Alison Jutzi Talks Amongst Herself

Well, despite starting off the run having contracted the plague, I have really enjoyed doing The Last Five Years with Clearwater Theatre Company at the Tarragon extra-space, and our audiences seem to be enjoying the show as well. We've had lovely reviews from both Mooney on Theatre and NOW Magazine , and many a positive comment from many a friend and relative. This production marks the first professional show in Clearwater's history, and I'm excited to follow the work of this company and its Artistic Director, Kate Stevenson. Expect good things, folks!

An interview with myself. Interviewer: We're here with Alison Jutzi today who is going to talk to us about her latest project, "The Last Five Years", which will be going up at the Tarragon theatre this January. Welcome, Alison. Alison: Oh, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Interviewer: Alison, can you tell us a little bit about the show? Alison: Great question. The show is a brilliant musical written by Jason Robert Brown, and centres around a man and woman who fall in love, get married and then get separat- Interviewer: Whoa whoa whoa! Don't give anything away! Alison: Well, I'm not actually giving away anything that you don't find out in the first 10 seconds of the show. This show is unique in that one of the characters experiences the events of the five-year-long relationship in chronological order, and one of them in reverse. Interviewer: Ohhhhh...like Memento ? Alison: Everyone keeps saying that. Yes, I guess so, like Memento . But not really....

1. Our large audiences, even on opening night when nobody knew anything about us; 2. The musty-smelling church basement where we all gather for cabaret nights and $3 beer; 3. Club Paradiso, our awesome venue that sometimes feeds us tacos; 4. Karaoke at the Shamrock Hotel with the other artists, especially when we end the night with a group sing-a-long of Don't Stop Believin' ; 5. Our fabulous billeters who make us salmon and lend us their Acura; 6. The brilliant shows we've seen while here, including Oneymoon , Spitting in the Face of the Devil, Houdini's Last Escape, Slut Revolution and When Harry Met Harry. 7. Trips to Banff and Drumheller on our three consecutive days off. I am having a blast, and would love to stay longer, if I didn't miss this guy so much:

Hi folks, What are you doing on Monday, July 25th at 7pm? PROBABLY COMING TO THE ANNEX LIVE TO SEE THE ONE TORONTO PERFORMANCE OF MY CALGARY FRINGE SHOW, RIGHT? This show is funny and silly, and I think you'll really like it. Check out the lovely work of my husband and poster designer:

Oh goodness, posting about another show, aren't I just a bit self-promotey these days? Well, the good news is all the shows I tell you about are probably going to be funny and awesome. I promise never to invite you to a taping of me as a Metro supermarket spokesperson. I will be the musical guest at Helder Brum & Friends at Bread and Circus on Thursday, July 21st. What am I doing wasting all this energy typing? I could just show you the poster: These shows are so much fun - you have to come! Bread and Circus is a great venue and the performers are some of the best that the Toronto comedy scene has to offer. Hope to see you there! aj

Oh, hello, hi. So I'm sitting here in my pretty dress which I wore to Hugh Jackman's wonderful show, watching an old GSP fight on the TiVo because Phil turned it on and then left the room, and I thought I would say hello, hi, how are you, and let you know what I've been working on. I and my friend Chelsea are busily gearing up for our Calgary Fringe show, Folk With Benefits , which will run from July 29th to August 6th. If you live in the Calgary area, we'd love to see you there. If you live in Toronto, we'd love to see you pay $672 to come see us, and we promise we'll give you at least one free beer. Let me tell you a little bit about our show. It's about two comedic folk songstresses on the last leg of their cross-Canada tour. It's funny, quirky and dirty, and you will love it. Seriously, totally worth the $672. Check out our website ! Not to brag, but I made it myself and hardly cried at all when I was trying to figure out how to publish it. N...

Yesterday I was waiting for my mushroom and onion burger at Fresh, slowly getting the feeling back in the upper left part of my mouth after just having come from the dentist, when Phil called me with some very exciting news: The Dora nominations had just been announced, and the show I recently did at Soulpepper has been nominated in three categories! They are: Outsanding Musical Direction (the incomparable Marek Norman), Outstanding Original Choreography (the magnificent Candace Jennings) and Outstanding Performance in a Featured Role/Ensemble - the whole cast! I really enjoyed the Doras last year, and it will be even more exciting to attend this year as a nominee! We've got a very busy June planned, including a trip to Ireland, but fortunately we'll be around for the awards ceremony on June 28th. It will be a lovely excuse to reunite with my cast members. Here is a link to a list of all the nominees.

We were recently in Guelph to celebrate my niece Eden's first birthday. Phil and I got a few nice shots of the event, but I'll just post my favourite one. I think all things in life should be approached with this attitude: "Wheeee birthday yay!!!" (although with Eden's limited vocabulary it sounded more like, "Wow! Yeah! Hi!")

"I lost a pom pom, do we have any extras?" Actor: "What's my next scene!" Dresser: "I don't know!" "Has anyone seen my frilly red underwear?" "I shouldn't have had that falafel before the show." "Sorry!" (usually following a collision as actors rush to make entrances) "Greg, that dress looks great on you. I love the sparkles." "I have to make a gunshot noise but I CAN'T FIND MY DRUMSTICK!" "Crap, the curtain's busted." "Someone tell stage management the curtain's busted." "Does stage management know the curtain's busted?" Actor: "Just so you know, the curtain's busted." SM: "Yes, WE KNOW, THANK YOU. We'll fix it at intermission." "How can I make myself pop out of this corset a little more?" Actor 1:"I feel like I'm getting a bit of a sore throat" Actor 2:"Don't touch me" "Someone...

