When Beverly Glenn-Copeland and her partner Elizabeth first conceived a new television program for children a few years ago, children set out to teach children about the care of the planet, the importance of the community and the adaptation to change.
A few years after the process, after a vision developed, the characters developed and filmed a pilot, they realized that the lessons, especially around the adaptation, were also for them.
Glenn-Copeland, who passes through Glenn, was diagnosed with an important cognitive disorder.
With the dear Canadian musician, the old trans and the actor for a long time in Mr. Dressup As the star of the new show, Affectionate cabinThe diagnosis stopped more work in the project.
He also expressed the question asked the children to reflect them: how do you accept a challenge and let it change it?
“That is exactly what we were trying to do in the program,” said producer Sean O’Neill, reflecting on the turn of events.
“These challenges are going to be real. The types of challenges that children face, right? How to lose a friend. You know, we were not going to avoid issues of loss and death and joy and, you know, the family … what we were trying to do with the program was to give children’s tools to maintain the difficulties of life, not for roles.”
Glenn, Elizabeth and O’Neill join other crew members in the light box of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for a special screening of the Pilot Saturday. As of July 1, it is now also available to transmit in the Criteria channel.
The plan for the program may have changed, but the team is still anxious to share it with the world.
“We have had time to cry. Now we are excited, you know?” O’Neill told CBC Hamilton earlier this week, in a conversation with Glenn and Elizabeth, who have been living in Hamilton for more than a year.
‘This is his medium’
It was in 2020, in the first days of the pandemic, when Elizabeth called O’Neill with the idea.
He had just seen Glenn doing an online concert. “I was seeing this beautiful human … everything you could see in the frame was his face and he was singing us all. And what came out of the screen was just a pure love … and I thought, oh my God, this is his means,” he said. “It is wonderful in many things, but suddenly, this vision for this children’s show was completely formed in my mind.”
The idea was a mixture of many of Glenn’s talents. He spent two decades as usual on CBC television Mr. Dressup. He is also known for his “transcendent” voice and song composition, both for children and the handful of jazz, folk and electronic music albums that he has launched over the years.
O’Neill previously collaborated with Glenn for a episode of In manufacturing, where they traveled to Japan after their 1986 album Keyboard fantasies He found a new life there around 2016. The album received the Slaight Polaris Heritage award in 2020 and A new version of the opening track Always new With British singer Sam Smith and Glenn was released last year.
Glenn is also a practicing Buddhist. Elizabeth, meanwhile, brings her knowledge of the natural world, climate activism and the sensitivity of the poet in the Affectionate cabin project. The two have years of creative collaboration to their credit, including the execution of a theater school in New Brunswick together.
The result is a program rooted in what O’Neill calls “Elizabeth and Glennergy”, complete with a cast of animal friends in the form of puppets.
“I am a heart of heart,” said Glenn, now 81, laughing. “Then … I love puppets, and I constantly have puppet puppets. So you have it there.”
Caring Cabin is a children’s television series created by Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland, Beverly-Glenn Copeland, Ali J. Eisner and Sean O’Neill. The pilot was released on July 1, transmitting on the Criterion channel. He has Glenn and his music.
The 11 -minute pilot is a window to the world that the team created for the show, with Glenn music, characters like Fred The Squirrel, the scenario of the desert and the exploration of the lessons of life.
The trio describes the program as one that the parents would sit with their children to see, not “leave their children in front”, and one that emphasizes interdependence and connection.
“Glenn really insisted on the process he has as much to learn from young characters and from him. And we had a complete plan for episodes in which Glenn would be fighting and young people would help him, and that spirit of intergenerational exchange was part of our process,” O’Neill said.
“I just saw him as an opportunity to learn children’s things. I always learn the things of the children,” Glenn added.
Saturday’s projection will be special, reacting to much of the crew.
“We are all eager to meet with a group of people and share this jewel in which we spend four years working,” O’Neill said.
“Energy in that room when we did the [pilot]I’m still there sometimes in my imagination, “said Elizabeth.
A tour and new projects, next music
Elizabeth and Glenn hope that the most complete concept of the program will be carried out, although in a different way.
“We believe that maybe there is a way of taking [Caring Cabin] Advance, “Elizabeth said.
Meanwhile, the couple has a series of tour dates in the United Kingdom and Europe established for October, where they will play Glenn’s rear catalog and the new music.
Hamilton events are also probable in autumn, said Elizabeth, added that Glenn is in a new creative chapter.
“Glenn is somewhat even more.
Glenn said that letting go of expectations has been released, in fact, and has caused a new art.
“I have always been one of those people who sought perfection … almost in everything, and you know how ground it is. Well, now I can’t do it, friends,” he said.
“And that is good. I had to let it go. So, on the other hand, other parts of my brain are developing, right? The creative parts are developing very, very fast. Yes, it is really impressive for me.”
