History Wars at the ROM: Tommy Douglas There are some who see the father of our health care system not as a saint, but as socialist evil incarnate. The two sides hash it out live as part of the ROM’s History Wars series, with historian and Douglas disser Michael Bliss going up against Greg Marchildon, the CEO of the Romanow Royal Commission on Health Care. Find out more »
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Today in Toronto: History Wars at the ROM and World Literacy Canada’s Kama Benefit Reading Series
Today in Toronto: ROM Sleepover: Maya
ROM Sleepover: Maya Night at the museum: Mayan style. Kids get to sleep over in the after-hours quiet of the ROM while learning the ancient secrets of the mysterious Maya. Palace life, rituals and beliefs, art and artifacts are all part of the Maya story they will experience through exhibits and mask-making. Ages five and up. Find out more »
The Loaded List: we catalogue the astronomical salaries of Toronto’s ruling class
It’s not particularly polite to ask rich people what they earn. But tact is overrated, and we wanted to know, so we asked anyway. When they told us to get lost, we got sneaky. We dug up disclosure documents, annual reports and the tax filings of charitable organizations. When those trails went dry, we surveyed industry insiders who know what other people make—headhunters and consultants and analysts and colleagues—and asked for an educated guess. After hundreds of calls and emails and deep-throat meetings in dark alleys, we phoned the high earners back and told them what we found. Again, with feeling, they told us to piss off.
What follows is our shamelessly gawking, as-precise-as-possible examination of the highest-paid people in the city’s top industries. When the information was available, we included bonuses and perks and, in some cases, exercised stock options. Our findings verified that a high earner in finance is almost always on a different plane (a private jet, usually) than a high earner in, for example, the lowly arts. One major discovery: Heather Reisman took a pay cut. One truth reconfirmed: no matter how rich you are, there’s always someone who makes a helluva lot more.
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C5 chef swap: Corbin Tomaszeski’s in, Ted Corrado’s out (or, rather, up)
(Images: Steve Krug; Royal Ontario Museum)
The Royal Ontario Museum announced an interesting change of the guard today at C5, the continental fine dining restaurant perched atop of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. Ted Corrado, who’s been the executive chef since the restaurant opened, has been promoted to regional executive chef at Compass Leisure, a subsidiary of the Compass Group, the national food-service company that runs C5 for the museum (we took a look inside Corrado’s fridge for our Crisper Confidential series in March). Replacing Corrado is Corbin Tomaszeski, of Restaurant Makeover and Dinner Party Wars fame, who also ran the kitchen at Holt Renfrew’s café. While Corrado’s menus have tended toward innovative dishes with the occasional molecular touch—one tasting menu started with butternut squash that had been cured, compressed and shaved, with a citrus tea syrup and crumbled caramelized cream—Tomaszeski is better known for less complicated fare. “My style is simple, but classic,” he said in a release. “I believe the best meals use everyday ingredients to create beautifully presented dishes that are uncomplicated, accessible and appealing to everyone.” Tomaszeski’s new menu at C5 includes truffled chips with fleur de sel, flatbreads with seasonal toppings and a lobster B.L.T. salad. He’ll also be responsible for the food at the Food Studio Café and C5’s catering service.
The ROM learns from a study that people hate being gouged, cuts prices
The Royal Ontario Museum slashed its admission prices last week in an effort to draw more visitors—apparently the “Sitting Still: Faces of Childhood” gallery isn’t pulling in the hordes that were expected. Adult admission now costs just $15, down from $24, with other prices and surcharges cut accordingly (see all the changes here). The ROM is also helping students between the ages of 15 and 25 develop the art-loving side of their growing brains by expanding its definition of student (before the changes, a student discount was only given to people between the ages of 15 and 17). The move is the result of an internal study, which revealed a bit of conventional wisdom: “What we uncovered in that research is that the price was a barrier to people coming to us,” CEO Janet Carding told the Globe and Mail. Until now, the ROM had some of highest admission prices in the country, despite only getting 17 per cent of its revenue through ticket sales. Read the entire story [The Globe and Mail] »
A $10-million diamond, and other rare pieces of jewellery, will be auctioned off at the ROM
The largest diamond to ever be sold in Canada is set to be auctioned off at the Royal Ontario Museum on November 13, and the National Post has a few interesting numbers on the rock. The $10-million stone is 50.24 carats; it’s 23 millimetres wide; it has 58 sides (which means it’ll reflect a lot of light). There are loads of other interesting nuggets, too, including that the diamond owner’s identity is a mystery—we only know that he is “a Belgian hotelier” looking to make a quick buck—and that the sale marks the return of Ritchies Auctioneers. Also, for its part, the Toronto Star reports the auction-style sale means the diamond is available to the “public.” To which we say, really? Read the entire story [National Post]»
Best of Fall 2011: Ten recommendations for an absolutely satisfying, perfectly proportioned autumn
The problem with this season is there’s simply too much to do. Too many tortured opera divas. Too many ballerinas with toe cramps. Too many new sitcoms set in psychiatric offices. Too many touring exhibits of curiosities once touched by now-dead silver screen stars. Too many washed-up TV actors with a surprise talent for stage comedy. It’s all too, too much.
