Oh Canada Eh digs up an oldie for watch party
Unable to perform new shows during the COVID-19 shutdown, the gang at Oh Canada Eh is instead digging one up from the vault.
An archived video of “Jump! Jive! & Wail 2,” originally performed in 2005, is available for viewing on the company’s Facebook page.
It’s all part of keeping the company “in the public eye,” says director Lee Siegel, who created and starred in the show 15 years ago.
“It’s something better than nothing,” he says. “All we want to do is put a smile on someone’s face, at a time when it’s probably getting increasingly harder to smile.”
Siegel’s ode to ’50s and ’60s music was one of the first productions for the company that wasn’t the main dinner theatre production. A sequel to a hit Siegel wrote a year earlier, it was remounted in 2010, and formed the template for a Christmas show (“Jump! Jive! & Jingle!”) that has been staged three times.
Siegel says it was “heartwarming” watching the video and seeing old cast members, along with younger versions of some still with the company. Many of them will join the live Facebook feed.
“It was before Broadway, it was before all that awesome stuff that happened in my life, so it was kind of cool to look back on and see how we started,” he says. “What was in my head back then and what our confines were at the time.”
The 2005 production starred Melissa Penner, Amanda Kind, Heather Sargeson, Carrie Latka, Craig Maguire, Greg Csefko and David Wolanski along with Siegel. The music was performed by Jake Zapotoczny, Phil Martin and Nick Tripe.
Unlike other archival videos, the 2005 show was filmed by a professional video company with multiple cameras, says Siegel. It’s not exactly HD, he says, but it’s definitely “not crappy” quality.
He was especially pleased to see the video capture the reaction of the audience during some scenes.
“It’s filled with smiles, it’s filled with people dancing in the crowd.”
He’s hoping it elicits the same reaction 15 years later.
“If you’re in your house watching your computer, no one’s going to see you — dance away.”