First off, congrats to Janna, a fellow Sheridan grad!  She should be very very proud.

So Simon Lee hasn’t been around the past two episodes, posing the question, “Where art thou?”  Well the delicious answer is right here:

Simon Lee (CBC)One of the judges from the CBC-TV production How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? has been arrested by Toronto police.

Simon Lee, 46, was charged with assault and forcible confinement. Lee appeared in court on Monday and was granted bail, and is scheduled to be back in court on Aug. 27.

Lee was absent from the final two episodes of the show, which wrapped up Monday night.

Toronto police confirmed Lee was arrested on Sunday night in a hotel room in Yorkville, where it is alleged that a person was hit and kept from leaving.

The CBC website said Lee was “personally selected by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the [Maria] panel, Lee is a world-renowned conductor and musical supervisor who has worked across many genres including concerts, film, recording artists and theatre.”

Awesome!!

So I finally got me an iPhone… Mixed. It is indeed everything I thought it would be and knew it would be. I have realized that it is not a perfect phone. But I know that it eventually will be. For instance cut and paste and instant messaging. And while 3g data is great and Rogers has one of the best 3G networks…you can get 3G in Niagara I. The lake! It still kills the battery and data will always get cheaper.

Let’s just say I’m happy I didn’t sign a 3 year contract and get a new one. I was able to get a relatively new 1st gen 16 gig.

Today I got together with Thom Allison and my music director Wayne Gwillim and we got behind a piano and just sang.  We sang over 20 songs.  How was it?  Great!  That doesn’t mean every song was perfect in my voice and perfect for the show.  No no no, quite the opposite.  In fact a lot of songs that I love dearly had to be cut.  A good handful were from “Sunday In The Park With George”, which for those who know me is a show I have a man-crush on.  But you know, in the spirit of Stephen Sondheim, who never puts a song unless it propels a story I decided to cut out “Finishing The Hat”, “Lesson #8″, “Children and Art”, and “Beautiful”.  With that, and the cutting of other songs, I’ve managed to find a theme.  The show will be about the joy and bane of my existence…women.

Thom, Wayne, and I are trying to find interesting and gritty ways of presenting these Sondheim pieces.  We’ve even discovered this Sondheim gem called “Sand”.  I saw it somewhere, copied it, and had Wayne play it for us.  When he did I looked over at Thom and I new that this was going to be the title song.

Best part of all, it looks like Eryn Murman, who is one of my favourite people in the world will be coming down on the 30th of August with her mother and father to spend the weekend with me.  I love their family, and I can’t wait to see Eryn.  For those of you who don’t know, she’s on Broadway right now in “Spring Awakening”.  She is an extremely talented and beautiful girl.  Can’t wait to see her.

I also found out that I will be doing Serious Money by Carol Churchill for Shaw’s reading series.  I play a nice part in that – that of Grimes.  It was a part that Gary Oldman played in London.  It’ll be a great opportunity to showcase myself, and to work even more with some of the most amazing actors I’ve met in my life.

Oh and we opened After The Dance… it was fantastic.  There was a buzz in the room when we stepped out for the curtain call.  It’s a gripping piece of theatre and for those of you who are serious about theatre must come down to see it.