london's largest generally well-read newspaper! - Scene Magazine

OF FARMS AND
BEAUTY QUEENS:
MISS CALEDONIA AT
THE MCMANUS
LONDON, ON
The year is 1953, and on a family farm in rural
Caledonia, Ontario, there’s work to be done. Hay
needs to be baled, barn stalls beg to be cleaned,
and cows wait to be milked. For 15-year-old Peggy Ann
Douglas, this spells utter drudgery. For Peggy Ann yearns
for the bright lights and glamour of Hollywood.
But how – the teen wonders – does one achieve this?
Become a baton-twirling pageant queen, of course.
Such is the premise of Miss Caledonia, a new production
coming to the McManus Studio Theatre from March
21 to 24. The play is a true story written and performed
by Peggy Ann’s daughter, Melody Johnson. Funny and
heart-warming, the show follows the youthful Peggy
Ann on her grand quest for the tiara.
“My mom had such a hard time on the farm, not
wanting to do that kind of work, she just wanted to get
off the farm and get into the city and be a movie star.
And in the ‘50s, if you wanted to be a star, doing the pageant
circuit seemed to be the route to take to get there.
She would read about these movie stars that did that, so
that’s what she decided to do too,” Johnson said.
With the help of 4H, Peggy Ann picked up some new
skills to better her chances in the competitions. “She
started entering pageant after pageant and gained some
momentum and started winning and broadening her
horizons. She actually had the Miss Canada application
form in her hand, but she opted to stop there and get
married and have some kids. It’s a coming of age story,
a ‘who am I’; ‘how do I fi t into the world’-type story,”
Johnson added.
She may not have been destined for Hollywood, but
Peggy Ann did win some rather glamorous prizes, one
time even landing a date with country crooner Tommy
Hunter. Johnson has all of her mother’s sashes, trophies,
and other memorabilia from her pageant circuit days.
The play wraps up shortly after Peggy Ann competes in
the Miss Caledonia pageant in 1956. The one-hander is
complemented by live fi ddle, played with gusto by Alison
Porter. Rick Roberts and Aaron Willis direct.
Miss Caledonia is a long way from the type of pageant
culture popularized in shows such as TLC’s Toddlers in
Tiaras, Johnson explained.
“People tend to focus on the negative aspects of pageants,
but this play really shines a light on the positive
aspects. At that time in the ‘50s, it was such a bonding
experience for the young women involved. They met
other young women from across the country, developed
meaningful relationships, honed their skills and
learned things beyond what they would have normally
i THE
GRAND THEATRE (471 RICHMOND STREET)
PRESENTS TEMPTING PROVIDENCE UNTIL MARCH
31. FOR TICKETS CALL 519-672-8800.
18
�FEATURES
MELODY JOHNSON STARS AS PEGGY ANN,
A GIRL WITH A DREAM OF ESCAPING FARM LIFE,
IN MISS CALEDONIA
been exposed to. That lifestyle expanded my mom’s way
of thinking,” Johnson said.
After her pageantry days, Peggy Ann became a member
of a sorority and kept a strong social connection with
other women throughout the years. “It’s funny, but I’ve
had women come up to me after the show and say things
like, ‘I was Miss Deer Island out in Nova Scotia in 1957’
– an interesting thing to come out of doing the show.
They seem to get a kick out of it,” Johnson said.
Peggy Ann and her husband, Bob, moved to nearby
Brantford to raise their family. Though Peggy Ann never
forced her daughter to follow in her footsteps, traces of
her beauty pageant past would sometimes surface.
“It was always a part of my life, if we would go have
a family portrait taken, my mom would say, ‘turn your
thigh out,’ or ‘remember to point your toe,’ which I always
kind of bristled at as a young kid. I went the other
way and became a tomboy. I did dance, tap, baton – but
I didn’t have the inclination for beauty pageants,” Johnson
recalled with a laugh.
Peggy Ann provided many of the ideas for Miss Caledonia,
so much so that Johnson considers her the dramaturge
of the play. Thankfully, Johnson added, Peggy Ann
was able to see the play before she passed away last April.
Johnson hopes audiences will come out and enjoy a
new perspective of life on the farm.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had a new farm story.
The Wingfi eld series keeps going, which is such an
amazing thing, and it’s important to keep supporting
farmers,” she said. “I think it’s also important to hear
a female voice about the farmers’ life, and have some
fun doing it.”
~ Amie Ronald-Morgan
LONDON, ON
The music produced by master guitarists Jorge Strunz
and Ardeshir Farah is so timeless, so impossibly
seamless, that it is hard to believe that it originates
from two very different parts of the world.
