On the road again…
Well, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve updated this page, I can see. So, here’s the latest: first off, it’s been an eventful 12 months or so. In that time, Marcia and I learned that our first play, Who’s Under Where, would be doing a national tour of Poland. As part of the deal, we were flown to Warsaw and put up in a swanky hotel in November of last year to attend a gala performance of the play (Damski Biznes in Polish). I took the opportunity while in Europe to visit Germany for a few days to meet with the folks in our publisher’s Berlin office, and to meet with a few artistic directors to flog our plays in Berlin and Hamburg. Then it was back to Warsaw to see Damski Biznes. This is the third production of Who’s in Poland; the second one is still running in rep at Teatr Komedia in Wrocław, and we just learned that that production has been extended for another year. We’ve also since learned that the tour will be running until the end of next year as well. This was my third trip to Warsaw, and on top of getting the opportunity to do a little schmoozing and meet lots of new folks, it gave me the opportunity to reconnect with a lot of friends. Marce and I also got the chance to meet Krystyna Janda, the artistic director of Och Teatr in Warsaw, which is currently running a production of our fifth play, Something Fishy (Coś Tu Nie Gra in Polish). We spent some time flogging our latest play, Deadline, which is in the process of being published by Broadway Publications in New York. We’ve also started work on our latest project, the working title of which is Succour. It’s a psychological thriller about identity theft. More anon.
In the meantime, I had an exciting opportunity suddenly appear out of nowhere back in the spring. Three years ago, I auditioned for a couple of different roles for a new TV series, From, which is filmed largely in Halifax. I was thrilled to audition for the series, as it was clear from the bits of script I’d seen that the writing was excellent. Unfortunately, I didn’t land either of the roles, and I quickly forgot about it. Then, out of the blue, I was given an opportunity to audition for another role in the series. It was all very last-minute, and after a quick Zoom audition on a Saturday afternoon, I found out late that evening that I’d landed the role, and early Monday morning I was on a plane to Halifax to film my role in the last episode of season three of the series. Now, here’s the exciting part–if the series is picked up for a fourth season, this role will likely be a recurring one, and I could suddenly find myself spending a lot of time in Halifax. It will be months before I know if any of that comes to fruition, however, so I’ll be sitting here in the interim, crossing my fingers and trying very hard not to get my hopes up too high.
One of the many fine pieces of China we saw at the Shanghai Museum.
A few weeks after our first play, Who’s Under Where?, opened at Teatr Komedia in Wrocław, Poland under the title Damski Biznes, in late 2019, Marce and I flew off to China to see two productions of our murder mystery, A Party to Murder (or Halloween Games, as it’s known in Mandarin) in Shanghai and Shenzhen. It was an incredible visit, in many respects.
The Shanghai skyline.
It soon became clear in the following days, however, that Marce’s mobility issues were more of a problem than we had anticipated; and so, Ron and Marce decided to fly home on the day we were to slated to fly to Shenzhen. Meanwhile, I continued on to Shenzhen alone to see the production of Halloween Games there.
As with our hosts in Shanghai, the gang in Shenzhen spoiled me rotten during my brief visit. Here’s a shot of me posing with the producers and cast of the Shenzhen production of Halloween Games.
It was a terrific night of theatre. After the performance, we had an informal Q&A session with the audience, after which most of the cast and several others went trooping off to a local restaurant for some Chinese hot pot. A great time was had by all.
It was a wonderful visit, but like all such ventures, it was over much too soon. Marce and I are already making plans to return to China as soon as we can manage.
Meanwhile, Something Fishy was recently published by Samuel French, Inc. Fishy had its premiere production at the Lighthouse Festival in the summer of 2016. Marcia and I are hard at work on our next piece, a comedy-thriller called Deadline – a two-act play for six actors (3m, 3f) about a couple of mystery writers who find themselves trapped inside their own play. Here’s a silly little blurb about it that we’ve put up on YouTube:
On the acting front, Marce and I have teamed up once again as actor and director in a production of Agatha Christie’s The Spider’s Web at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton, Ontario, running from September 21st to October 6th. A few weeks after that, we’re off to China! Meanwhile, Who’s? and Cooks continue to run in rep at Teatr Komedia in Warsaw.
Rafal Cieszynski, Tomasz Dedek, Sylwia Gliwa and Hanna Konarowska in a scene from Kontrabanda
The cast and director of Kontrabanda
On Sunday, February 26, 2017, I attended the Polish premiere of Kontrabanda (Too Many Cooks) at Teatr Komedia in Warsaw, Poland. The opening was a huge success, with many curtain calls and rave reviews.
Here’s a shot from the premiere production of our fourth play, Jack of Diamonds, available through Samuel French, Inc. of New York. The premiere took place at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton, Ontario, on October 30, 2015. Featured in the photograph are Ian D. Clark, Mary Long, Valerie Boyle and Wendy Thatcher. To see what the Hamilton Spectator thought of the show, click here.
Interes Zycia
Here’s a shot of me with the cast of the first Polish-language production of Interes Zycia (Who’s Under Where?) at the Teatr Komedia in Warsaw, Poland. It opened in March of 2016 and is currently enjoying a very successful–and open-ended–run. Along with Kontrabanda (Too Many Cooks), Teatr Komedia is now running two of our plays as part of their repertoire.
Something Fishy On June 30, 2016, our play Something Fishy (written with Marcia Kash) had its world premiere at Lighthouse Festival in Port Dover, Ontario. It was a huge seller and got a great review. You can read it here.
In the fall of 2015, for the first time, I found myself performing in something I’d written myself. Along with CBC’s Tom Allen, I put together a couple of short plays for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, both of which were performed during the interval of two of the programmes they were presenting at Roy Thompson Hall as part of their Decades Festival. The first piece was called Debussy: At Sea, for which I was joined by the redoubtable Ivan Sherry. It was a short play consisting of two scenes (one a brief curtain-raiser performed on the TSO stage immediately prior to their performance of Debussy’s La Mer, and a second, longer scene that took place in the lobby during the interval) about Debussy and how he came to create this famous piece. Then on November 11th and 14th, in conjunction with the TSO’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony #4, Ivan and I did a second piece, The Talking Cure – a dramatization of the famous meeting between Mahler and Sigmund Freud in the spring of 1910.
The first French-language production of my third play, Too Many Cooks, (written with my partner in crime, Marcia Kash), had a hugely successful run in 2015 at Le Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne in Québec. Thanks to all the rave reviews and sold-out houses, it was extended a week, and after the run in Terrebonne, the show toured to Québec City and Gatineau.
Meanwhile, I’ve started work on a sequel to my first novel, The Poor Player.
You can find out a little bit more about the first book here.