in immigrant sponsorship this June. The Supreme Court declared that family members who sponsor relatives must support them, regardless of changed circumstances. He modestly describes the outcome as one of “divided success.”

His interest in social justice and strong work ethic stem from his upbringing. After his mother’s marriage “ended quite violently,” she emigrated from China to raise him and his two siblings on her own. Seeing her hard work provided him with the template for how he would conduct his life.

At the time, Vancouver was a city struggling to find its identity amid the influx of Asian immigrants; Lung experienced racism there and his overseas travel exposed him to a host of poverty-related issues.

In 2003, he accepted a three-month internship in Cairo with the Human Rights Commission to produce a report on the insecurities of the Burundian refugee community in that city, who had fled the Rwandan conflict. He was struck by the suffering of a young woman who had been raped by a group of soldiers. “There are things that happen in Canada as well, but certainly not to the extent where there’s an expectation,” he says. “What’s more frightening is that she accepts that that’s just a part of life, and here we would view that as completely extraordinary.”

The Cairenes’ treatment of “foreigners” like the refugees was eye-opening. “[They are] like many other cities in the world that are in countries that don’t have an immigrant history like we do here: they struggle with foreigners.”

It made Lung appreciate Toronto—with its cultural diversity and conveniences—even more. Although his relationship with the city got off to a rough start (as a law student, he stayed at a “dreadful hostel” in Kensington Market where he slept in a chair), he eventually met his future wife in the neighbourhood.

Lung remembers feeling like “a bit of a nomad” in law school compared to his classmates. “A lot of students were very linear in their thinking in terms of their careers,” he says. “There was an expectation that you would end up at a firm, you would keep going, you would become a partner, and you would die, and that’s it.”

Now his focus is “much more community-based.” His calendar has become even more crowded since he became a board member for St. Jude’s Community Homes, a non-profit agency that provides housing to individuals with mental health issues.

He sees all of his files within the context of his practice at the firm. “I don’t really distinguish between my paid clients and my unpaid clients. Your pro bono files have to be viewed as just any other file.”

Lung sees the law primarily as a platform for his public interest work, but it’s also a form of storytelling that fits as organically into his personal life as his professional one. “When I’m standing in court, obviously there’s the legalese, [but] I’m really not saying anything differently than what I would have been saying before I was a lawyer.”

For more information, contact: Mary Ann Freedman, Freedman & Associates Inc. for Lerners LLP

It’s that time again!

The Gleaner is interviewing MPP candidates for Trinity-Spadina and Parkdale-High Park in advance of the Oct. 6 provincial election. We are soliciting questions from our readers that we will compile and pose to candidates on your behalf.

The major party candidates in Trinity-Spadinaare incumbent Rosario Marchese (NDP), Sarah Thomson (Liberal), Mike Yen (PC), and Tim Grant (Green). In Parkdale-High Park the incumbent Cheri DiNovo (NDP) is running against Cortney Pasternak (Liberal), Joe Ganetakos (PC), and Justin Trottier (Green). We are currently trying to track down other candidates, if applicable.

If you have an inquiry for candidates in Trinity-Spadina and Parkdale-High Park please send it to us no later than Friday, August 19 by the stroke of midnight (technically the 20th).

When you send the question, please make sure to include your name (and name of organization, if you are asking the question on behalf of a group or business). Feel free to submit as many questions as you like, though we will likely only publish one. You can send us your questions via Twitter, Facebook, email, snailmail, phone or in person.

Thanks, and we promise we won’t ask you to do this again for another three years!

The Gleaner

(The Gleaner is non-partisan; we do not endorse candidates, and we ask all candidates, including “fringe” candidates, the same questions.)

By Karen Bliss

On BS Fridays, local musicians and artists shoot the breeze. Perry King/Gleaner News

A meeting at a local Starbucks with “Steal My Sunshine” hit maker Marc Costanzo from the pop group Len gave Barbara Sedun, EMI Music Publishing Canada’s senior vice-president, the idea to host a free weekly networking event in the Liberty area.

She dubbed it “BS Fridays,” which stands for her initials and brainstorming. An expletive also comes to mind, but BS Fridays is about exchanging information—not BSing.

“I was having tea with Marc at Starbucks and he needed some information that I felt Erin [Kinghorn, a music marketing expert] could provide to him,” says Sedun, who signed Costanzo many years ago to EMI’s stable of songwriters. Len is returning with a new album after a very lengthy hiatus.

