The "Water" Tour

Hi everyone! I hope wish you all in good health in pursuit or your hopes and dreams! I am settled down to a life here in Mississauga for the winter and spring. I'm on the prowl job hunting now to pay the bills. I hope to write another show for next year. Possible titles include "Timmy's Sexual Adventures" and "Horny Tim's!" I may go undercover at Tim Horton's to get material. (And it might be the only place that hires me… ha ha). About the tour, let's start at the beginning

Walkerton

Hamilton

After Walkerton Sarah Brebner, my stage manager, and I went on to Hamilton. Sarah traveled with me across Canada working for next to nothing all summer. I am very appreciative of her efforts! Hamilton is a young festival and the crowds aren't too big. We got a great review, chosen best of venue by View Magazine and also won the coveted Hamilton Fringe Fan Favourite Award. Hamilton hosted a great festival and we had a good time! We met a wonderful bunch of people. I billeted with Thom of the Thom and Dan show in Ottawa. We met a wonderful bunch from the "Von Zuben" show who went on to Ottawa, Bremner and Lisa were both inspirational artistic influences. We met up with Russell the "Reefer Man" who went on to great success this past summer. We made many more friends as well! A great start!

Ottawa

Ottawa was a larger festival. Despite getting great press and a decent review, I learned how important the reputation of a company and the material can mean to obtaining the right time slots. Comedies can really sell, that's for sure! In Ottawa I got my first taste of flyering and actually enjoyed it. I flyered all kinds of line-ups for other shows, honing my technique I would use all summer! Mornings were spent well at Thom's playing tennis. Breakfast television had me on and I made all kinds of "Timmy's" jokes. Despite not selling so many tickets, it's a wonderful festival and I plan on returning next year. I really enjoyed the atmosphere the staff created and will buff myself up to win next year's "Towel-Off". More friends were met including the "Root of all Squares" bunch, and "Swimming Lessons" with Paisley Kite among others!

Thunder Bay

After Ottawa we played Thunder Bay. It too was a great festival. Sarah and I nearly had a heart attack on the way to the city when our bumper almost fell off. Thumper, my car, was having trouble dragging the trailer. A nice guy in Northern Ontario near Kapuskasing fixed it up - flaunting all common sense, laws and potential lawsuits if an accident should happen. Thank goodness it held together all summer after that! In Thunder Bay our billet Don was amazing and helped us get our posters up all over town. He went out of his way to make us welcome. Sarah and I felt at home. We are so glad we met him, his friends and his crazy cat. The Thunder Bay audiences came out and seemed to appreciate the show. We were invited to come back and everything is on schedule to go back there for a show in late November, with another show the next night in Nipigon. The Fring Festival was overshadowed a little by the Blues Festival. I hope they get different weekends next year. More friends were made with a certain "Flawed Genius" Barnaby and a fiery lady Nicole who we later visited in Calgary after the tour on the way home.

Athabasca

About half way across Canada is Athabasca. Fool that I am, I passed up Winnipeg to drive half way across the country, then turn back to go to Saskatoon. I had no idea Winnipeg was such a big festival. Oh well, live and learn. Winnipeg looked great and we stopped for a day or two with Mi Fumi, a Japanese friend of mine studying English. On the way to Athabasca, we put up posters for our later appearance in Saskatoon and Edmonton. Driving so far west was alright in the sense that we were the first to get our posters up in two big festivals. We also lucked out for Saskatoon and found a great billet Blair who let us stay on the way through Saskatoon. We camped in Edmonton a few nights at a beautiful park. Athabasca is a beautiful town. It's nestled in a river valley about 2 or 3 hundred km north of Edmonton. Athabasca is a town of about 2,600 people. The festival runs over three days. The festival is catered for the artists by a local restaurant. Delicious! Support by the local community is great. Once again we found that comedies and musicals and anything with sex sell better! The Fring Festival in Athabasca was a once in a life-time experience. We got to watch the Northern Lights with our billet Greta from her hot tub one night for hours! (Gorgeous by the way!) We met a wonderful dancer called Jolene up there who drove with us to Saskatoon. She was even nice to me after I drove an hour in the wrong direction.

