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Hello!

Welcome back to the Belfry and a celebration of Canada with the songs of Gordon Lightfoot.

We have some old friends returning to the stage. Victoria’s Kelt Eccleston starred in our production of Home is a Beautiful Word, and Stratford-based Evangelia Kambites starred in our original production of I Think I’m Fallin’: The Songs of Joni Mitchell.

Pedro M. Siqueira relocated to Victoria from Brazil and starred in our presentation of A WONDERHEADS Christmas Carol.

Sidney native David Lennon and Edmontonbased Melissa MacPherson are making their Belfry debuts.

As always, we look forward to seeing you at the theatre.

Land Acknowledgement

The Belfry Theatre is on the land of the People, known today as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. The people have been keepers of this land for millennia and we offer them our respect and gratitude for our presence on this territory.

B4 Play

(In-person + Online)

SATURDAY, APRIL 19 AT 11 AM

BMO Studio Theatre, 1291 Gladstone Avenue

Our live talk show hosted by CBC Radio’s Gregor Craigie and featuring artists from the upcoming show, along with experts from the community, has been designed to provide insight into each Mainstage production.

Each event is held the Saturday before Opening, is free to attend, livestreamed on Facebook, and is available as a podcast on our website.

B4Play is ASL Interpreted. To reserve free tickets, please call our Box Office at 250-385-6815.

WWW.BELFRY.BC.CA is produced four times per year and can be found at branches of the Greater Victoria Public Library, the Belfry, and online at issuu.com/belfrytheatre. If you would like a digital copy please drop us a line at hello@belfry.bc.ca.

If You Could Read My Mind: The Songs of Gordon Lightfoot is generously supported by

Tickets 250-385-6815 / tickets.belfry.bc.ca

BELFRY THEATRE 1291 GLADSTONE AVENUE

VICTORIA, BC V8T 1G5

Upstage is supported by

Michael Shamata and Gregor Craigie

Photo by Don Craig

The Wheel Goes Round: Reflections on Gordon Lightfoot

By John Threlfall

If Canadian music had a face, it would surely look like Gordon Lightfoot.

Flick on the radio any time during the last 60 years and you’d hear his iconic voice soothing the airwaves. Rewind to 1985’s African-famine superstar video Tears Are Not Enough and he’s the first singer on camera. He performed at both Canada’s 100th and 150th anniversaries, for two different Prime Ministers named Trudeau; he was the featured singer at the opening ceremonies of Calgary’s 1988 Winter Olympics, the Grey Cup’s 100th anniversary in 2012 and he performed at Toronto’s venerable Massey Hall over 170 times. His face is on a stamp, his likeness became a lifesize statue, his career spawned a tribute album, a biography and a documentary, and he has been honoured with practically every award Canada could think up.

For me, Lightfoot has always been there: his first album was released in 1966, when I was just two, and one of his final tour dates was in Nanaimo, just six months before his death in 2023. That means I’m old enough (or young enough) to have always lived in a world where rainy day people could watch the sundown from the summer side of life or

hear the early morning rain falling on the carefree highway during a black day in July.

Flip through my record collection and you’ll find him tucked between Led Zeppelin and Loggins & Messina on a well-worn copy of Fantastic Gordon Lightfoot, the 1974 K-Tel album celebrating his “24 big hits on 2 vinyl records!” . . . yet that was still early enough in his career that his most recognizable songs (“Sundown”, “Carefree Highway”, “Rainy Day People”, “Edmund Fitzgerald”) had yet to be released. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find his influence throughout my music library: Tom Cochrane, Blue Rodeo, Ron Sexsmith, Cowboy Junkies, David Francey, William Prince, Stephen Fearing, Kathleen Edwards, Aysanabee . . . his inspiration continues to fill the grooves of Canadian singer-songwriters to this day.

Lightfoot’s tunes are an ideal choice for the perennially popular genre of jukebox musicals. With so many touring shows based on the music of so many artists, what’s really surprising is that the Belfry is the first to create something like If You Could Read My Mind. But, as with their 2016 hit, I Think I’m Fallin’: The Songs of Joni Mitchell, cocreators Michael Shamata and Tobin Stokes have

Photo by Blake Handley. John Threlfall is a longtime local writer and arts advocate.

shown they’ve got what it takes to transform a solid-gold discography into a much-loved production.

“Approaching a singer-songwriter’s work this way is such a privilege,” says composer Stokes. “We have time to test each song’s resilience – the lyrics, melody, chord progression . . . while it’s a concert, it somehow magically blooms into theatre.”