“I called Erin to see if she could join us and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be a great idea for people to be able to share information like this on a regular basis?’ so I decided to start a little networking group.”

The first meeting was on January 28, held at the very same Starbucks (732 Queen St. W.) and after about a dozen meetings it moved to Atelier Cafe Lounge (510 King St. W.) for another dozen. It then moved to Veritas in the east end, but will return to Atelier for Aug. 5 and 12 (to keep on top of location changes, join BS Fridays’ Facebook Group).

Daniel Maclean, who runs Atelier and also works in film, has designed the space for daytime meetings and has WiFi and even a projector available, both free. He offers BS Fridays participants a 10 per cent discount on their food and beverage orders.

When Sedun, whose job involves signing songwriters, is travelling, Kinghorn and Scott Honsberger, music journalist and consultant, keep up the meetings. A Facebook group and Twitter account keep everybody informed of changes, but to date, it is held consistently from 2 to 4 p.m.

“I feel that I’ve got a lot of information in my head that I’d like to share with people that are beginning to establish themselves,” explains Sedun. “I thought that a lot of musicians and songwriters are afraid to approach the music industry, so it would be a really good opportunity to bridge that gap a little bit, to see that the industry is more easily accessible and nicer than they think they are. And it gives them a really casual atmosphere to come and ask questions and get to know people in the industry.”

That particular Starbucks, Sedun noted, had open-mic nights, so she spoke with the manager, Joe Boyd, about holding these meetings there and giving singer-songwriters the option to bring their guitars and play their songs. “I realized that he was pretty community and music-friendly and I wanted to help support him,” says Sedun, “but I told him if it grew too big, we would move it elsewhere.”

Besides Sedun, Kinghorn, and Honsberger, members of the BS Fridays contingent have included Costanzo; Yvonne Matsell, who books the El Mocambo and is co-founder of North By Northeast; Cam Carpenter, a manager and publicist from Cool Planet; his partner, Todd Arkell; musician/video director Hill Kourkoutis and her manager mom, Terry Delaportas; and singer-songwriter Angela Saini.

“Basically, we get together and socialize. No agenda, no mandate, no formal structure,” says Honsberger. “Each week we go around the table—or tables—and do a quick introduction of what everyone does. We try and make it simple for new folks to come out and help us grow the group. Inevitably, the conversation steers towards the music industry, and ideas tend to get thrown around.”

“Every single week, there’s at least one introduction that’s made—that is, one person in attendance hasn’t met one other person in attendance,” he says. “These are the types of real connections that are happening each and every week.”

By Rebecca Payne

The stretch of Queen Street between Dufferin and Roncesvalles will be under the city’s microscope as a restaurant concentration study begins, a move that may prove to be divisive for the neighbourhood, if a recent community meeting is any indication of things to come.

At a heated meeting on June 28 at May Robinson Auditorium (20 West Lodge Ave.), city planner Dan Nicholson and Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park) hosted the first meeting to hear residents’ thoughts about the developments in their neighbourhood in the past few years—namely, a growing number of bars in the area that some residents say has had a negative impact.

Some residents were concerned a concentration study would have a negative impact on the neighbourhood, while others complained about noise and drunken behaviour in relation to bars in the area (the only one specifically referred to by name was Parts & Labour).

Two restaurant owners showed up to the meeting to make the case for their businesses. A man affiliated with Local Kitchen & Wine Bar said he had not been approached by the city, or any residents, before receiving notice of this meeting about “the negative impact of restaurants.” He suggested the city needed to work more closely with those in the restaurant industry.

Another restaurateur, who did not give his name, said the “little guys” might be affected negatively by the results of the study. He felt his business was of benefit to the community, and that he was out there making the community more safe. “Sometimes we’re the only people who are asking drunk [people] to stop and getting people to stop fighting [on the street],” he said.

Some residents agreed that the increase in activity in the area was making it a safer place to be.

“[I’ve been] in the area for the last ten years, and … [it’s a] hell of a lot better now than it was ten years ago, that’s for sure,” said one resident. “And I don’t know one restaurant in Toronto that doesn’t play music when people are eating,” he continued. “Let them dance!”

One Cowan Avenue resident, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 12 years, said “I think it’s a great place to live, [with] people of all different ethnic and economic backgrounds. By and large people get along. It’s becoming posh and they want to throw out dive bars and make it more posh … [I’d like to see] a mix of bars, restaurants, and other stores.”