Saskatoon

It was tough for us in Saskatoon. We did not get reviewed which hurt us. About 10 shows were unlucky and never got reviews. Some folks came off of big runs in Winnipeg with all kinds of 'Star' reviews. We never had a review that used that system, so we couldn't tell people we had any stars! So to get word of mouth going we invited a lot of volunteers to see the show and thank goodness they came! It was hard to keep going at times. On the up side, we were reunited with friends and made more friends too. We got to know Nick and Xanthe from the show "Liminal" a bit better. And of course our billet Blair was great and we had lots of fun eating, drinking, partying and sleeping in his big empty house! A soccer game with all the artists and festival staff was definitely one of my favourite moments.

Edmonton

Edmonton was our best festival financially. The two biggest papers gave us a five star and a four star review. The Edmonton Sun reviewer saw us up in Athabasca, so it was good to have gone there! Both reviews were out early as well. We worked hard flyering, We networked with other actors every night and enjoyed ourselves immensely. We got to know TJ, The Screwed and Clued boys, Jonno and Charlie- (all of whom had great shows this summer!). One night of karoke was augmented with costumes bought for other people after you drew their names out of a hat. I ended up in a Mickey Mouse bathing suit and tights. Sarah had a wedding dress on. Most of the men ended up in dresses. It was interesting to say the least. Our hosts Cathy and Brian (and cats) were great. We later visited them on the way back across Canada and ate VERY WELL.

Victoria

We drove across the Rocky Mountains to go catch a ferry to get to Victoria. We had another fellow artist come along with us. She did not snore all night loudly in the motel, she did not snore more loudly than I have ever heard in my life before, she did not sound like someone doing a voice-over for a cartoon. Nope! She didn't Victoria was fun. My billet Ron was very kind and helpful and I hope to see him again someday! The show did all right and my lessons were reinforced. Comedy next year! We won an award in Victoria for Best Actor in a Drama. A visit up the coast to see my cousin Andy and his family was great. I enjoy the west coast lifestyle!

Vancouver

Vancouver was the strangest of all festivals. A few factors hurt the ticket sales. We were off island away from the other venues, it was rainy and cold, and we got a bad review in the Georgia Strait. The review hurt us. On top of that, we were tired of flyering, tired of selling the show and just plain tired. The ups and downs all summer finally were catching up with us. I went home to my sister's wedding in Ontario (which was beautiful!) during the middle of the festival. There were some great times in Vancouver. I finally reconnected with so many people from my old school days. We stayed at Ellen's in Burnaby right beside a beautiful lake and park. They have a welcoming house, a wonderful dog and very peaceful way of living.

Homeward

After a few days to recoup in Vancouver, Sarah and I drove back across Canada with the Trailer and our set. We stopped and saw friends in and Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. We camped a couple nights on the way back. The scenery all the way was fantastic. We stopped in Northern Ontario to make a little 'Rock Statue' for good luck. We made it back to Walkerton in time for Thanksgiving and soon Sarah went home to Ottawa.

So now I'm back to where I started in Mississauga looking for a job!

I learned so much and met so many great people. We raised money for Ryan's Well at every show we did. (10% of ticket sales) Ryan's Well helps build wells in Africa for impoverished communities. I hope I did some small part to increase awareness of what happened in Walkerton and what is still occurring. The experiences I had were incredible. I could write pages more about what happened and what I learned and that's not even going into the great shows I saw all summer. I'm honoured to have met, seen, talked to and become friends with so many talented people.

Suffice it to say, this e-mail is already very long and I congratulate you if you got all the way through it! Thanks everyone for making my summer wonderful in so many ways. I'm sorry to so many of you that I didn't mention! I do remember you all! (Please drop me a line!)

Best of luck in all your endeavours. I hope to see you all next summer or sooner!

Brad Curtain - The Curtin Travellers

Thankyou all who contributed

A very special thank you to the families and friends of the cast and crew, your help and support has been tremendous.

Without the help of many businesses and individuals (especially in the Walkerton Area), this show would not have been possible.

And thank you to all others who donated their time, comments, opinions, stories or showed support in any other way and who may wish to remain anonymous.

Back to Top