Flying high at 15 –
and we’ve only just begun (published in Forever Young)
By Ellen Ashton Haiste
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Ideas are a dime a dozen — most never even begin to fly.
But 15 years ago, a couple of Toronto arts aficionados had an idea… that became a goal… that became a dream. And it flew. It flew higher and farther than even its dedicated creators could have believed.
It was 1989 and the wave of baby boomers had just begun to crest. Grey power was new. And the concept of a song and dance and comedy revue performed entirely by “seniors” who had passed their 55th birthday was a novel idea, to say the least.
But the two-day Seniors’ Jubilee showcase at one of Toronto’s most prestigious venues — Roy Thomson Hall — sold out both days.
“We struck a chord,” says Wayne Burnett, who with partner Glenda Richards, founded what is today North America’s premiere showcase of senior talent: the RBC Seniors’ Jubilee, now five days of entertainment and still selling out Roy Thomson Hall.
“It was spectacularly successful,” says Burnett. “It proved that the idea had merit and there was a huge need for seniors to be recognized for their accomplishments in this business.”
“Our goal was twofold,” says Richards. “We wanted to provide a unique opportunity for talented seniors from across Ontario to leave limitations at the artists’ entrance and fulfill a lifelong dream — to take centre stage in Canada’s premiere concert hall.”
In 15 years this dream has been realized for virtually thousands of senior performers who have graced that stage. More than 1,300 are now featured each year, some returning year after year after year; and many getting their first crack at the brass ring. And on each of the five days, thousands more come to watch them.
“We wanted to entertain and to inspire the audiences who came to fill the theatre,” Richards says.
Burnett believes they’ve done that.
“It’s more than entertainment,” he says. “It’s a celebration. People come together to celebrate a generation, to be inspired and to inspire. You can definitely feel something special happening.”
In 15 years much has changed but much has also stayed the same. It’s a bigger event, grown from two days to four, and then to five days. And bigger means more entertainers, more variety and more talent.
The growth in the variety is a major change, says Burnett. The success of the show had brought more and more people to auditions, giving him the opportunity to pick and choose from a wider array of talent. “The variety is much more replete,” he says. “It’s a richer show today.”
As a fan of food that combines a mixture of flavours and textures in one dish, he describes Jubilee as the “antipasto of entertainment,” bringing together a bouquet of colours, flavours and degrees and types of talent that send audiences away feeling completely fulfilled yet wanting to come back for more.
What hasn’t changed is the purpose of the event, to make dreams come true for people who have not had the opportunity to fully explore their talent and put it on display. And, for Burnett, that’s one of the rewarding aspects: working with those people to help them break through the barriers of self-consciousness and put it all out there for the audiences.
And the format has remained: two hours of informal entertainment through Roy Thomson Hall’s circular lobby, where performers — dance bands, individual dancers, clowns and buskers — whose talent might be lost on the big stage can shine at close quarters, followed by a theatre stage variety show.
“Every talent can find a home here,” Burnett says.
He describes the past 15 years as “an enriching experience,” providing a unique opportunity to meet lifelong friends and to make lasting memories.
“As I look back over the past 15 years, to those first two Jubilee shows in 1989, I marvel at the evolution of this special event,” says Richards. “But, in many ways, it seems like we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. It’s 15 years and counting.”
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Celebrating the journey (Forever Young, July 2008)
More than celebrating a number the 20th anniversary of the Seniors’
Jubilee is about celebrating the people who have helped to realize its
vision
By Ellen Ashton-Haiste
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Twenty years. It’s a milestone.
But, more importantly, it’s an opportunity to look back, to see the beginning and the achievements that will forge the path into the future, says Wayne Burnett, artistic director of the Chartwell Seniors’ Jubilee, reflecting on two decades of showcasing the talents of Canada’s older adults.
In those years, it seems that society has come a long way to catch up with the “vision” that Burnett and Jubilee co-producer Glenda Richards started with: to demonstrate to the world that talent is ageless. At that time, Burnett recalls, many people were derisive and discounted the idea of presenting the talents of an older generation on the stage of Canada’s premier concert hall as “crazy.” But over the years, with more shows over more days, many more performers — now 1,300 and counting — and consistently sold-out audiences at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, Jubilee has gained a reputation as a show to be seen.
It’s been a natural progression, Burnett says. Baby boomers are getting older and now they’re starting to populate the stage, experiencing the same accomplishments as seniors before them and looking forward to the exciting possibilities that lie ahead for them.
“We were putting seniors out there before the boomers were boomers,” Burnett says. “They were a generation away from the generation I was auditioning for the stage. We’ve taken great satisfaction to have successfully carried out a vision that was unfashionable and neglected when we began back in 1989.”
But while the world has started to embrace the vision, the need still exists, he maintains.
“Our demographics, on and off stage, are younger. But they’re still an older generation and there’s still a great need for them to be recognized and their achievements acknowledged and to see the levels they can reach when they’re guided and coached and given the opportunity to bring those achievements to the stage.”
“It’s a huge and courageous accomplishment” for most and an “enormous moment in their lives,” he says, adding “that’s really what we’re celebrating this year: so many lives, so many moments, so many years.”
Another achievement for Jubilee over the past 20 years, Burnett says, has been to open the eyes of much younger audience members to the possibilities in their own futures. They see people, often of the same generation as their grandparents — people like Bobbie Thorpe, blind and nearing her hundredth birthday, sitting down at the concert grand to play Rachmaninoff like a master; or dancers like the Scarborough Showstoppers, some in their 70s and 80s energetically strutting their stuff on the stage; or Ada Lee, a jazz singer who came up through the big band era sharing stages with the likes of Count Basie and Louis Armstrong — and they’re inspired.
“They look at older people differently,” Burnett says. “You always hear the ‘wows’ from the audience when somebody much older gets up there and does something great. And what I hear from (the younger viewers) is that they’re surprised at the quality of the talent and also at the feeling — whether it’s conscious or unconscious — that there’s hope for them in the future, at the possibilities we have as human beings as we get older.”
It’s not about being the best show or even the best entertainment around, he says. What it is about is being “unique in what we do and with whom we do it.
“There’s such a force on that stage when you get so many older people sharing and giving so much of themselves. It’s a wonderful venue for everyone to feel acknowledged and that they’ve achieved something much greater than they would have otherwise; and for the audience to experience that and feel the same way. There are very empathic feelings going back and forth between stage and audience. You feel entertained at the very same time as you feel ‘I’m so proud of being older.’ That’s who we are up there. That’s the best of us.”
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