A similar study was conducted in 2009 for the strip of Queen between Dovercourt and Gladstone, where between 2004 and 2009, 13 new restaurants opened.

In the final report from the 2009 Dovercourt-Gladstone study, several recommendations were made to stop an over-concentration of “late night drinking establishments” in the area, including reducing maximum size of ground floor area for new businesses.

Although members of the working group wanted a new “hybrid” zoning bylaw definition for restaurant/bar establishments, the city did not agree. According to the report, the AGCO “requires at least five entreé items (food) to be available for purchase,” which means these establishments will, in theory, have space dedicated to food preparation, and thus be difficult to distinguish from restaurants. (Although, as noted by Perks, some establishments will merely “have a couple Hungry Man dinners in the freezer” to get around the required food service.)

Perks proposed that a “working group” made up of representatives from interested parties be set up to discuss concerns in detail. This is the same process that was undertaken for the Dovercourt-Gladstone study. Perks’ suggestions for members of the working group included representatives from Toronto Police, the AGCO, MLS, the BIA (one being a restaurant owner and one not), and the Parkdale Residents’ Association.

Some in attendance seemed to feel Perks’ choices for representatives would result in a status quo result. To wit, one attendee suggested they “get a clubber” to participate in the working group. (Perks’ then joked, “I’m so old, no clubber would ever speak to me.”)

The working group will meet at least three times to discuss the issues brought forth at this meeting, and then another public meeting will be held where the group’s findings will be presented.

“Change always prompts concern,” said Nicholson. “A lot of what’s happening on Queen is positive—but there are concerns.”

For more information contact Dan Nicholson at 416-397-4077

Soup Can company’s interpretation of Marat/Sade examines psychiatric testing at McGill University in the late 1950’s. Photo courtesy Scarlet O’Neil

By Síle Cleary

It may only be their second production, but precocious theatre company Soup Can Theatre have taken on a mammoth challenge by reinterpreting the classic Peter Weiss play The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade— or Marat/Sade for short.

“Our mandate is to reinterpret older theatrical works for a 21st century audience,” said Parkdale resident Sarah Thorpe, artistic director of the Soup Can company.

“We thought we’d give it a more contemporary setting in order to make it more interesting and relevant to a contemporary Canadian audience.”

Marat/Sade, written by legendary German playwright Peter Weiss in 1963, received worldwide acclaim after it was performed on stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company under the direction of Peter Brook in London in 1964.

The musical/drama tells the story of the 15 years following the French Revolution, through a band of inmates in a Parisian mental institution, who perform a play about revolutionary leader Marat, under the direction of fellow inmate the Marquis de Sade.

As if the play wasn’t complicated enough, given its play-within-a-play structure, Soup Can Theatre have decided to make life even harder for themselves and stripped Marat/Sade of its early 19th century mise-en-scene and placed it in the world of the McGill University Psychiatry Department, circa 1957.

Thorpe explained that it was at McGill University that Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association, performed psychologically-torturous experiments (including the administration of high voltage electroshock, hallucinogenic agents, and paralytic drugs) on non-consenting patients.

The experiments were performed under the umbrella of Project MK-ULTRA, a covert CIA operation which sought to explore the possibilities of mind control, memory erasure, and involuntary information extraction.

Although the play will be shown in the east end, the cast spent the last few months rehearsing in Parkdale in a converted storefront on Queen Street West called Fixt Point.

“Parkdale didn’t inspire me to put on the play, but it has inspired our creative process; Parkdale is dotted with colourful characters, and they certainly have provided a lot of material for our actors,” said Thorpe. “Since we’ve rehearsed not too far from CAMH, passing by there and by Parkdale’s rooming houses on a regular basis reminds us that the mentally ill are not ‘lunatics’ or ‘boogeymen’ and that we have a responsibility as artists to portray them with as much consideration and tact as the script allows.”

In an effort to avoid stereotypical and insensitive depictions of the mentally ill, each ‘patient’ in the Soup Can Theatre production of the play has been assigned a medically recognized mental disorder appropriate for their character, and has been encouraged to inform their performance based on that disorder’s behavioural symptoms.

“The patients in the play represent a range of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, paranoia disorders, and Asperger syndrome,” said Thorpe.

