Rob Kelly, left, is directing Dad’s Piano, a musical drama written by his older brother Dave Kelly. Photograph by: Stuart Gradon, Calgary Herald

Relationships are key in Dad’s Piano (with video)

By Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald April 30, 2012

What if a piano were more than just a prop? What if it was a character, too?

That was the question, several years ago, that ignited the muse of Dave Kelly, better known to Calgarians as the onetime host of Breakfast Television, that led him to write Dad’s Piano.

The question may not have originated with Dave, but rather with his brother (and director of Dad’s Piano) Rob, who’s a decade younger than Dave.

“Rob has a buddy, Jeff Neufeld,” Dave says. “He’s the piano player in the show now, and we were sitting around back then, and he sort of wondered about — we all said, wouldn’t it be interesting if there was a play where the acting and music were equally important?

“Where the musical playing, in this case of Jeff on the piano, wouldn’t just be underscoring or wouldn’t just be mood, but would actually be part of the telling of the story?”

Well, short of enlisting Pixar to give the piano a set of teeth and some punchy dialogue to deliver, it seemed unlikely, until Neufeldt, an accomplished pianist, played the Kelly brothers a piece of classical music before explaining that it was the song his dad asked him to play at his funeral.

“Which seemed sort of sweet,” Dave says, “but also kind of intense,”

It also caused Kelly to sit down and begin writing monologues about what might be said about a Dad’s life at his funeral. Soon, after enlisting the help of actor Christopher Hunt — who just played about 50 different roles in The 39 Steps — the Kellys had themselves a piano story.

“It’s a full kind of story,” Dave says, “about how this piano was the thing that tied this guy and his dad together.”

“But (it’s) also the thing that shattered their relationship, and how they dealt with that over their life.”

And while the story behind Dad’s Piano isn’t exactly autobiographical — the Kellys’ father is alive and well and living in Edmonton — the piano has, in fact, played a pretty significant role in the family’s life.

For one thing, the Kellys — all 10 kids — grew up in Edmonton in a house without television. Instead, there was this piano.

“Dad taught me the chords,” Rob says. “He was really big into Wilf Carter and other country singers from the ’30s and ’40s.”

Second, Rob grew up playing the piano, even studying it in university, before suddenly stopping midway through his third year at the University of Alberta.

“I was in therapy a lot then,” Rob says, “realizing this (studying piano) wasn’t fitting for me, and this was right around the same time I had quit going to church, probably the year before. Within a year, I had moved in with my girlfriend. There were a lot of really significant things going on in my life when I quit piano.”

(Dave, on the other hand, played piano for a couple years before switching to guitar, and appears to have emerged from the piano experience emotionally unscathed.)

And if the piano isn’t necessarily a character in each of our lives, it still remains, even for kids these days, one of those linchpins for families: the first place where your child starts to learn how to practise, how to follow through and occasionally even how to creatively express themselves.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/festival-guide/Relationships+Piano+with+video/6532287/story.html#ixzz1tvX7inZs

and check out the video: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/festival-guide/Relationships+Piano+with+video/6532287/story.html#ooid=BmczhsNDr6NgScagezF2C7gvo51i2B6E

Piano hits right notes

Christopher Hunt in Dad's Piano by Dave Kelly.

FIRST POSTED: SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012 10:59 PM MDT | UPDATED: SUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2012 11:31 PM MDT

In a word, Lunchbox Theatre’s production of Dave Kelly’s Dad’s Piano is remarkable.

It features remarkable writing from Kelly, a remarkable performance from Christopher Hunt and remarkable music courtesy of classical pianist Jeffrey Neufeld.

Dad’s Piano, a play for one actor and a pianist, tells the story of a bitter relationship between a father and his son.

Initially it is music that makes Paul so proud of his father, a German immigrant whose love of the piano and Beethoven is surpassed only by the adoration the man has for his only child.

Ironically, it is music that shatters their love for one another when young Paul feels his father is too controlling and too demanding.

Paul wants to play Chopin for a recital; his father demands Beethoven.

Paul wants to play pop songs; his father insists he must play only classical.

