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lightbulbheart fancy cat, performance, writing

Fancy Cat Update

It’s been a minute since I’ve updated Lightbulb Heart news, which rightfully should have included the August 2025 development workshop of FANCY CAT, hosted by Canada’s National Ballet School and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Community One Foundation Rainbow Grant. Special thanks to Monica Default at Carousel Players for her ongoing support of this little show that can.

  • Open auditions brought us 6 marvelous humans who joined us for the ride. It was the kind of audition I’d always craved as a performer — honest, humane, and welcoming — I was proud to be part of it.
  • The script grew and changed in beautiful ways. Example: we added a completely new character; much to my joy since it allowed us to re-welcome our dear collaborator and therapeutic clown Jody Boston as the school janitor.
  • Sid Ryan Eilers’ choreography and direction glued us all together in love and wholeness, with a focus on people over productivity, and still somehow managed an almost completed staging.
  • Raphael Roter created amazing orchestrations and new pieces of music that brought my simple melodies into glorious technicolor.
  • About 30 people (including three kids!) joined us for an in-person workshop staging.

While fully realized music, choreography, and costumes (by the incomparable Tanis MacArthur) are still on the horizon, I am thrilled to announce that the first kiddos to experience FANCY CAT in all its glory will be library kids! We will perform starting in October 2026 in the Toronto Public Library system, with many festival dates to follow in 2027. More news and details to come as we get closer. In the meantime, please join me in this workshop performance joy captured by Cass Cabral Pucci:

lightbulbheart childhood, creativity, fancy cat, writing

Our Story is Joy (FancyCat Process Post)

This week was Trans Awareness Week and Trans Remembrance Day (20 NOV). In honor of Trans people everywhere, both living and remembered, here’s a little taste of the joy of Fancy Cat. The chorus of “Our Story is Joy” was shared with audiences in Toronto during Porch View Dances by members of TRANScendARTS.

ZAZA: Well, Fancy, who do you think you’ll be today?

FANCY: (singing “Our Story is Joy”)
Whether I’m on a stage
Or soaring through space
Or digging for T-Rex in the ground
I’ll be just right
And I’ll be enough
And I will see light all around

And I’ll make the world such a beautiful place
I’ll make a mark no one can erase
Whoever I am, Whoever I’ll be
My story is joy and I will be free

The clothes that I wear
And the path that I choose
Are things that are all up to me
I will see color
And I will see peace
And I will see people like me

And we’ll make the world such a beautiful place
We’ll make a mark no one can erase
Whoever we are, whoever we’ll be
Our story is joy and we will be free

Everyone dances. End of Play.

lightbulbheart childhood, collaboration, creativity, Easybake, writing

Update: “there’s an easybake oven where my heart should be”

Brown butcher paper with a marker drawing of an Easy Bake Oven. A sticky note heart with an arrow through it is at the top right of the image.

I’m writing on the EasyBake project again! I’m so thankful to my 2018 Summer Sisters (Emily Hill, Danielle Chelles, Cheryl Chamblee, Sharon Eisner, and Jessica Flemming) for giving me such good material to jump off with. There are several new scenes that slotted easily into the existing text, things that have gone out with the bathwater, and a gnarly little bugger about the Challenger explosion, 9/11, and a child playing soccer in Gaza that is just too sad to fit anywhere. I guess I’ll just have to keep writing to find a home for it, because I know it belongs here within the theme of lost play.

Writing is bringing me joy these days. What brings you joy? What’s your Easybake?

lightbulbheart childhood, collaboration, creativity, fancy cat, performance, writing

Porch View Dances Meets Fancy Cat

Porch View Dances is a site-specific celebration of dance put on by Kaeja every summer in Toronto for the past 13 years. I’m thrilled to say that Sid Ryan-Eilers and Raphael Roter (Fancy Cat collaborators extraordinaire) are respectively choreographing and composing for one of the pieces this year! “Joy is a Home With Many Rooms” will be performed by three young dancers and their caregivers and features the chorus of one of Fancy Cat’s songs (Our Story is Joy). It was such a delight to sit in (via Zoom) on a rehearsal and hear these transcendent performers singing one of our songs!

Porch View Dances will be performed on:

  • July 17, 2024 @ 7pm
  • July 18, 2024 @ 7pm
  • July 19, 2024 @ 7pm
  • July 20, 2024 @ 7pm
  • July 21, 2024 @ 2pm

Performances are Pay What You Can. FAQ and other details available on Kaeja’s Porch View Dances page.

We’ll make the world such a beautiful place
We’ll make a mark no one can erase
Whoever we are
Whoever we’ll be
Our story is joy
And we will be free!