Thorpe admits that directing such an intricate piece of work has proved challenging at times; however, she says she is doing her utmost to effectively depict the two contrasting worlds present in the work of Marat/Sade. “It’s a little tough at times to try to distinguish between the world of the play and the director, Marquis de Sade and the world of the patients and how they are being treated by doctors in the institution.”

“But at the moment we’re definitely fine tuning and showing how these two worlds can be distinguished.”

Marat/Sade marks Soup Can Theatre’s return to the stage after their Kurt Weill inspired cabaret show Love is a Poverty You Can Sell which took the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival by storm.

The company sold out nine of their 11 shows and were selected to be a part of the coveted ‘Best of the Fringe’ series at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.

In noting the comparison between the two productions, Thorpe said, “This Marat/Sade is much larger in scope than any previous productions.”

“We have a six-piece orchestra and a full set so it will be a lot a lot more challenging.” Nevertheless, Thorpe is confident that her highly talented cast will “bring this play to life” on July 19 (opening night) at the historic Alumnae Theatre.

“Marat/Sade is a play about empowering society’s forgotten,” said Thorpe. “There are a lot of “forgotten” citizens in Parkdale and I hope that our production might inspire them to stand up for themselves.”

(Tickets for the July 19-24 performances can be bought online from the Marat/Sade website here)

By Cara Waterfall

While the Canada Post strike is over, the organization still has its share of headaches. The RCMP said the company has lost millions of dollars because of counterfeit stamp operations in the last year.

The RCMP and police raided 24 retail and commercial stores and seized 40,000 counterfeit stamps and 10,000 authentic, reused ones. The convenience stores sold the forged stamps while the reused stamps were sold online.

Corporal David Sutherland, who heads the RCMP’s Greater Toronto Area Federal Enforcement Section, said that the raids did not involve any stores in the Annex, but counterfeit stamps are circulating in the neighbourhood.“Our investigation revealed counterfeit stamps were mailed directly from within [this area] to other areas of Toronto and beyond,” he said.

However, at least one neighbourhood store is stocking the forgeries. Susan Oppenheim, owner of Java Mama (1075 Bathurst St.), did not realize she had purchased a counterfeit stamp until she got a call from her daughter.

The forgery was flagged with a special rubber stamp that said “counterfeit stamp, return to sender.”

Despite Oppenheim’s desire to keep the store anonymous, she notified the business owners of the counterfeit, and described their reaction as “puzzled.”

The convenience store in question declined to comment on this story.

According to Cpl. Sutherland, stamp counterfeiting does not generally result in jail time, but if found guilty, offenders can face fines ranging from $0 to $1 million.

In March, a one-year investigation culminated in five suspects being arrested including two from Toronto.

Cpl. Sutherland advises local residents and businesses to be vigilant when purchasing stamps, especially if deep discounts are provided.

Canada Post does have measures in place to detect the counterfeit stamps, but declined to provide specific details. “The more we give information on that, the more information people who would like to do it illegally have,” said Latour.

“What is important to remember with counterfeit stamps is that they could be returned to sender at the sender’s cost,” said Canada Post spokeswoman, Geneviève Latour. “It is important to buy from registered dealers.”

Cpl. Sutherland said that they believe that all the counterfeit stamps originated from the same point, although it is unclear whether they were produced locally or imported to Canada. The forged stamps featured the same series of classic Canadian images: lighthouses from the Dec. 27, 2007 series, and the Queen and Vancouver 2010 Olympics images from the Jan. 12, 2010 series.

For more information, call the RCMP at 905-953-7271 or Canada Post at 416-345-7503 ext. 54384, or, mail a letter to Canada Post, Attn: Customer Service, 4567 Dixie Rd, Mississauga ON L4W 1S2

By Nathaniel G. Moore

Things are looking bright for Annex actor Paul Bates this summer.

In addition to a highly anticipated show The Soaps—a Live Improvised Soap Opera at Toronto’s Fringe Festival this month, the entire cast of CTV’s “Dan for Mayor” are up for best ensemble for a Canadian Comedy Award, which will be announced in the fall.

The Soaps, produced by The National Theatre of the World, will riff off the backstage politicking and nervousness that is typical in a Stratford Festival playhouse. Different versions of this play have been running all year at The Comedy Bar on Monday nights.

According to Bates, the play will take you backstage and expose this environment, and the personalities, “those characters who populate that world.”

“It’s more about the intrigue and the drama that goes on,” said Bates.