Last week I was thrilled to have my first opening night at Soulpepper Theatre Company here in Toronto. The show runs for three more weeks, and tickets can be found here . If you'd like a sneak peek, here are some behind-the-scenes videos from the Soulpepper website:

My big news of 2009 was that I got engaged. Wheee!!! Ahem. As I was saying, the big news of last year was my engagement. However, before Phil proposed I was already over the moon about something else that has now been pushed to second place in the highlight reel of my life for 2009. But second place or not, it was very exciting when I found out - and continues to be now. Last fall I was asked to perform with Soulpepper Theatre Company in its 2010 season. For audiences, Soulpepper is where you can see the best classical theatre in Toronto (and arguably all of Canada), and for artists it's a dream contract. To work with such a prestigious company is an honour. We started rehearsals for the show this week. It's called Oh, What a Lovely War! , and is a musical satire of the first World War. With Albert Schultz directing and Marek Norman as our music director, I feel like I've died and gone to heaven. Right now we're doing table work, and learning all the beautiful war-time...

7:30am I don't have to leave the apartment till 9am, but I need the hour and a half to wake myself up and eat something and go over my line. Yes, my one line. I do some dive bombs, mouth stretches and tongue twisters in the shower and silently chide myself for warming up as though I'm about to recite three hours of verse in iambic pentameter in front of an audience of thousands. 9:00am I leave the house without any makeup on, knowing that if anyone asks me where I am going they'll be appalled to learn I'm about to be on camera. 10:00am I get off the bus in Pickering and go to hail for a cab, only to realize there are no cabs to be seen and, of course, why would there be? Everyone in Pickering has a car. I find the number of a cab company and all is well, but even so I'm secretly wishing I'd had the gumption to request a pick-up and drop-off, since we weren't shooting in Toronto. 10:40am I arrive on set and I'm early. Great! But then the thing happens tha...

Hey y'all! My friend J. Sean Elliott just sent me a DVD of my opening act for his "No Refunds Tour" at the Revival last February. Here are two selections from that set: Hone My Craf t and The Birthday Song .

We officially opened our production of Dry Streak at the Grand last night to a full house (800 people), including the playwright, Leeann Minogue. She's a lovely woman who seemed very pleased with the positive response we've been getting. The show went by without a hitch, and the audience laughed in all the right places, not acting at all like the typical polite-and-quiet Friday night audience. After the show, we were enjoying some drinks and food in the lobby when a gentle and continuous "ding" started sounding. It reminded me of the warning bell you hear when intermission is coming to a close and it's time to chug your coffee and shove that Haagen Dazs bar down your throat. I ignored it until one of the staff members alerted us all to the fact that it was actually the fire alarm and we had to evacuate the building! We all made our way down the stairs to the main entrance where we huddled outside in the drizzle as four (FOUR!) fire trucks came screaming towards t...

I'm in the middle of tech dress rehearsal for Dry Streak so I'm rockin' the 80's bangs. I'm really enjoying this. Perhaps a little too much.

Do people from London, Ontario spend their whole lives saying "No, Ontario actually"? I've had this conversation a lot recently: Person I Know: So, what are you going to be doing next? Me: I'm doing a play in London. Person I Know: England? Me: No, no. London, Ontario. Person I Know: Oh. Me : Yeah...ha ha...anyway, it should be good. Person I Know: It would be more interesting if you were going to England. Okay, maybe they don't say that last part. Anyway, the point is I'm heading to the Grand Theatre in London Ontario for the next six weeks to work on a play called Dry Streak . It's a comedy written by the Canadian playwright Leeann Minogue. If you'd like tickets you can visit the Grand Theatre website here . Goodbye for now, Toronto. I'll see you in November!

I'm going to be singing at The Annex Live Music and Comedy Night tomorrow evening. This venue is the former Poor Alex, which has been turned into a restaurant and performance space. You can click here to see the Facebook invite, if you're ONE OF US in the Facebook cult. If not, then I guess you're out of luck. 'Cause I mean, seriously people, who doesn't have Facebook anymore? What, you're too good to have all your contact information and embarrassing photos on a public forum for all to see? GET OVER YOURSELF. Ahem. Anyhoo, I hope you can make it to the show. I write and sing comedic folk songs, in case I haven't mentioned that before. You can listen to a few of them on my website. And for those of you who haven't jumped on the Facebook train (and oh, you will) here are the details: The Annex Live 296 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto Wednesday, September 2nd at 8:30pm No cover.

Tonight we will be doing our first preview of A Christmas Carol . After several dress rehearsals and tech runs I think we're all itching to have an audience. During final dress last night enough silly little things happened to make it feel like a final dress (getting my skirt caught under some furniture, being seen in the house lights while exiting after the Act I blackout etc.). Y'know, those little things you need to get out of your system before you open. I'm really happy to be doing this show with so many talented performers. Our Scrooge is Billy Vickers, a 21(!) year Shaw Festival veteran. He's a joy to watch. And the cast as a whole is made up of very strong and seasoned actors. And you know what I love? My 1850's hairdo. I've been putting my hair up in a high bun, with big fat sausage curls at the side of my face. At first I was sweeping my bangs to the side, but now I've started curling them. I look like a gigantic doll and I love it. I'm not go...

I'm doing a show with Allie and Kyla on September 7th at Free Times Cafe (320 College, Toronto). You can see the Facebook event invitation here We're all songwriters so we'll be playing a lot of our own songs. With guitars. And emotion. Lots of emotion. See you there!