BRUCE! The Musical celebrates a Vancouver activist

I now have more details about the exciting musical project I’m in, “Bruce - The Musical”.

An original two-act musical drama, Bruce – The Musical recreates key events in the life of Bruce Eriksen, the late founder of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA), and the individual most responsible for transforming the image of Vancouver’s lowest-income neighbourhood from Skid Road to residential community. It is a story of tragedy and triumphs, told with humour, action, human drama and song.

The play is a blend of historical characters (Eriksen, Harry Rankin, Libby Davies, Jean Swanson) and representative characters (older single men and working people trying to survive and maintain their dignity, Chinese elders in a strange new land, politicians grappling with difficult issues - and you can expect a couple of SRO hotel cockroaches too).

The play chronicles events in the period 1973-76, when Eriksen overcame his addiction to alcohol, went on to become an ironworker on the Knight Street Bridge project and then fought successfully to make the beer parlors and hotels of the Downtown Eastside safer for the old loggers and other retired resource workers who lived there.

And where, you may ask, am I in all this?

I actually have multiple roles in this extravaganza. I’m Danny, a retired logger/millworker who is enjoying his golden years living in the Downtown Eastside, accompanied by his longtime friend and coworker Marty. Later on, I’m none other than Harry Rankin, the tough, gruff and determined city councillor who joined in many of the same battles as Eriksen. But the most unusual appearance must be the one I make during a recreation of the publicity-grabbing “cockroach races” Eriksen organized to dramatize the living conditions in the firetrap hotels of the Downtown Eastside. Let’s just say that I really get to “bug out” in this role!

Bruce was written by past Sun Newspaper Reporter Bob Sarti, with lyrics by Sarti and music by Bill Sample (recipient of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame award) and Earle Peach. It features a professional and semi-professional cast of nine, under the direction of Jay Hamburger, artistic director of Theatre In the Raw Society, a professional company which has a long history of commitment and work within the east side of Vancouver and to social justice issues – “Giving Exposure to Voices Seldom Heard” since 1994.

Dates and Location

Bruce – The Musical will run for ten performances from Nov. 6 - 16, 2008, at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Avenue, in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood. Here’s a map.

Community members will be admitted at low or no cost. Preview Night Pay-What-You-Can will be on Wednesday, November 5 and a 2-for-1 Matinee November 9, 2008.

For more information on Bruce – The Musical, please contact Theatre In the Raw Society at (604) 708-5448 or theatreintheraw@PROTECTED or visit the Theatre in the Raw website.

Tickets will be available online on the Theatre in the Raw website’s tickets page.

Also, please visit and join Theatre In the Raw’s Tribute to Bruce Eriksen on FaceBook.

More Cowbell!

At last, you can take your favourite song and make it even better: add MORE COWBELL!

MoreCowbell.dj takes the classic SNL skit and brings it to fully-interactive life. Upload your favourite song and add cowbell. Plus, drop in a bit of Christopher Walken shouting encouraging remarks from the studio. It’s crazy cowbell fun!

My First Student Film at VFS

For a couple of years now, I’ve been on a quest to enter the world of film and TV acting. One recommended strategy for getting on-set experience and building a “reel” has always been to pursue roles in student films. I’ve been on a few auditions but nothing had ever come of it - until now!

I auditioned for a Vancouver Film School project entitled “Straight To Video”. In it, a somewhat hapless aspiring rock star is working the late shift at the video store when an old videotape of a self-help “guru” magically transports him into a vision of his rock-and-roll fantasy come true - but even in this preview of music superstardom, things don’t go nearly the way he had imagined.

The role I auditioned for was that of the outrageous, turbanned “Guru Goulby” - the smarmy self-help swami whose videotape appearance sets the plot in motion.

Local “rollergirl” on Globe and Mail web-doc

I know Yvette Ipsaralexi from my volunteer work with Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter. But now I learn that she has an interesting side interest - as a roller derby girl! And neatest of all, she is the subject of a mini-documentary on the Globe and Mail website.

SPARC Old Radio Museum

I visited the SPARC radio museum, a massive collection of antique radios, phonographs, and radio-related paraphernalia from the last 100 years, maintained by a group of enthusiasts, many of them of an age to have used the exhibits when they were new!