So it actually has happened. Sing-for-Your-Supper is back on! It's actually the 2nd Monday of the month way out west at the Assembly Theatre on Queen West (or Queen West West...). Monday was a particularly crappy day to try to head west across the city. Line 2 was down for 12 hours! I almost never take the TTC anymore, though I do take it if I am going out to Parkdale. But it was threatening to rain, and I had a very oversized book to collect from the library, and it simply would not fit in my bike bag. I got to the library and got the book, then saw the King streetcar coming, so I jumped on that. I really think they should have made some announcements that Line 2 was down. The streetcar just crawled up to Broadview station. I saw hundreds of people out on the street waiting for shuttle buses. One of the workers said that Line 2 had already been down for 3 hours, so I jumped back on the King streercar, which naturally got extremely crowded. While I could technically have taken this downtown, I just didn't want to get stuck downtown when I needed to get back home in the middle of the afternoon. After we finally got back to Gerrard, I got off and caught a streetcar home. So incredibly frustrating.
Even after work, the subway was still down, so I decided I would need to stick to streetcars. I took Gerrard all the way to Yonge, then Line 1 (which hadn't been effected by the hydraulic fluid spill!) to Union. I actually grabbed some things from Longos, dropped that huge book off at work, and then caught the King car west. It was quite crowded to roughly Bathurst and then it got better. It is somewhat droll that it is actually easier for me to get to the Theatre Centre and Assembly Theatre with the King streetcar diverted up to Queen for watermain work on King. I think the diversion lasts through the end of the year more or less. I made it with about 5 minutes to spare, not that they started remotely on time. I saw a few actors I hadn't seen in years, and we chatted. I was very surprised to see Scott Garland and Kat Letwin back. They had been the original hosts when I started going to Storefront Theatre up on Bloor many, many years ago. (Probably around 2017, though I'd have to dig through the blog to confirm...) Scott bowed out roughly around the time that Storefront lost its lease and then SFYS started moving around the city, first to some random venues in Parkdale and then mostly over at Tarragon. Kat and another comic did hosting duties and they had someone else vet the scripts, but then she moved to Ottawa! And then Covid hit. Actually Scott and Kat came back and did virtual hosting for a while, but eventually they pulled out and it fell to a couple other actors and then people just lost interest in Zoom readings unfortunately. So it was great to see them back, lending their support. A passing of the torch, as it were. I think it may take a while for this to hit critical mass, but it may get there eventually, now that it seems to have a new home. We definitely need younger actors and more female actors to show up. Kat was cast in 4 plays, which meant there was no run through for most of them. I stepped in and read one part, which I often did during the Tarragon days. My piece wasn't selected. While that is unfortunate, mostly I wish I had been notified one way or the other. What's a bit interesting is that the current crew seems to favor playlets with parts for more actors, which makes sense as they are actors first. (I think my piece only had two or at most three parts.) But until a larger crowd starts showing up, then more intimate pieces make a bit more sense. Anyway, the next piece I am working on will probably have 5 or 6 parts, so maybe they'll take it. Fingers crossed. More information on the newest incarnation of SFYS here.
It was a fun evening, though the performances were pretty ragged and almost none of the playwrights were in attendance! Again, something that will likely be fixed in the future as the kinks get worked out. I was surprised that transit going back was pretty smooth. I took a King car to University, since this one was going to the Distillery. I was going to take Line 1 up to Line 2 to see if it truly was back up, but there was a Kingston car immediately following, so I took that east and then was able to catch the 72 bus. I think it took less than an hour, which is pretty good for running west to east like that. Nonetheless, I will try to stick to the bike the rest of this week, though rain is definitely in the forecast. Booo.
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