The curtain closes on Cloud 9 (photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)

While it’s hard to believe that we’ll never again hear David Jansen demanding “I WANT MY BEADS!!” in young Cathy’s suddenly husky baritone, CLOUD 9 has come to a close, with the Panasonic soon becoming home to a certain lesbian Jewish Wiccan wedding.

Meanwhile, the CLOUD 9 cast is already busy with new projects. Megan Follows has just begun a workshop of Necessary Angel’s Andromache with Scottish director Graham McLaren. Ben Carlson is off to Stratford where he’ll be appearing as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale and as Touchstone in As You Like It. Yanna McIntosh will be joining Ben in The Winter’s Tale as Hermione, as will be appearing in Dangerous Liaisons as well. And Evan Buliung is the third CLOUD 9 cast member setting up camp in Stratford for the summer; he’ll be portraying Mac in George F. Walker’s King of Thieves.

Director Alisa Palmer, on the other hand, will be spending her time down the road in Niagara-on-the-Lake. She’ll be directing The Women at the Shaw Festival.

Blair Williams is spending the next few months further west – he’s already in rehearsal for Theatre Calgary’s production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. And Ann-Marie MacDonald is busy at the CBC. Not only is she returning as host of Doc Zone, starting March 8^th her novel Fall on Your Knees will go mano-a-mano with four other Canadian classics as part of CBC Radio’s Canada Reads.

As for David Jansen’s Cathy… well she’s looking forward to starting Grade 1.

For those of you out there who’ve been clamouring and even pleading to hear the lovely “Cloud 9″ song from the production -- well, we have some good news. We grabbed a couple of cameras, headed down to the Panasonic, and recorded the song guerilla-style -- just for you. It’s a little rough, but the compellingly catchy music by Paul Sportelli, John Gzowski and Ben Carlson shines through, as does Ben’s wistful lead vocal.

David Jansen as 5-year-old Cathy (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

The reviews – from old school critics, new school bloggers and from people who go see theatre to, well, go see theatre – are in. And they’re outstanding.

The Globe’s R. Kelly Nestruk says CLOUD 9 is “a parade of pleasurable performances.” The Sun’s John Colbourn describes it as a “brilliant and witty commentary on the enduring nature of human passion and compassion.” On CBC Radio One, resident theatre critic Lynn Slotkin raves that CLOUD 9 is “directed with style by Alisa Palmer” and “there are seven actors at the top of their game, and the result is a production that will have theatre-goers on cloud nine when they see it.”

In the blogosphere, mooneyontheatre is “fascinated by how well Ann-Marie MacDonald and David Jansen captured the mannerisms of their child characters”, while blogTO calls it a “raucous mash-up of age and gender, race and sexuality.”

But the most rewarding feedback is coming in from our audience: the people who are buying the tickets, braving the cold, and filling the Panasonic night after night. Sandy (a self-described late 40’s feminist engineer), writes on her blog that a “great script, excellent actors and fabulous costumes make for a fun night out.” Perry T. calls CLOUD 9 a “fantastic, daring show.” Patti S. “loved Churchill’s flip on gender, age and race.” And Barrie W. tells us: “I saw it in about 1982 or so, and don’t remember it being this funny.… The deliberate mixing up of genders is a brilliant theatrical conceit and takes the play out of the ordinary – now no less than 30 years ago. The cast is uniformly splendid.”

If you’ve seen CLOUD 9, tell us what you think – enter our “Was It Good For You?” contest here. And if you haven’t… well you should believe everything you read (just this once!) and come experience CLOUD 9 yourself.

Evan Buliung and Yanna McIntosh in Act 2 (Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)

CLOUD 9 opened last night and it was fantastic! The show’s grown so much over the past week of previews, it’s really found its rhythm and now it really flies.

It’s obvious that the actors are really enjoying themselves and taking their audience on a wild ride along with them. The house was packed, and they were loving it. Lots of laughter, a few gasps – everyone seemed to be having a great time. Afterwards we all got to celebrate at a great party across the street at Zelda’s. The cast was finally able to kick back, relax and have a much-deserved drink or two.

It’s been a great process working on CLOUD 9, now we get to share it with the public and allow them to enjoy this amazing world that we’ve all worked so hard to create.

A look at our cast/character list reveals there’s something strange going on in Cloud 9. Some characters from Act 1 recur in Act 2, but they’re not played by the same actors. And in the colonial Africa of Act 1, Evan Buliung plays a woman, Ann-Marie MacDonald plays a young boy, and Ben Carlson plays a black African. In Act 2 (London circa 1980), David Jansen plays a five-year-old girl.

This isn’t some kind of half-baked experiment or the whim of director Alisa Palmer. In fact playwright Caryl Churchill dictates this casting very specifically – and our cast has a few insights why.

“I think Churchill’s working with the idea that gender and race and class are often constructs, they’re often behaviours we create, stories we tell ourselves about who we should be,” says Ann-Marie. “And they’re political structures too, part of how we organize ourselves in society. Sometimes those structures are politically expedient. They’re a really good shorthand way of saying ‘you’re a woman, you have no power.’”

“Churchill uses the casting as a device to ask us to look at something with a different set of eyes,” says Megan Follows. “She’s playing with our preconceived notions of people, and that goes for sexuality too. The casting turns homosexuality into heterosexuality, heterosexuality into homosexuality, there’s bisexuality too. Preconceptions go out the window.”

Ann-Marie suggests an additional layer. “I think the casting also tells us something about what’s happened to the British Empire. In Act 2, five-year-old Cathy is played by the man who plays the patriarch in the first act. The patriarch is gone, and instead there’s an angry, joyful, hungry little girl who doesn’t know how to direct her energies, who runs around in a pink dress, toting a gun.” Adds David, who gets to wear the pants and then the dress: “Cathy, like any young child, dominates a room. In a way, she’s like a little emotional imperialist – an imperialist with a skipping rope.”

(Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)

Blair Williams and Megan Follows in Act 1 (Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)

Last night was our first preview! So great to have an audience, it really took the show to the next level. The cast did a fantastic job (of course). The audience was right there with them the whole way, with lots of laughs in all the right places. Today we are back in rehearsal to tinker with a few things: adjusting a couple of technical elements, working on some scene changes, and doing a little scene work. And then getting ready for preview #2 tonight.