Our coping strategy: pick 10. Here, recommendations for an absolutely satisfying, perfectly proportioned fall
How Matthew Jocelyn tried to revive Canadian Stage but instead ended up scaring audiences away
As the crowd settled in for an early June performance of Édouard Lock’s Untitled at the Bluma Appel Theatre, Matthew Jocelyn, the artistic and general director of Canadian Stage, stood under the spotlight, urging his audience to renew their subscriptions. Some serious name-dropping ensued. The company will be staging Red, about the life of the painter Mark Rothko, which won a Tony last year, as well as Clybourne Park, a Pulitzer Prize–winning play inspired by A Raisin in the Sun. And Atom Egoyan—who was in the audience that day—will be directing his wife, Arsinée Khanjian, in the war-themed British play Cruel and Tender.
Awards, celebrities, allusions to well-known works: there was an unmistakable whiff of desperation in Jocelyn’s populist appeal. Last year, he came to CanStage to make it a hub for, as he puts it, “the great theatre and choreographic artists who work in this country.” But his radical, rapid revamping of the ultra-safe company has alienated audiences. He opened his first season with Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter, an obscure German play, and continued into movement-based and experimental works. By the end of the 2010–11 season, the company had experienced a six per cent drop in subscription rates, and the house capacity numbers were even bleaker. A few short-run plays came close to filling the Bluma for six to 12 performances, but some long-run shows ranged from 45 to 60 per cent capacity, and that factors in tickets sold through heavily discounted specials and other promotions. After two successful decades in Asia and Europe, Jocelyn’s return to his native Toronto has been met with more jeers than cheers.
David Hockney’s iPad art to begin showing at the ROM on Oct. 8
David Hockney: two mediums (Image: Andrew)
David Hockney once said, “Inspiration, she never comes to the lazy,” so it’s a bit curious that the works from his most recent series are iPad and iPhone drawings, many of which he created lying in bed or lounging in his living room. Two hundred of these iPictures—which spread across 20 iPod Touches and 20 iPads—will be mounted on the ROM walls for David Hockney’s Fresh Flowers, an exhibition that will be in town from Oct. 8 to Jan. 1.
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Today in Toronto: ROM Walks, The Glass Menagerie and The Toronto Fringe Festival
ROM Walks Rediscover the city’s past through a series of guided walks led by those in the know, who helpfully pinpoint the architectural and historical merits of various ’hoods. Find out more »
The Glass Menagerie The oppressively insular life of Amanda Wingfield and her delicate daughter Laura and the hopes they pin on an unsuspecting gentleman caller get the Soulpepper treatment. Find out more »
The Toronto Fringe Festival The city’s 12 days of theatre are back. This year, 150 good, bad and ugly productions take over dozens of venues spread across downtown. Find out more »
Get ready: the IIFA Awards, also known as the “Bollywood Oscars,” descend on Toronto this week
Bipasha Basu will be one of the Bollywood stars in town for the IIFA Awards. (Image: Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP/Getty)
The stars and starlets of Bollywood will face a screaming, thronging, packed house at the Rogers Centre this week for the 2011 International Indian Film Academy Awards. Tickets for the ceremony sold out six months in advance, with the first 5,000 bought within an astonishing three minutes at a rate of just over 10 tickets per second. (Those planning on buying scalpers’ tickets, be wary of fakes.) Toronto is expected to receive upwards of 40,000 visitors for the awards, which will be the first to take place on North American soil.