As with us all, Lightfoot’s legacy is part of the personal soundtracks for both of the show’s creators. Director Shamata associates one particular song with his early days in the industry: “It was ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ but sung by Barbra Streisand on her Stoney End album . . . it was probably when I was working at the Shaw Festival as a stage manager back in the ’70s.” For his part, Stokes remembers hearing that iconic baritone and 12-string guitar on the living room hi-fi while growing up in Powell River. “The sound of Lightfoot’s voice, his particular turns of phrase . . . they mingle with certain childhood memories, as good songs often do.”

When it comes to crafting a show, however, it’s no mean feat to crunch 20 albums down to just 25 songs suitable for a cast of five. Shamata says they’ve been discussing song selection since they first came up with the idea: he describes it as “a very collaborative process, which continues once we’re in the room with the actor-singers.” For Stokes, it’s almost intuitive: “As we get busy collaborating, the songs start telling us if we’re on the right track.”

Why I Chose This Musical Experience

Cast & Creatives

Kelsey

Tobin and I had been talking about creating a show around Gordon Lightfoot for some time. As with our Joni Mitchell show—it is such a thrill to hear the music in new arrangements—which allows us to hear the lyrics anew. And what amazing lyrics these are—! What I did not know when I chose this artist, was that spotlighting a Canadian icon would be so much the very best thing we could do at this particular moment.

David Lennon PERFORMER

Kelt Eccleston PERFORMER

Evangelia Kambites PERFORMER

Pedro M. Siqueira PERFORMER & ASSISTANT MUSICAL DIRECTOR

Michael Shamata CO-CREATOR & DIRECTOR

Melissa MacPherson PERFORMER

Carole Klemm SET DESIGNER

Tobin Stokes CO-CREATOR & MUSICAL DIRECTOR

Emily Friesen COSTUME DESIGNER

Paul Tedeschini SOUND DESIGNER & AUDIO ENGINEER

Kevin Fraser LIGHTING DESIGNER

Caryn Fehr STAGE MANAGER

Katie Van Bergeyk DIRECTING INTERN

Cain ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER

LIVE & VIRTUAL EVENTS

Our round-up of events happening at the theatre over the next four weeks.

B4PLAY (IN-PERSON + ONLINE)

BMO Studio, 1291 Gladstone Avenue

SATURDAY, APRIL 19 AT 11 AM

Each event is held the Saturday before Opening, is free to attend, live-streamed on Facebook, and is available as a podcast on our website.

B4Play is ASL Interpreted. To reserve free tickets, please call our Box Office at 250-385-6815.

TALKBACK THURSDAY

MAY 8 AT 9:30 PM FOLLOWING THE PERFORMANCE (IN PERSON EVENT)

Following the third Thursday performance of each show, actors return to the stage to answer your questions and provide insight into the play you have just experienced. These Q & A sessions last approximately 20 minutes.

VOCALEYE

SUNDAY, MAY 11 AT 2 PM (IN-PERSON EVENT WITH TOUCH TOUR & SOCIAL AFTER)

For patrons with low or no vision, we offer one VocalEye performance during most Mainstage productions. Trained Audio Describers provide descriptions of the visual elements of the show, allowing people with low vision to enjoy the theatrical experience without missing any of the details. More information at the Box Office250-385-6815.

Belfry Librarian

The wonderful librarians at the Greater Victoria Public Library have compiled a list of books and videos to help you get even more out of our production of If You Could Read My Mind: The Songs of Gordon Lightfoot.

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind by Martha Kehoe [DVD] (2020)

Gordon Lightfoot at Royal Albert Hall by Gordon Lightfoot (2023)

Solo by Gordon Lightfoot (2020)

Songbook by Gordon Lightfoot (1999)

Writing Gordon Lightfoot: The Man, the Music, and the World in 1972 by Dave Bidini (2011)

101 Fascinating Canadian Music Fact by David McPherson (2023)

The Complete Singles: 1970-1980 by Gordon Lightfoot [CD] (2019)

Four Strong Winds: Ian & Sylvia by John Einarson (2011)

Hearts on Fire: Six Years That Changed Canadian Music, 20002005 by Michael Barclay (2022)

Leonard Cohen: everybody knows by Harvey Kubernik (2014)

Lightfoot by Nicholas Jennings (2017)

Rock & Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story by Sebastian Robertson (2014)

Rumours of Glory: A Memoir by Bruce Cockburn (2015)

We Oughta Know: How Céline, Shania, Alanis and Sarah Ruled the ‘90s and Changed Canadian Music by Andrea Warner (2024)

Gordon Lightfoot & The Needle’s Eye

By David Stocks

In the summer of 1964, two friends and I created a folk song club in Kingston, Ontario. We had full-time jobs in the Army, but we wanted folk music in our daily lives. We were immersed in the folk music of Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, Peter Paul & Mary, Pete Seeger, John Runge, the Weavers, and similar performers.