Paul walks out of a festival; his father refuses to talk to him until he apologizes, which Paul refuses to do and the antagonism continues to grow until the men no longer talk to one another.

Hunt’s transitions from one character to another are as subtle as they are believable and dynamic.

One minute Hunt has us laughing; the next, he brings us to tears not only because he is such a skilled chameleon but because Kelly has given him such beautiful, insightful dialogue to work with.

What Kelly has written verges on poetry yet it sounds so real and poignant when Hunt brings it off the page.

Neufeld’s presence is no gimmick. We need to hear the music these characters talk about and Neufeld is as much a wrapped observer of Kelly’s people as any member of the audience.

I did not want Dad’s Piano to end.

I could have and would have gladly spent a second hour in the presence of Hunt and Neufeld.

Director: Rob Kelly

Starring: Christopher Hunt

Five Stars

Read More: http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/04/30/piano-hits-right-notes

From Breakfast to Lunch(box)

Dave Kelly’s theatre debut tackles biggest theme: death
Published April 26, 2012  by Tanya Hagen in Theatre

FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2012 11:06 PM MDT

Dave Kelly’s play Dad’s Piano, which closes Lunchbox Theatre’s current season, started out as a challenge.

Kelly was sitting around with his brother Rob and their longtime friend Jeff Neufeld, who is a concert pianist.

“We were bemoaning the fact people didn’t write plays that required a concert pianist as an integral part of the show so we decided to see if we could write a series of monologues that required one,” says Kelly.

Neufeld played the Kelly brothers a Beethovan Sonata and from that grew the idea of a play.

“We worked with the idea that it was a father’s favourite piece of music and he had asked his young son to play it at the father’s funeral and the boy promised.

“That’s all well and good when the father and son relationship was good, but what happens when that relationship soured later on?

“Is that promise still a promise?”

Kelly asked Calgary actor Chris Hunt to become part of the development process.

“I wanted there to be more characters than the father and son but I only wanted the one actor.

“I knew Chris could bring any character I wrote to life without turning them into caricatures.”

When a first draft of the script was completed and the music selected, the team workshopped the play in the Epcor Centre’s Motel Theatre two years ago.

The response encouraged Kelly to approach Lunchbox’s artistic director Pamela Halstead.

“She turned me down several times but I was persistent enough that she agreed to workshop the play herself,” says Kelly, who admits it was a scary venture.

“It was like being naked.

“Pamela said that someone simply telling a story isn’t dramatic and that we had to find the deep need the person has to tell this story.”

Dad’s Piano runs at Lunchbox Theatre from April 30 to May 19 starring Christopher Hunt and Jeff Neufeld.

Tickets are on sale at 403-265-4292.

A little something for everyone.

That might sum up Lunchbox Theatre’s 2012-13 season, which was announced Monday afternoon by artistic director Pam Halstead.

The season lineup includes a new comedy from Calgary playwrights Neil Fleming and Glenda Stirling (He Said, She Said), as well as Caroline Russell King’s Second Chance, the second comedy she’s set in the Palliser Hotel. Musical fans will get the opportunity to sample If I Weren’t With You by Joe Slabe, as well as Onalea Gilbertson’s Blanche: The Bittersweet Life of a Wild Prairie Dame, which was a critical hit at the 2011 New York Musical Theatre Festival.

Longtime Calgary Sun drama critic Louis B. Hobson’s award-winning drama Almost a Love Story debuts in the spring of 2013, prompting the question: who will review it?

“I told (Sun editor) Jose Rodriguez I guess we’ll to bring in a guest reviewer,” an ecstatic Hobson said Monday.

For Halstead, the season is all about finding the right mix of shows that will appeal to one of the most diverse audience demographics around.

“The thing about Lunchbox is that I program for people from the age of 12 to 92,” she says, “so there’s three really distinct (Lunchbox) audiences: school groups, downtown office workers and mostly old gals.

“I was striving,” adds Halstead, “for the balance between showcasing the incredible talent here in Alberta, while also featuring interesting voices from across Canada and beyond.”

