“And Tell Laura I Love Her”: Back by Popular Demand, April 1, 2015

A year ago I was busy promoting an Ottawa Storytellers show at the NAC 4th Stage called “And Tell Laura I Love Her.” In this show, Gail Anglin and I joined forces with a gutsy rock'n'roll band (Last Band Standing) to present a light-hearted evening of original stories about adolescence, interspersed with classic early 1960s songs.  What a blast it was!

This show SOLD OUT well in advance last year, and a lot of people who wanted to get in couldn’t get their hands on a ticket.  Fortunately, the show is being remounted this year as a joint benefit for the Stephen Lewis Foundation  and Ottawa Storytellers.  The date of the performance is Wednesday, April 1st (7:30 p.m start), which seems like a long way off – but I just heard that about half the tickets are already sold!  So thought I had better get busy and let everyone know about the show, even though it seems a bit early. 

Tickets cost $22 at the NAC box office. You can also order them online for an extra fee.  See the NAC site here for information. 

"Who did put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop? And why must I be a teenager in love? As the 1960s began, and the first great tidal wave of boomers crashed into adolescence, these and other life-and-death questions were uppermost in their minds and their music.  As in every period, there was plenty of scary stuff going on in the wider world, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to race riots in Mississippi and the assassination of JFK; but for this evening we're steering towards the lighter side, the way most of the pop music of the day did.  Welcome back to a time when boy bands were courteous and clean-cut, when TV was new, and when the real crises were about bad skin, fitting in, and falling in and out of love. It still looked an awful lot like the 1950s, but Rock'nRoll was sneaking up on everybody in broad daylight, clean-shaven, Bryl-creamed, and wearing a suit and tie."