We rented a former plumbers’ warehouse on the third floor of an old building at 111 Brock Street. It was a filthy, rectangular room of about 2,000 square feet. We built a kitchen, two washrooms, and an entrance counter at one end. We bought about 20 small tables and about 90 chairs at the local used furniture place. Along one long wall, there was a space where a table could have been placed. That was our performance space. It was illuminated by a couple of spotlights. Very primitive!

We opened The Needle’s Eye in September with the duet of Amos Garrett and Carol Robinson. Amos was a superb guitar player who performed with Maria Muldaur, and Ian & Sylvia, among others. Carol Robinson was a singer who was also the hilarious, rubber-faced comedienne who appeared on numerous Wayne & Schuster shows.

/ tickets.belfry.bc.ca

Both Amos and Carol were members of the “jug” band called The Dirty Shames. The band performed in The Needle’s Eye later in 1964.

To help us with planning this venture, we visited two successful clubs: The Purple Onion in Toronto; and L’Hibou in Ottawa. We established loose affiliations with those places so we could share opinions about various acts. We could also book acts for more than the usual single week, which led to greatly reduced costs. For example, we were able to book the Canadian recording artist trio The Couriers for five weeks: two weeks in The Purple Onion, a week in The Needle’s Eye, then two weeks in L’Hibou. There was no way we could afford The Couriers for a single week.

We established some policies to treat the performers well. One policy was that the manager introduced every set. In other clubs, the manager only introduced the first set. For subsequent sets, the performers had to go to the performance space, tune their instruments, and hope that the audience would quiet down and start to pay attention. Our policy was popular with the performers.

One evening in October, as I sat in the Club, the manager came to me and said, “Gordon Lightfoot is on the phone.” I had never heard of Gordon, so the conversation went:

“So?”

“He wants a gig.”

“What do you think?”

“I think we should give him one.”

“Go ahead.”

Gordon’s first gig at The Needle’s Eye was in November. For $150, he drove to Kingston in his black Chevrolet Corvair and played for four nights: Wednesday-Saturday. He stayed at a cheap hotel for about $10/night.

Gordon worked hard at his craft. He rehearsed every afternoon for several hours. He came to the Club well before the 8 p.m. starting time and played past the 11 pm ending time. This was a welcome change from other singers who did not rehearse, started late, and ended early.

Photo: David Stocks busking on Mont Martre, Paris in April 2024.

After the shows, we owners, the staff, and the performers would often have a meal of Chinese food from a nearby restaurant. That place gave us 30% off because we would take a large quantity of their leftover food. After the meal, some of us would go back to my apartment and continue to jam, despite the occasional unpleasant incidents with neighbours. I had the pleasure of sitting beside Gordon on the sofa in my living room as we both played our guitars and sang some of his songs. What an honour!

According to the standards of the industry at the time, the “house” had the right to get the talent back one more time under the same terms. Because we were so impressed by Gordon, we booked him for January.

Much to our surprise, Gordon became famous at the end of 1964 because Peter, Paul, and Mary released two of his songs: Early Morning Rain and That’s What You Get For Loving Me. Gordon went to NYC for the release of the records. He met several famous performers and got to perform for them. He was astounded by his success!

When he came to us in January, he was almost delirious and was shaking badly as he told us about the trip. I had to tune his 12-string guitar so he could perform.

Three months later, the same man, playing the same songs, was earning $3,000/night! I cherish the thought that his time at The Needle’s Eye might have helped a bit to build his career. He certainly gave me a lifetime of wonderful memories.

If You Could Read My Mind: The Songs of Gordon Lightfoot

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

April 22 – May 25

Tuesdays – Thursdays at 7:30 pm

Friday & Saturdays at 8 pm

Wednesday Matinees at 1 pm (April 30, May 7, 14 & 21)

Saturday Matinees at 4 pm

Sunday Matinees at 2 pm

Audience Engagement Schedule

B4PLAY (In-person + Online)

Saturday, April 19 at 11 am

TALKBACK THURSDAY (In Person)

Thursday, May 8 at 9:30 pm following the performance.

VOCALEYE

Sunday, May 11 at 2 pm (in-person event with Touch Tour & Social after)

How

P. S. The Needle’s Eye became well known in the Kingston area. When senior Army officers found out what we were doing, they posted me to Calgary, Pat to Gagetown NB, and Ken to Gaza, where Canada had a military outpost. The Needle’s Eye folded by May 1965.

David attended Royal Roads Military College in Victoria and the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston. After three years in the Army, David joined IBM and pursued a career as a management consultant. He remains a keen singer in various choral groups with occasional solo gigs.

Please have your credit card ready, as well as the date and time of the performance you wish to attend.

and buy your tickets online, anytime.