In addition to another bumper crop of Calgary playwrights, Lunchbox’s season includes:

The Bob Shivery Show by David Sealy, to be directed by Mike Kennard of Mump & Smoot renown;

OH! Christmas Tree by Edmonton playwright and author Connie Massing (Jake and the Kid), to be directed by Stirling;

Aviatrix: the Unreal Story of Amelia Earheart by Matthew Heiti, directed by Halstead;

Scarlet Woman, from Brooklyn-based Sunset Productions, to be directed by Mark Bellamy.

Lunchbox also announced that Stirling has been named an associate artistic director.

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Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/theatre/Varied+menu+Lunchbox+Theatre+2012+season/6468480/story.html#ixzz1tGQj73gk

Press Release/Media Call
For Immediate Release – August 19^th 2011

Calgary, AB – This May, Lunchbox Theatre showcases classical music, and how that music can help heal old wounds, in Dad’s Piano by Dave Kelly. Dad’s Piano runs April 30^th to May 19^th and features actor Christopher Hunt and pianist Jeff Neufeld with direction by Rob Kelly and produced in conjunction with Kelly Brothers Productions. Through monologues interspersed with selections from Bach, we learn of a man whose just lost his father, and how he comes to terms with their turbulent relationship.

“Dad’s Piano was performed at Motel in the EPCOR CENTRE in  2010, and since then I’ve been providing dramaturgical support. It’s been expanded from its original format, but stays true to the purity of its form  – monologues and music,” says Lunchbox Theatre Artistic Director, Pamela Halstead. “Irene Besse Keyboards has graciously sponsored the show and is donating a fabulous grand piano, so Jeff Neufeld will have an instrument worthy of his talent!”

Dad’s Paino features Christopher Hunt with Jeff Neufeld. The production team features director Rob Kelly, set designer Martine Evans and lighting designer Dave Smith. Dad’s Piano runs April 30^th to May 19^th, Monday to Saturday at 12:10 pm, Fridays at 6:10pm and Saturdays at 7:30 pm at Lunchbox Theatre, 160 – 115 9^th Avenue SE. Tickets can be purchased at the theatre, online at www.lunchboxtheatre.com, or by phone at 403-265-4292 x 0.

The world’s longest running lunchtime theatre, Lunchbox Theatre is a professional company that caters to downtown office workers over the noon-hour by producing seven plays per season, as well as the Suncor Energy Stage One Festival and the Emerging Director Program. Lunchbox Theatre is located at the base of the Calgary Tower.

Media are invited to a Media Call on Monday, April 30 at 1:15 pm.

1:15 pm – B-Roll of Dad’s Piano  (2 minute scene)
1:30 pm – Interviews as requested with actor Christopher Hunt, pianist Jeff Neufeld, playwright Dave Kelly, director Rob Kelly, or Lunchbox Theatre’s Artistic Director Pamela Halstead.

www.lunchboxtheatre.com

For more information, to RSVP, or to request an interview:
Kathryn Blair
Marketing and Communications
Lunchbox Theatre
403 265 4292 x 229
kathryn.blair@lunchboxtheatre.com

Playwright A.J. Demers, inside Hanson's Fishing Outfitters. His new play, The Whimsy State, tells the story of how three fishing buddies created their own country off the Nova Scotia coast in 1948. Photograph by: Dean Bicknell, Calgary Herald , Calgary Herald

Reeling in the magic of a little nation

The Whimsy State takes the form of a bar story

By Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald April 4, 2012
Lunchbox Theatre presents The Whimsy State, or the Principality of Outer Baldonia at the Lunchbox through April 21. Tickets & Info: 403-265-4292, Ext. 0 or lunchboxtheatre.com

Playwrights find stories the way some people find spare change in the pocket of old pants.

In Calgary playwright AJ Demers’ case, it was a story about three fishing buddies who decided to create a new country out of their favourite fishing hole, a small is-land off the Nova Scotia coast.

“Years ago, a friend handed me a magazine article on micronations,” says Demers, “and (said), this might be something great to write. I looked at it and went, absolutely! And Baldonia (the name of the country in question) absolutely jumped off the page.”