As for the comedy award, the announcement was a pleasing shock to the actor, who was a guest host announcing the nominations online earlier this month.

Bates plays Jeff on “Dan for Mayor,” a character who can best be described as an awkward and sometimes self-involved oddball who is Dan’s best friend. He just bought the local bar, but up until recently, Jeff worked as a manager at a photocopy store.

The popular show is an urban comedy that has elements of “The Office,” “Gilmore Girls,” and “My Name Is Earl.”

“It’s about a guy who has no experience being mayor in a medium-sized city,” said Bates, who feels the show is much more about the entire cast than an individual focus. “It’s very character-driven … with moments of understated, deadpan humour that sometimes gets physical and goofy.”

“Like Seinfeld, each of the characters has their own story line, and every character is given moments to shine and trouble to get into.”

Before landing his spot on the popular Canadian sitcom, Bates was a senior writer for “The Hour With George Stroumboulopoulos,” and was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for his performance as former mayor Mel Lastman in the hit musical comedy SARSical.

The 13 episodes of season two were shot in eleven weeks, on average four days per episode two episodes at a time. “The interior was shot in North York sets at the old Air Force base in Downsview,” said Bates, also revealing the exterior of the fictional town of Essex is shot in Hamilton and Kitchener-Waterloo.

Speaking about his character, Bates is pleased with how he’s evolving on the show. “Jeff changes in season two a lot, he was Dan’s campaign manager and worked at the photocopy store, and is still very much into being the master of his domain,” says Bates, with a hint of mystery and excitement in his voice. “This season Jeff bought the bar and runs it. He’s still a good guy, still buddies with Dan, but what you see later is this power struggle between Fern [former bar owner] and Jeff.”

Bates said Jeff has a good work ethic and has a “I’m-in-charge kind of vibe.”

In addition to season two and the fringe show, Bates co-wrote the 75th Anniversary special for the CBC called “Long Story Short” which will feature Martin Short. “It’s a thrill for me because I’m a Second City alumnus.”

Fans can expect the special in late summer or early September.

As for Fringe, Bates promises death, and some major swerves. “We’re going to kill someone … beyond that we don’t plan any of it until it’s happening on stage.”

“Dan for Mayor” airs Sundays at 7:30 pm until Aug. 28 on CTV. The Soaps—a Live Improvised Soap Opera, plays as part of the Fringe at the Bathurst Street Theatre (736 Bathurst. St.).

Annex writer Nathaniel G. Moore is the author of the novel Wrong Bar and co-editor of Toronto Noir.

Actors Lucas Meeuse (Oscar) and Jody Osmond (Constance) brace for the giant's arrival. Photo courtesy Peter Frenton

By Reem Jazar

Upcoming Fringe play The Giant’s Garden, starring Annex resident Lucas Meuse, is bringing good old fashioned family fun back to the stage along with a couple musical numbers.

Writers Scott White and Peter Fenton say they were aiming to write a story that the whole family can relate to. Fenton said they were inspired by Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant and wanted to write an adaptation that focused on the core values demonstrated in the classic tale.

“The Selfish Giant is a pretty religious story,” said Fenton. “We wanted to sort of steer away from that and focus on more on the theme of selfishness and replacing selfishness with sharing and friendship and caring for one another.”

Meuse said what drew him to the script and the lead role of Oscar was the moral behind the story and how relatable the story was. “There’s something in it for everyone,” said Meuse. “People of all ages will be able to relate to this story.”

“There are a lot of things adults will able to identify with as well in this story,” said White. “There are sisters who haven’t spoken to each other in years and I feel that is something that a lot of adults can understand.” Fenton said he and White also wanted to tell this kind of story because of the way they viewed the youth of today. “These days kids have a lot more at a younger age,” said Fenton.

“There’s a lot of sacrifice in this story. What I love is that it is about how far you will go for friendship and I don’t think that is a story that is being told very much these days.”

This will not be the first time The Giant’s Garden will be hitting the stage. The show premiered in Orangeville in 2007. White said opening night in Orangeville was a rather emotional time for him.

The Giant’s Garden is dedicated to White’s mother who passed away while he was still working on the play. “She would tell me I couldn’t cut songs when we were trying to finalize the show,” said White. “A lot of family members came to the opening night and there were literally puddles from all the tears.”