50 Reasons to Love Toronto: No. 29, The ROM’s rock, gem, fossil and meteorite clinic
(Image: Remie Geoffroi)
There’s always a queue at the ROM’s bimonthly rock, mineral, gem, fossil and meteorite identification clinic. Last March, the lineup included Josette, clutching a mass of tangled-up jewels, Harvey, who carried some colourful stones, and Nancy and Joe, fossil enthusiasts in matching polar fleece vests. All were hoping for a windfall. Some people arrive with black rocks from their backyards, hoping they’ve discovered a primitive meteorite—the extremely rare, scientifically invaluable specimens that show us what our solar system looked like before the planets were formed and can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most suspected meteorites are what clinic coordinator Katherine Dunnell calls “meteorwrongs.” In one case, a construction worker with a dirt-caked pickup backed into the ROM’s loading dock, hauling a coffee table–sized find to the clinic. (It turned out to be just a common rock.) One woman, while walking along the Don River, found a limestone rock that cleaved open to reveal a perfect starfish fossil, an extremely rare discovery for this area. In keeping with museum policy, the ROM staff won’t do outright appraisals, but they will tell you when you should keep something in a bank vault. “Toronto sits atop a hidden city of unbelievably interesting things,” Dunnell says. “Our repeat customers are people who are constantly looking at the ground and searching.”
The Weekender: Luminato, Toronto Taste and six other events on our to-do list
One Thousand and One Nights director Tim Supple; Scaramouche’s Keith Froggett at last year’s Toronto Taste; and Glee’s Lea Michele
1. LUMINATO
Luminato No. 5 kicks off this Friday with a free concert at Metro Square featuring Beast and the Joel Plaskett Emergency. Other offerings we’re dying to see? Malcolm Gladwell’s talk at the Bluma Appel theatre and One Thousand and One Nights, a multilingual, interdisciplinary retelling of Shahrazad’s tales, by British director Tim Supple and Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh. June 10 to 19. luminato.com.
2. TORONTO TASTE
Second Harvest’s annual fundraiser isn’t just about raising the cash to support the organization’s good work (over the last 21 years, it has provided on the order of eight million meals to the city’s hungry, and each ticket purchased for this event funds 250 meals). It’s also one of the most anticipated foodie events of the year. Toronto’s culinary boldface names—Marc Thuet, Mark McEwan, Roger Mooking, Teo Paul, Paul Boehmer and more—whip up some seriously gourmet eats at and around the ROM, while this year’s host, Food Network’s Bob Blumer, promises to be extra entertaining. Although tickets are usually available at the door, they’re going fast this year. June 12. $250. Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park, torontotaste.ca.
Gregory Burke pulled the Power Plant out of debt and enhanced its international reputation. Then, he quit.
Gregory Burke with Sarah Bywater, the former Power Plant head fundraiser, at the 2009 Power Ball (Image: George Pimentel)
The Power Plant’s first board meeting of the year was held at noon on Monday, February 7. The gallery, situated on prime waterfront property, is a magnet for the city’s wealthy society figures. The clubby board of governors reflects that. Trinity Jackman, an archaeologist and the daughter of Hal Jackman, is the vice-president. The Drake Hotel owner Jeff Stober is a member, as are Rosedale hostess and arts patron Elisa Nuyten and the entertainment lawyer Paul Bain. The board’s president is Shanitha Kachan, an art collector and the wife of investment guru Gerald Sheff. Kachan called to order what should have been a routine, low-key meeting. Then came the big revelation.
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ROM Young Patrons gather among the dinosaurs to give out first research fund award
Members of the ROM Young Patrons' Circle mingle among the dinosaurs (Image: Jaclyn Klein)
Last week at the ROM, Dr. Sarah Fee, a cultural anthropologist on staff, took to the stage in the museum’s theatre and accepted the inaugural Young Patrons’ Circle Research Fund gift—a $7,000 sum that will eventually result in new exhibits. Before the announcement, curators from various parts of the museum made their case for the funding, turning the event into a kind of Academy Awards for museum nerds. After the jump, our rundown of the night.
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