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Mark and Lia emote. |
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Shaw TV News profile, June 2002.
Announcer: "A new play premiered Tuesday night at the Mendel. Room to Breathe: A Rock Opera steps beyond the boundaries of conventional musicals to bring us this entertaining look at a tuberculosis patient in quarantine."
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Warren the Director slings the bull. |
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Warren: "Michael Charles wrote the play. It's set in 1934-ish, right during the plague of the tuberculosis disease. It spread quite rapid around Saskatchewan - for some reason it caught on in Saskatchewan, I don't know why - but they housed people in sanatoriums. That's where people would spend two, three years. And the cure was bedrest. You had to lay in bed and...smile."
Announcer: "An array of actors and musicians came together to assemble the crew and cast for this unique theatre piece. And as for what genre the play is, Cowell says it's a lot of things rolled into one."
Warren: "...A comedy, it's a musical, it's a love story, it's a little bit of a tragedy. It's a lot of things. It's...theatre! It's rock theatre!"
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...And did we mention there was dancing? |
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..."On our preview night, we had people aging from sixty-five, seventy years old, down to, there was a couple kids around seven or eight, and they were all laughing. Pretty much anybody can come check it out."
Announcer: "Actor Joseph Naytowhow says he was attracted to the play by the music."
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Joseph slings additional bull. |
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Joseph: "Love the music, eh. There's such a variety of music, and there's a really...I think that's really hard sometimes, to find people that sing really well and can also act. They both have that. So I think that's part of it, you know? There's some really strong actors here, and some strong musicians."
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Joseph drums, Andrew meditates. |
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..."I don't think it's like a depressing or despairing play. It's like a play that sort of makes fun of it...or at least shows the different aspects of what happened to people in Fort San. I think that's enough, you know, to be curious, well, how the heck rock fits into it...you know, what the heck is opera? How does that fit into the lives of these people there?"
Announcer: "For Shaw TV news, I'm Lisa Marcinowski."
Spaceman Jason rocks the opera.
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