The show runs from July 6 to 16 at the Toronto Fringe festival. Tickets are already on sale and the cast will be performing a total of seven shows at the George Ignatieff Theatre (15 Devonshire Place).

Artist Aynsley Moorhouse's installation will explore sound and memory. Photo courtesy Mykola Velychko

By Julia Hennessey

For the first time ever, the Toronto Fringe Festival has officially opened its programming to include visual artists, and according to Gideon Arthurs, barring hate crimes, anything goes.

“People don’t feel like [art is] accessible so they don’t understand it and they don’t interact with the visual arts,” said Arthurs, the festival’s executive director. “We wanted to give the public a chance to interact with it directly at street level.”

Visual Fringe will take place in the heart of Toronto’s largest theatre festival as part of the Fringe Club, located in the Honest Ed’s alleyway at Bathurst and Bloor. Eight of the galleries will be located in the alleyway with a ninth just down the street at A Different Booklist.

The works featured as part of Visual Fringe were “un-juried” at selection, and will be uncensored and un-curated.

Artists and collectives were selected from all over Toronto, including a few Annex residents. Works will be available for purchase at prices ranging from $1 to $3,500.

Arthurs describes one exhibition called the Fringe Tourist Trap, as including fake Fringe merchandise. “Things like an autographed book and posters for Fringe shows that don’t actually exist.”

Another display using alternative media includes work by Annex resident and artist bekky O’Neil. Her exhibition is a “cabinet of curiosity” and uses media referred to by the artist as “toy theatre collage.”

Outside the visual medium, there is a sound installation by Aynsley Moorhouse where audiences will be blindfolded for the duration of the 14 minute piece.

Artists were selected on a first-come, first-serve basis. “We put an application online and we took the first eight that came to us,” he says. The response was tremendous, as “it filled up in about four hours, and we probably doubled the list in that span.”

With such an enthusiastic response, Arthurs says the festival will definitely be interested in expanding the event next year. “Clearly there’s a desire in the visual arts community for something like this. Our next experiment is when we actually run the festival, how responsive the public is.”

Visual Fringe will take place in the Fringe Club located at 581 Bloor St. West, south of Bloor in the Honest Ed’s Alleyway from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. every night from July 6 to 17

By Síle Cleary

Over the past twenty years, Ballet Creole has gone from humble beginnings to carving out a reputation as being the quintessential leader of Afro-Caribbean dance in Canada under the direction of artistic director and founder Patrick Parson.

“When I first arrived in Canada, I tried to seek out a dance company that trained full-time professional dancers in my style of dance but at the time, all I came across were companies who worked only during the weekends or for specific events. So in order for me to dance professionally I had to create my own niche,” said Parson.

Parson, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, was inspired to set up the school after he arrived to Canada in the 1990’s to find that there was no professional dance company fitting to his specific style of dance.

His desire to seek out a professional school of performing arts that encompasses Afro-Caribbean dance eventually led to the fruition of Ballet Creole in 1990.

He attributes his sheer dedication and passion for dancing and performing to his family in Trinidad and Tobago. In particular, his mother, Viola Parson, who was a renowned artistic performer in Trinidad during the 1950s and 1960s, was influential to his career as a professional dancer.

“My mother was named the ‘limbo queen’ in Trinidad and she would tour around Japan and other countries for six months at a time, so my life has always been about dancing.”

As a result of his own upbringing, Parson is aware of the significant role that music and dance can play in the development of children and so he has created classes to meet their needs, including Ballet Creole’s summer camp programme.

The camp, which runs from July 4 to July 15, includes everything from hip-hop dance, to storytelling and drumming, and gives children the opportunity to express themselves artistically as well as to socialize in a multicultural and innovative atmosphere.

In speaking about the camp, Parson said “I believe it is beneficial for children as it connects them to cultural expression, heightens their understanding of socialization and improves their physical and creative health.”

The company’s style incorporates an array of dance forms including classical ballet, African, Caribbean, classical Indian, Irish, popular dance, jazz and hip-hop. Parson plays a pivotal role in the choreography for Ballet Creole and he endeavours to incorporate a fusion of cultures in all of the company’s performances.

Since then the company has progressed immensely and Ballet Creole’s professional group of dancers have performed to sold-out audiences at the Harbourfront’s DuMaurier and Fleck Dance theatres in Toronto, as well as theatres in St. Catharines and Hamilton over the past number of years.

