It’s almost here.  The Aunties are in the thick of rehearsals for BREAKFAST, the show we’ve been developing through the Theatre Centre for the past couple of years.

We invite you over to Breakfast with us, while we ask the question:

“What do you need to do to truly tranform your life?”

Rehearsals are exciting.   We have a super fantastical production team.   We’re in the space now, with not only the usual suspects (Karin Randoja, Anna Chatterton, Brendan Healy and myself) but now also Julie Fox (set and costume design…yow!), Richard Windyer (sound design…ooooo it’s gonna be cool), Jim Ruxton (special effects….)  and more……the creative juices are cooking.  Opens May 14th (for the first week of “workshop”) and then we invite the press in on May 21, and it runs until June 1.   Book your tickets now…space is very limited.   www.theatrecentre.ca

i finally broke down, and got me a facebook group.  it’s kinda fun.  you can join if you like…click here!

Spring is here in Toronto.  How much do we love it? We LOVE IT.

Catch the last of the GWG 2008 tour Feb 8 in London! Feb 9th is sold out! Karyn Ellis, Eve Goldberg, Allison Brown and I have had good times and great shows in Peterborough, Creemore, Toronto, Kingston, Montreal and Ottawa… we’ve got ourselves a nifty Facebook group, if you’re the Facebook kind, you can join, and see photos and things…

My very fun show at the Tranzac last week was followed immediately by getting struck down by a merciless flu, which had me bedridden for several days.  Got up from my sickbed to go into CBC to play a fun game of “Just a Minute” (fans of BBC Radio may know this game…check out the rules here) between me, Tom Howell (the word nerd) Jane Farrow (host of And Sometimes Y) and Russell Smith (past host of the show.  The game (which i did rather badly at… but did get a chance to wax eloquent about “clogs”) will be broadcast on CBC Radio One in on December 31, as part of the final episode of the very delightful “And Sometimes Y“.

In other news…it’s christmas and I have to go do my final shopping…as i write this, I hear the radio saying “on this, the busiest day of the shopping season”.  Wish me luck…and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

A very fun show was had at the Tranzac Club in Toronto: with band and bicycle: ..the opening set was trying out a new series that I’m working on called “Two Wheeled Words: a spoken word cycle” or maybe it’s a song cycle, I’m not totally sure yet what it is, but it includes playing the bicycle as a percussion instrument and it’s all about the idea of “spin”.

Brad Hart plays the bicycle like a pro!  Second half of the show was songs with the band.  David Celia, his beautiful voice and magic guitar were a brilliant addition…Jenn Gillmor did birthday bass duty, and Suzie Vinnick sat in for a couple of songs on the fly.   Always a treat to have the mini-tuba, played by Beth Washburn.   Thanks to all who  played and those who listened for a lovely time.  There will be a monthly show in 2008…find out all the details here.

Leaving St. John’s later this afternoon. I’ve spent a beautiful and relaxing week on the rock, my first visit out here… which will certainly not be my last.

Arrived last Tuesday: played a show at the Ship Pub Wednesday Folk Night. Super fun.
Crazy buckets of rain only added to the adventure of visiting the Battery home of my friend Chris Brooks, home of Battery Radio; along a tiny, windy street on the other side of Signal Hill, a cluster of little colourful houses clinging to the rock on one side, ocean on the other. Torrents of water pouring down the rock outside his narrow, tall wooden house, making you feel like your inside of a ship. The sound of the fog horn in the distance.

Who knew St. John’s would be home to the best Montreal-style bagels (better than in Montreal), croissants and artisan breads: The Georgetown Bakery, yes my dear, that little place makes the most ridiculously delicious baked goods, I’ve been eating them like they are going out of style….breakfast lunch and dinner, while catching up with my friend Leah (her brother happens to own the bakery — just one of the many points that will be covered in the song I am writing a song for her called “Queen of Newfoundland” ). Dinner party, neighbourly visits (in St. John’s, it appears artists can afford to own houses!), a lovely evening of jazz courtesy of local darling Mary Barry, dinner and a brunch at The Sprout (very good veggie food). (Funny random fact: St. John’s has the most supermarket’s per capita of any city in Canada.) Lots of hiking around with Fogo the dog, and Iorek the Puppy:  Signal Hill, Ladies Lookout, Cuckolds Cove trail; the incredible, endless view over the Atlantic ocean on the one side, all rugged coast, rock, sea and sky….and city of colourful wooden houses on the other side.

