No-Show: Songs from Lost Gigs

Concept and dialogue by Scott Richardson and Robin Guy

Poems Eurydice and Shocks of Spring by Scott Richardson

The Team:

Robn – Robin Guy

Scott – Scott Richardson

Stage Manager (opening weekend) – Jane Vanstone Osborn

Stage Manager (weeks 2 & 3) – Rachel Worton

Lighting Design – David Magladry

Theatre Ninja – Kat Wong

Set Design – Robin Guy, Scott Richardson

Scenic Painter – Carolyn Borer

Livestream Design & Tech – Andrew Galligan

Photography – Victoria Salter

For the Gladstone:

Front of House Manager: – Betsy Johnson

Volunteer Coordinator: – Elfrieda Bock

An enormous thank you to the Ottawa Community Foundation for their generous support that made this production possible in the face of unprecedented adversity.

This is a professional production under the Canadian Actor’s Equity Collective Agreement.

We at Three Sisters Theatre Company and Burn Ban Productions recognize that we are gathered on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people. We wish to express our gratitude to Mother Earth and for the resources we are using, and we honour the Indigenous people who are the past, present, and future caretakers of this land.

The Lost Gigs

March 13, 2020	Sarah Slean & Hawksley Workman	Shenkman Arts Centre
March 28, 2020	Sarah Harmer	Empire Theatre, Belleville
April 17, 2020	Sarah Slean & Lynn Miles	NACO Pops
April 25, 2020	Sloan	Bronson Centre Theatre
April 26, 2020	Garnet Rogers	MERA Schoolhouse, McDonald’s Corners
May 26, 2020	Corb Lund	National Arts Centre
July 3, 2020	Judy Collins & Arlo Guthrie	National Arts Centre
July 7, 2020	John Prine	National Arts Centre
July 10, 2020	The New Pornographers	Bluesfest Ottawa
July 12, 2020	Alanis Morisette	Bluesfest Ottawa
July 9, 2020	Blue Rodeo	Bluesfest Ottawa

Enjoyed the songs? Here’s a YouTube playlist of all of the songs covered in No-Show, as performed by the original artists:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuOVmX6PTevdEVYWwjFCoyjKi0wjeAwV8

Programme Note

It has been a long, off-and-on road to get No-Show to the stage. Which is probably appropriate. It began as a little private challenge to record and post online a song a day by one of the artists we had tickets to see in the first half of 2020. It grew from that into a simple theatre project with a small enough team to be flexible and roll with the pandemic punches (and the two creator/performers being life partners as well as musical ones did not hurt either). It nearly saw the light of day exactly one year ago. And then twice more over the course of the year, as we all realized that ‘normal’ was not coming again as soon as we’d hoped. Now our musical production about lost art and missed chances reopens the theatre after 20 months of darkness. And it seems right that we get to light up this stage once more with a show about making vanished performances reappear.

Our process of choosing songs was largely intuitive, and the initial decisions happened too quickly for us to give any thought to linking the material. But nonetheless, and quite mysteriously, the music choices somehow ended up in dialogue with each other. There are common themes of loss and disruption running through the lyrics. Yet songwriters always love to wrap up their hard truths in joyful sounds, so we think of the show as a celebration.

Acknowledgements

Being the first show back on stage after the closures, and the first ever at The Gladstone to simultaneously perform live and for livestream, has been a huge adventure and experiment! A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped us get back on the boards. Particular thanks to Ann and Winston Babin, Murphy and Samuel Guy Lenser, Betsy Johnson, Jason Sonier, Bronwyn Steinberg, Rachel Eugster, Eleanor Crowder, Pierre Brault, Ellen MacIsaac, Alan Mackey, Tom Pigeon & the OLT, and finally, the amazing and steadfast Gladstone Volunteers. Your assistance, large and small, is so very appreciated.

A great big shout-out to Dominion City for putting City Seltzer into beer cans for us for that lovely authentic opening-a-beer sound!

The Team

Andrew Galligan – Livestream Design/Tech

Andrew is a multidisciplinary artist and theatre technician. With a background in both theatre and the audio-visual industry his work has involved everything from multinational conferences to assisting Broadway tours. He can normally be found working as an IATSE Production Co-ordinator at Meridian Theatres @ Centrepoint, the NAC working as a stagehand, or as the Production Co-ordinator for the Juno Award winning Ottawa Bach Choir. He would like to thank you, the audience, for being here. The last 18 months have been dark in theatres, but the ghost light has been on, looking ahead to brighter times.

