A long, busy life by Richard Ouzounian
Source : Toronto Star
Mavor Moore, 87: A creative force
December 22, 2006
Of all the many things that Mavor Moore did for Canadian culture, the most important was to give us the courage to speak with our own voice.
The endlessly energetic and multitudinously talented author, director, actor, producer, lyricist and composer, who died in Victoria, B.C. on Monday at the age of 87, always believed a story told from a Canadian point of view automatically had something special going for it.
In reviewing his 1994 autobiography Reinventing Myself for this newspaper, I noted that from the 1940s onward "it is hard to think of anything in the Canadian performing arts that Mavor Moore has not been a significant part of. He has been a guiding force in CBC Radio and Television, has headed the Canada Council, helped create the Charlottetown Festival, the National Arts Centre and the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, produced, written, acted and directed innumerable plays, musicals, and operas."
But what's missing from that impressive list is the flavour of the work that Moore encouraged. He loved the romantic, the fantastical, the witty and the wise. He believed that just because a project was "Canadian" didn't mean it had to be dull.
He was the man who directed the initial edition of Spring Thaw, that perennially cheeky revue, and the one who first commissioned Anne of Green Gables for the stage (even helping out on the writing of some lyrics).
Moore wrote the book and lyrics for the marvellous musicals Sunshine Town and Johnny Belinda, and penned many other plays, including my favourite: his uniquely Canuck reimagining of Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector called The Ottawa Man.
Perhaps one of the reasons I liked Moore so much was that we shared the belief that a well-written musical could say as much about a nation as an earnest drama.
And I don't know whether it makes me happy or sad to quote this still too-true statement that Moore made in 1956 about the state of commercial musical theatre in our city:
"In Toronto, we now have excellent facilities for seeing the best that Broadway and London can produce. What we do not have is the opportunity of seeing a Canadian representation of Canadian life .... A fresh start is made by building on what we have here with vigour and honesty, not with borrowed polish. We will never do it by making bad carbons of what is already growing dated in London and New York."
He didn't just believe we could be good; he believed we could be better and that's why Canadians will always owe him a debt.
Moore's secret weapon was probably that he didn't let the wisdom of age subdue the enthusiasm of youth.
In his autobiography, he recreated the moment when, flushed with pride to be leading CBC-TV through its early days, he met his old philosophy teacher, Fulton Henry Anderson, who asked what he was up to. "I'm putting a television network on the air, sir," he beamed. "Oh Moore," sighed Anderson, "When are you going to quit f--king around?"
Fortunately for us, he never did.
Full Name: James Mavor Moore
Date of birth: March 8, 1919 in Toronto
Parents: An Anglican theologian father and a theatre producer mother Dora Mavor Moore; Toronto's annual Dora Awards are named in her honour.
Professional affiliations: The CBC; Spring Thaw; Stratford and Charlottetown festivals; St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts; York, British Columbia and Victoria universities.
Marriages: Three. Darwina Fessler; literary biographer Phyllis Grosskurth; classical singer Alexandra Browning.
Awards: Peabody Award (three times); Centennial Medal, 1967; Queen Medal, 1977; Molson Prize, 1986; Order of Canada, 1988; Governor General's Performing Arts Award, 1999
© Toronto Star
The endlessly energetic and multitudinously talented author, director, actor, producer, lyricist and composer, who died in Victoria, B.C. on Monday at the age of 87, always believed a story told from a Canadian point of view automatically had something special going for it.
In reviewing his 1994 autobiography Reinventing Myself for this newspaper, I noted that from the 1940s onward "it is hard to think of anything in the Canadian performing arts that Mavor Moore has not been a significant part of. He has been a guiding force in CBC Radio and Television, has headed the Canada Council, helped create the Charlottetown Festival, the National Arts Centre and the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, produced, written, acted and directed innumerable plays, musicals, and operas."
But what's missing from that impressive list is the flavour of the work that Moore encouraged. He loved the romantic, the fantastical, the witty and the wise. He believed that just because a project was "Canadian" didn't mean it had to be dull.
He was the man who directed the initial edition of Spring Thaw, that perennially cheeky revue, and the one who first commissioned Anne of Green Gables for the stage (even helping out on the writing of some lyrics).
Moore wrote the book and lyrics for the marvellous musicals Sunshine Town and Johnny Belinda, and penned many other plays, including my favourite: his uniquely Canuck reimagining of Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector called The Ottawa Man.
Perhaps one of the reasons I liked Moore so much was that we shared the belief that a well-written musical could say as much about a nation as an earnest drama.
And I don't know whether it makes me happy or sad to quote this still too-true statement that Moore made in 1956 about the state of commercial musical theatre in our city:
"In Toronto, we now have excellent facilities for seeing the best that Broadway and London can produce. What we do not have is the opportunity of seeing a Canadian representation of Canadian life .... A fresh start is made by building on what we have here with vigour and honesty, not with borrowed polish. We will never do it by making bad carbons of what is already growing dated in London and New York."
He didn't just believe we could be good; he believed we could be better and that's why Canadians will always owe him a debt.
Moore's secret weapon was probably that he didn't let the wisdom of age subdue the enthusiasm of youth.
In his autobiography, he recreated the moment when, flushed with pride to be leading CBC-TV through its early days, he met his old philosophy teacher, Fulton Henry Anderson, who asked what he was up to. "I'm putting a television network on the air, sir," he beamed. "Oh Moore," sighed Anderson, "When are you going to quit f--king around?"
Fortunately for us, he never did.
Full Name: James Mavor Moore
Date of birth: March 8, 1919 in Toronto
Parents: An Anglican theologian father and a theatre producer mother Dora Mavor Moore; Toronto's annual Dora Awards are named in her honour.
Professional affiliations: The CBC; Spring Thaw; Stratford and Charlottetown festivals; St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts; York, British Columbia and Victoria universities.
Marriages: Three. Darwina Fessler; literary biographer Phyllis Grosskurth; classical singer Alexandra Browning.
Awards: Peabody Award (three times); Centennial Medal, 1967; Queen Medal, 1977; Molson Prize, 1986; Order of Canada, 1988; Governor General's Performing Arts Award, 1999
© Toronto Star