Baldonia was the name that Russ Arundel, a well-connected Washington lawyer, and his pals christened the island, which they’d bought for $750 or so (in 1948 dollars), and built a stone cabin on.

It was the heyday of the post-Second World War era. The world was busy putting itself back together again. The League of Nations in New York were gathering to create a new multinational organization, the United Nations, that would ensure world wars would never happen again.

It was a perfect moment to start a country on a fishing island off Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, particularly if you were a well-connected Washington lawyer and lobbyist like Arundel.

“There’s a bunch of these tiny, tiny little nations . . . (that) just declare themselves countries, and form these tiny little nations all over the world,” Demers says.

“There’s about 10 or 15 of them on lists,” he adds, “but Baldonia is the most evolved because they developed money, they got invited to the UN, so there’s some really great history behind them.”

The history of Baldonia was brief – by 1953, it had disbanded – but not uneventful.

It turns out that the island’s un-doing – shades of the Falklands! – came when an unfortunate series of events led it to declare war on the Soviet Union.

But that’s a whole other story that you can learn going to see the play. For Demers, who learned his theatre as an improviser at Loose Moose, The Whimsy State rep-resents a new chapter in a multi-faceted career that includes actor, improv comic and corporate comedy content delivery person.

None of Demers’ success comes as a surprise to fellow Loose Mooser Rebecca Northan.

“One thing I’ll say about AJ that I’ve always admired is that he is probably one of the most tenacious people I’ve ever met when it comes to this industry,” Northan says.

“A few years ago,” she adds, “he was like, yeah, I’m going to try my hand at writing plays, (and) you know that AJ is at home for hours and hours and hours writing, and analyzing narrative structure.”

The script came to the attention of Lunchbox artistic director Pam Halstead, who selected it for the Suncor Act One play reading festival in 2011, which allowed Demers to workshop it for a week.

It also didn’t hurt that Halstead is a Nova Scotian herself, and pretty quickly lined up a Halifax production of the script, to follow its Lunchbox run.

The play, Halstead says, takes the form of a bar story, complete with the sorts of liberties people who tell bar stories are prone to.

“Everything (in The Whimsy State) is a little bit in techni-colour,” Halstead says. “(It’s all) a little over the top.”

That works well with Demers’ roots as an improv artist. “What he’s (Demers) done incredibly well,” Halstead adds, “is take true facts and weave it into a story.”

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© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Reeling+magic+little+nation/6407803/story.html#ixzz1r5TSZsV9

Note from Kathryn (Marketing and Communications): Jenna Shummoogum posted this after an interview with AJ Demers (who wrote The Whimsy State).

In 1948, a Washington lawyer and two Nova Scotian fishermen bought an island off the coast of Nova Scotia and declared it a sovereign nation. At some point they declared war on the Soviet Union. I’m not making this up.

When a Calgary playwright heard about this story, a script was born.
“A friend of mine handed me this article on micro nations,” AJ Demers says, “as soon as I saw it was a Canadian story, it just sort of caught my eye.” This script then evolved into a play entitled Whimsy State that is going to see it’s premiere at Lunchbox Theatre.

“It’s a very fun story,” explains director Pamela Halstead, “a slice of Canadian history that a lot of people don’t know about.”

People actually did that? Bought an island, declared it a nation, and got away with it?

“You couldn’t get away with something like that today,” Demers laughs, “I love the fact that they took this plan to a whole international level.” And there are papers in museums in Nova Scotia, depicting this story, though there seem to be many different versions of the tale. “There is no way to confirm a lot,” Demers explains, “we know it happened, we know that they were in the Moscow press, that’s on record. But some stuff isn’t. Everyone seems to have a different version of the story, [depending on] who tells it.” And Demers and Halstead tried to get the facts straight. They perused the archives in Nova Scotia themselves, doing some firsthand research. It’s good to “get a feel for the ocean, the coast, the people…the way things happen out there,” Demers says, “firsthand research has been invaluable.”

Read the full article: Lunchbox Theatre Creating Their Own Ridiculous Nation.