Robin Guy – Creator, Performer

One of the last performers on the TGT stage before lockdown (in Dancing at Lughnasa), Robin is honoured to be reopening the theatre after 20 months of closure. An acting award nominee by both Rideau Awards and Capital Critics, Robin is an Ottawa native and dedicated local artist, her previous work at The Gladstone includes Lightfoot in Song, Nell Gwynn, The Revolutionists, Miss Shakespeare, This Flight Tonight, The Clean House, No Way to Say Goodbye, Jacques Brel…, Marion Bridge, and multiple Radio Shows. Offstage, Robin offers workshops as a visiting artist teaching music and theatre in schools, works as the Interim Theatre Manager of The Gladstone, and drives the truck for Three Sisters. Watch for her in February 2022 in the not-quite-announced yet Secrets of Primrose Square, a co-production with SevenThirty Productions.

David Magladry – Lighting Design

David Magladry is a professional Lighting and Set Designer working in theatre, television, museum exhibitions, houses of worship, Special events and Concerts.

His theatre clients include Bear and Co, Plosive Productions, Pierre Brault, 730 Productions, Algonquin College Theatre Department, Carleton University, St. Lawrence College Theatre Department and Eddy May Mysteries. He is very happy to be working again with Three Sisters, this time provided lighting design.

He has been the Lighting Designer for over 800 museum exhibitions in numerous national museums such as the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum and has designed the lighting and environment for Ottawa’s Escape Manor “CSE rooms”.

In the past year David has designed for numerous houses of worship upgrading the quality of lighting for their streaming and live services, as well as lighting numerous virtual events for Music and Beyond’s 2021 season. He is currently designing a new set and lighting treatment for Rogers tv Ottawa’s “Daytime” daily morning show.

Jane Vanstone Osborn – Stage Manager (opening weekend)

Welcome back! Thank you for all that you have done to get us through this long intermission.

Jane has worked at theatres across Canada including 5 seasons at the Shaw Festival, 9 seasons at the NAC and 10 tours of Nova Scotia. At The Gladstone Jane was Set Designer and Stage Manager for This Flight Tonight: Songs of Joni Mitchell, No Way to Say Goodbye: Songs of Leonard Cohen, and Jacques Brel (Bear & Co.) For GCTC Jane has stage managed Behaviour, Rock & Roll, The Net, Facts, and You Are Happy, and was Assistant Stage Manager on The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble. Recent projects include Assistant Stage Manager on the first show of NAC Indigenous Theatre, The Unnatural and Accidental Women, Stage Manager on Entangled (Ottawa Fringe), Raising Stanley / Life with Tulia at the Next Stage and undercurrents Theatre Festivals, Up to Low (NAC, Ottawa Children’s Theatre), and Stage Manager for Armstrong’s War, Hothouse, The Mountaintop (Theatre Kingston). She also Stage Managed the Capital Critics Award-winning shows A Christmas Carol (NAC) and And Slowly Beauty… (NAC / Belfry)

Scott Richardson – Creator, Performer

Scott Richardson is active in the Ottawa music scene as a pianist and choir director. He conducts Atlantic Voices and Musica Viva Singers, and is also the longtime Music Director at Orleans United Church. Scott is the accompanist for the Ottawa Choral Society and Army Voices, as well as a pianist with the Ottawa Children’s Choir organization, accompanying their Concert Choir and Viva Choir; he has also accompanied the Canadian Centennial Choir. Since 2016, Scott has performed regularly with the Ottawa theatre troupe Bear & Company, appearing in their productions as a singer and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass, piano, and accordion). He was a co-creator of Bear’s tributes to Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Gordon Lightfoot, as well as the music director/pianist for Jacques Brel is Alive and Well…. Scott is thrilled to finally be back onstage at the Gladstone this season!

Rachel Worton – Stage Manager (wks 2 and 3)

Rachel Worton is an Ottawa based freelance Stage Manager, Actor, and Choreographer. She earned her degree in Fine Arts, focusing on Technical Theatre, and has worked with many Ottawa Theatre groups through the years. Rachel was a competitive dancer for several years, having high level training in ballet, jazz, lyrical, modern, tap and pointe. On occasion Rachel can also be found acting in shows as well, most recently having been cast in Phoenix Players production of ‘Becky’s New Car’, which was cancelled due to the pandemic in March of 2020. There are not enough words to adequately describe the emotions Rachel has about being back in the theatre but she would like to sum them up to these few; gratitude, excitement, relief. Slainte!

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