Born in Costa Rica and Iran, Strunz and Farah brilliantly
meld the cultural infl uences of their native lands into one
enduring sound that critics repeatedly refer to as ‘magical.’
A local audience will be treated to this singular music
experience on March 17 when the duo takes to the stage
at Aeolian Hall.
To fully understand how these worlds collided, we must
travel back to 1979 when the pair met. Ardeshir Farah had
come to Los Angeles to further his studies in architecture
and civil engineering. The young musician had come from
a family of civil engineers who played music as a hobby,
except for an uncle who played violin with the Teheran
Symphony.
The home where he spent his formative years was often
fi lled with the sound of his uncle playing. At the age of 11,
Farah received his fi rst guitar and began experimenting
with pop music and improvisation. It wasn’t long before he
became a sought-after player.
One evening in Los Angeles Farah attended a concert by
Caldera, a well-known Latin jazz group on the circuit at
the time. Farah was drawn to the technique of the band’s
guitarist, Jorge Strunz, and thought he might like to get together
with him to play.
A mutual friend gave
him Strunz’s phone
number and they arranged
to jam. From
that fi rst meeting, it
was obvious to both of
them that theirs was
a rare collaboration
worth building on.
Playing in tandem
– and unbeknownst
to the young men at
the time – a signifi -
cant milestone was
occurring; the meeting
marked the fi rst time that Latin American and Middle
Eastern music had come together on the guitar. They found
that they could play with rapid-fi re speed, fl awlessly and in
perfect harmony.
Born into a long line of career diplomats, Strunz picked
up the guitar at the age of six and began playing professionally
as a teenager, dashing his family’s expectations
for him to enter politics. The travels of his diplomat father
took him to Columbia, Spain, Mexico, England, Canada,
and eventually the United States. He arrived in Los Angeles
in 1973 and began searching for the band mates who
would eventually become Caldera. The group met with a
fair amount of success, recording four albums for Capitol
and embarking on two national tours.
Strunz’s greatest achievements, however, were yet to
�arts
THREE DECADES OF
STRUNZ AND FARAH
GUITARISTS JORGE STRUNZ AND ARDESHIR FARAH
PLAY AEOLIAN HALL MARCH 17
come. Fluent in numerous genres of what was later to be
dubbed ‘world music’, Strunz and Farah recorded their debut
album in 1980, laying bare their infl uences from their
respective backgrounds as well as a prodigious facility for
improvisation. The self-produced album, Mosaico, was released
in 1982.
“We have a lot of fl amenco infl uence in our melodics, we
are admirers of many fl amenco guitar players... but our
music is really a mixture of different elements including
fl amenco, classical, Latin folk, Middle Eastern music and
jazz in the sense that we like to improvise within the structure
of our music,” Strunz explained.
With this unique harmonic blend of infl uences, delivered
with immaculate technique, the duo quickly distinguished
themselves as two of the most gifted acoustic guitarists performing
today.
Over the next three decades, the pair released 17 albums,
including Primal Magic (1990) and Américas (1992),
which won Billboard’s World Music Album of the Year and
a Grammy nomination, respectively, and spent months in
the top of Billboard’s World Music chart. Another album,
Heat of the Sun (1995), spent four months in the top 10 of
the World Music chart. Their most recent album, Journey
Around the Sun (2011), has earned them some of their
most glowing reviews to date. Their albums have sold in
excess of one million copies.
After three decades together, Strunz and Farah are still
in rare form. Guitar
lovers will not want
to miss their Aeolian
Hall concert, where
they will be backed by
an international ensemble
of world-class
musicians. The show
begins at 8pm. including
Japan, Chile, Columbia,
Venezuela, and
numerous European
countries. He has performed
at the crème
de la crème of venues;
Caesars Palace, Tropicana
and Flamingo Hilton, all in Las Vegas; Showboat in
Atlantic City; Crystal Palace Casino in Nassau, Bahamas;
and the Genting Resort in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Frewin has been able to reach an even wider audience
through 40 television appearances. He starred in an hourlong
special entitled Magic Man: Home for the Holidays
aired on CBC Television in December 2009, and has also
appeared on ABC’s Champions of Magic and NBC’s World’s
Greatest Magic. He is currently developing a special with
The Discovery Channel that will air later this year.
~ Amie Ronald-Morgan
LONDON’S LARGEST GENERALLY WELL-READ NEWSPAPER! MARCH 15 TO 28 • 2012
i
CUNTRERA PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS AN EVENING
WITH STRUNZ & FARAH AT AEOLIAN HALL
(795 DUNDAS STREET EAST), MARCH 17 AT 8PM.
DOORS OPEN AT 7:30PM. FOR TICKETS,
CALL 519-672-7950.