O-MG! OPRAH TO TALK AT BELL CENTRE.
Lots of sharing followed by a Q&A
She won’t be singing or dancing. She won’t be accompanied by a backup bevy of crooners and hoofers, much less a state-of-the-art laser light show. But, guaranteed, she will sell out the Bell Centre as fast as or even faster than Lady Gaga or Madonna. That would be Oprah Winfrey, unarguably the most influential woman on the planet.
Her one-night engagement at the Bell Centre on April 11 is being billed as An Evening with Oprah Winfrey, and according to tour organizers, it will be warts and Lance and all as Oprah shares her life and experiences on stage in addition to advising audience members on how to take control of their lives. The evening begins at 7 and is followed by a question and answer period in which patrons can pose questions to the woman who was once at the helm of the highest-rated TV talk show of them all. Tickets go on sale Wednesday morning.
Whether or not one worships at the altar of Oprah, there can be no denying that her rise to the celeb stratosphere has been as unprecedented as it has been meteoric. The odds of such a rise for an African-American woman would still seem infinitesimal today.
Born impoverished to a teenage single mom in Mississippi, Oprah had to overcome all manner of obstacles herself — from rape at age 9 to pregnancy at 14 (her son died soon after birth) — before landing a job on radio, which later led to her own talk show in Chicago.
She starred in Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of The Color Purple, for which she received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. She started her own production company, and The Oprah Winfrey Show became internationally syndicated. She started her own cable network, OWN. She has interviewed just about every celeb and politico of note on the planet — including her most recent when disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong chose her to confess at least some of his sins. She has been at the root of getting millions to read, even if a couple of her selected authors turned out to be less than truthful about their pasts and methods. She has given away millions of her own money for causes throughout the world.
And if she ever decided to jump into the political fray, there are many who believe she could be easily elected president of the United States. But she’s likely too smart to do so. Besides, it would also be a huge pay cut for a woman whose net worth is somewhere north of $2.7 billion. On the other hand, Oprah is credited for delivering a million votes to Barack Obama.
“The event is somewhat based on Oprah’s Lifeclass shows, except that it’s all about her own leanings and experiences — so she is not interviewing other people or having guests,” said Christian Darbyshire, the event’s co-producer. “But the really exciting part is that we end up having a Q&A session, where she is the one being interviewed.”
Darbyshire and partner Andy McCreath are not only organizing the Montreal evening with Oprah but are also handling her Canadian tour, which has already hit Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver and which will visit Ottawa on April 10 and Hamilton on April 13. And these producers are not anyone’s notion of power players from New York or L.A. They are two ambitious 37-year-olds from Calgary.
Oprah’s western swing sold out almost instantly, bringing in more than 50,000 people in the three cities. “It goes to show the power of Oprah,” Darbyshire marvels.
Darbyshire and McCreath are not neophytes in the business of bringing high-profile personalities and politicians on speaking tours of Canada. Their big break came nine years ago in landing Bill Clinton on a cross-country tour. “And it just snowballed from there,” Darbyshire notes. “We’ve been really fortunate.”
Among the tandem’s other tour coups: Nicolas Sarkozy, Tony Blair, Alan Greenspan, Rudy Giuliani and General Colin Powell. They have handled tours for such performers as Elton John, Tony Bennett and Diana Ross. And they have brought the Dalai Lama through the country as well as the less holy Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Arnold Schwarzenegger and, yes, Lance Armstrong — before his fall from grace.
“We had been trying to get Oprah for a tour for years and years, but with no success. We tried again last September and we just happened to get lucky,” explained Darbyshire in true, modest Canadiana fashion. “Canada is the first stop for this tour, and we’ll see where it grows from here.”
McCreath reported Oprah was forthcoming in talking about her interview with a somewhat contrite Armstrong during the western swing of this tour: “It was right after her TV interview, so it was rather topical at the time, and it was brought up during the Q&A.
“But Christian and I were surprised at just how revealing she is, going through all her ups and downs and even faults. What’s incredible is seeing how much she has impacted the lives of so many. She touches all these people because she is so down to Earth herself, all the more surprising when you consider she is probably the most powerful woman in the world.”
Tickets for An Evening with
Oprah Winfrey, April 11 at the Bell Centre, go on sale Wednesday at 10 a.m. Tickets cost $79 to $299 and will be available at www.evenko.ca or by calling 1-855-310-2525.