Friday, a drive out to the picturesque, coastal town of Brigus. A few cases of talking to people who might as well have been speaking another language for all I could understand — I love the Newfoundland accent, and I especially love that feeling that suddenly, as you’re listening to someone, you’ve lost all ability to comprehend the english language. Beautifully disorienting. Beautiful island. A week of putting the ocean inside me.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop on the east side of Toronto, and Michael Ondaatje is sitting right near by. How funny. I love Canada, and our aversion to treating fame like it’s anything to get excited about. Though i must admit to being a little excited to be sitting in such close proximity of the source of such incredible words right now. Speaking of literary heavy-hitters, I’ve just finished a new story about my chance meeting with Margaret Atwood this summer…the story will get it’s maiden voyage from page to stage at the Tranzac show on Dec 11.

I had a great weekend away playing a couple shows with Eve Goldberg (she finished her new song). The weather is so beautiful, it doesn’t feel like November at all. The driving was beautiful with leaves. Georgian Bay is a glory at any time of year. The Amnesty International benefit in Clarksburg/Thornbury was extremely fun; looking around the crowd at the beginning, my friends from Toronto whispered “they have no idea what they are in for…”. And frankly, I was nervous that maybe me and my stuff would be a little too “out there” for the residents of this little Ontario town — but how lovely to be reminded never to judge books by their covers, or audiences by their hair colours — they were so receptive and appreciative, I loved them. Little tow-headed Reesa was by far one of the youngest in the room that night (like maybe by 50 years); the highlight of my night was when she came back into the hall as we were packing up, giggling like crazy as she dragged her mom back to the CD table. Her mom told me they had to come back, because Reesa NEEDED to have the CD with the maxi-pad song on it. Oh, the beauty! Changing the world, one 9 year old girl at a time.

hey! check it out: the all-new re-invented website! a project loooong in the making. BIG thanks Dana Whittle for all her hard work! Let me know what you think of the new site…it’s growing every day right now, I’m adding to the spokenword library, and photos and more schtuff, so come back and visit early and often. xox evalyn

I had an almost ridiculous amount of fun being a back up singer for Lezzies on X last Friday night at the Hysteria Festival. Ridiculous, i tell you. Getting ready for my own (much mellower) performance at Mass Hysteria on Halloween night: Jenn Gillmor will play her pretty cello with me and my loop pedal. It will be Once in A Blue Moon.

Today was the first day it felt like the winter might be coming. I wore my mittens to bike to The Theatre Centre, where I had the pleasure of passing the afternoon watching Dying to Be Sick . A very fine piece of theatre, funny and smart and intelligent and good looking. What the heck more do you want in a play, jaded theatre critics of Toronto?

Back-to-schoolishness is everywhere and I can’t help but feel like the real new year comes in September. After a glorious summer of creative retreat and time off, swimming in a lake, biking through the countryside, reading and writing and eating and garden and sunsets…I am back in Toronto, busy writing the Aunties new play (Breakfast) and getting ready to go to Montreal for a week with Clean Irene.

A work-related highlight of my summer was performing for the Canadian Auto Workers annual Women’s Conference, up at this beautiful education centre on Lake Huron. It was unbelievably inspiring to meet all these women from all over Canada who are members of CAW: there was POWER in the room, I tell you. These are women who take feminism out of any academic sort of context, and are making it live in the world, in their workplaces — many of which are, uh, not traditionally female workplaces, shall we say. “I’m the only female electrician in Sudbury”…you know, that kind of thing. A great honour to perform for them. Brought back “the Dominion of Love” for the first time in a while, in honour of some Dominion workers that CAW represents!