Among the company’s acclaimed performances to date are “the Antagonist,” a collection of new and remounted works by some of Canada’s top choreographers including Parson’s “Trouchka,” which is a dance to Stravinsky’s classical score Petrouchka and “Soulful Messiah,” a culturally infused dance to the Quincy Jones R&B rendition of Handel’s Messiah.

It has not all been smooth sailing for Ballet Creole over the past 20 years though. On occasion, they have been forced to leave their premises and relocate to a new home as a result of noise complaints from local residents.

However, Parson is not easily deterred by this. For him it is all part of the journey. It is likely that he and Ballet Creole will continue to “bounce around” for another 20 years yet.

By Lindsay Tsuji

Former mayoral candidate to run for provincial seat. Perry King/Gleaner News

Former Toronto mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson’s name will be back on the ballot, but this time she’s going provincial. Thomson officially launched her campaign as the Liberal candidate for Trinity-Spadina late last month. The Gleaner sat down with Thomson to discuss her nomination, her platform, and why she’s qualified to represent Trinity-Spadina at Queen’s Park.

How does it feel to be the Liberal nominee for Trinity-Spadina?

It feels like coming home. Before that I was sort of in the middle. You try not to be biased either way in publishing, so you try to keep out of the politics. But I looked at it and said, out of all of Toronto where would I want to run? When I first moved to Toronto I moved on to Harbord Street and Howland. It’s a really diverse riding and I love that. That line that we have in Toronto “Diversity, our Strength”— that is so much the case in Trinity-Spadina.

Some reports indicated that you were going to run in the Parkdale-High Park riding. Is there any truth to that?

That was just a rumour; there was no substance of truth to that at all. The big thing was that I had to pay off my mayoral debts. I’ve always said that I wanted to get involved but I just needed to focus on that debt. I didn’t want to get sidetracked with something else before I was ready.

Rosario Marchese has been a favourite in the area for a very long time. How do you plan to compete?

I look around and say, what has he done? What am I going up against? I couldn’t find anything. He’s tried to do things but nothing has worked out for him.

I think it’s so important that the riding does get representation and a voice, and right now they don’t have a voice. Rosie’s been there for 20 years now. I think the community is getting reinvigorated: you can see the change and the young urbanites going into the condos; you can see the new families. There’s a sense of new energy there. In a sense that’s what I represent. I’m a do-er. I’m not somebody that can sit on the sidelines and criticize the government. I’m someone that says okay, what does this riding need and what can we bring to the table?

I’ve campaigned there and canvassed there. I’ve actually gone door-to-door—especially for these young families. I can relate to them; I have a son in junior kindergarten and that’s something they’re not getting from Rosario. Rosario doesn’t even live there, he moved out of the riding. What does that tell you? To me that’s really important. If you care about the riding you have to be there.

What issues are important to you?

Full-day kindergarten, clean energy, and infrastructure. In 2006 the Liberals funded the one piece of subway we’re building now. That’s the direction we should be heading. How do we make the city more workable?

There have been a few controversial decisions made by the provincial Liberal Party—the G20 “fence law” and implementing the HST come to mind. What will you do to capture some non-Liberal believers out there?

Things like the HST, you look at it and overall it’s showing that it’s a good thing. We might have to pay more for some things, but at the end of the day low-income families aren’t being hit as hard. More jobs are being created. I look at it on a more local scale, and ask, is this impacting on businesses, is it helping businesses? Yes, it is. As a business owner myself, I can say the HST is a good thing. Firsthand, as a business owner I’ve read the studies and the studies show that it’s a good thing. There are studies that show that the HST is better for Canada overall.

Why do you think you’re qualified to represent the riding at Queen’s Park?

I studied the platforms of the parties carefully before I made a decision. I’m qualified because I have the experience of ten months of campaigning (as a mayoral candidate). As a business owner, I’ve learned to build consensus and build profitable enterprises. I’m a strong believer in the school of hard knocks and hands-on experiences. I look forward to community building with community groups and leaders.  I also have a great relationship with the councillors at city hall, and I’ll build to create space for the community.

What else should Trinity-Spadina residents hope to see from your platform?

I want to open the idea up about the use of Ontario Place. How do we generate more jobs for people in the community? How do we keep it safe and vibrant in the off-season? Do we need to have the air show in a residential neighbourhood? Could we have it somewhere else? The community needs somebody to hear them. I want to hear all the little issues.