(photo by Tariq Kieren)
What, exactly...?
by David-Benjamin Tomlinson
David-Benjamin Tomlinson is a writer and actor who performs much of his own work; stage works include Starf#ckery: Life Lessons Learned From Working the Red Carpet (2013), Memoirs FromCracktown (2012), Wingéd (2010), Cordelia (2010), Sunstroke: Icarus Speaks (2006), Keyed (2005), and the Canadian Comedy Award-nominated Things Under the Bed. David-Benjamin has appeared in Hope Thompson's She Walks the Line and Tyrolia, Toronto Masque Theatre's Arlecchino Allegro, three seasons of Sky Gilbert’s Shakespeare Experiment, and Sky’s plays Rope Enough, Happy, and Dancing Queen. Media performance credits include the feature film Grey Gardens, and the television series Orphan Black, Train 48, Queer As Folk, and The Newsroom. David-Benjamin is a writer of film, television, stage plays, web series, and radio drama.
“So exactly what kind of show is it?”
That’s usually the first question I hear after I tell people about Arlecchino Allegro. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s a hard question to answer. I get the reason why people ask: Renaissance music and clown, in a presentation that would be considered neither theatre nor a straightforward concert. In fact when Diana Kolpak first pitched the idea to me almost a decade ago, I have to admit I was initially wary. I was quickly talked off the ledge (all these years later, I can’t remember what exactly she said, but man… it must have been good), and made a part of the project.
Not only did I have a blast working on the initial presentation of the show (which was then called Tears of a Clown), the production was a tremendous success. Re-visiting it 10 years later, you wonder, of course, whether it will have the same magic, whether you’ll be able to capture what it is you were able to capture before. It’s foolish thinking, of course, and you ignore those voices as best you can, but they still can be found lurking in the shadows.
