Rainbow's 'godfather' leaves a huge void in theatre community

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Meyers: man of the stage

The curtain dropped cruelly quick on the life of Ron Meyers, who was laid to rest Sunday after a sudden heart attack Friday.

Hard to believe his 75-year-old heart gave out because he always showed plenty of it. His many achievements as a provincial court judge were remembered in an obituary written by my colleague Kevin Rollason in the weekend Free Press.

But truly he was a man of the stage, beginning in the '40s as a 14-year-old doing his best Al Jolson homage at the Beacon Theatre on Rupert Avenue. He continued singing and dancing in Manitoba Theatre Centre's annual Manitoba Bar Association productions, but his main role in Winnipeg theatre was as a one-man musical theatre archive.

You name it, he saw it, probably twice, and also had the soundtrack on vinyl, cassette and CD. He claimed to possess the largest collection of Broadway show recordings in the country.

Such a man can best be understood through musicals. I never got the chance to kid him that MTC had captured his secret life in its current production of The Drowsy Chaperone.

It tells the story of this Broadway fanatic who begins to listen to his LP of a vintage 1928 musical called The Drowsy Chaperone. The show then springs to life in his room.

The unnamed character, who is referred to simply as "Man in Chair," circles the action, delighted at the best bits, pointing out those that don't work so well and providing juicy biographical details of the cast.

That sounds like Ron, who was, in fact, a distant relative of Jolson.

It's been a while since he invited me to his favourite room, the upstairs den in his Garden City home. It contained more than 800 records, 300 CDs and 250 cassette tapes.

Then there were the stacks of programs of musicals he attended on his annual August pilgrimages to Broadway. On one he caught a rose thrown by Marilu Henner after a performance of Chicago. He had a record player near a favourite seat not unlike the set-up of Man in Chair.

Both took great joy in escaping daily trials -- for Ron it was a respite from a childhood scarred by family violence -- by getting lost in a favourite musical.

Ron was rehearsing for next spring's bar production, The Producers, in which he portrayed a blind violinist and some nerd auditioning to play Hitler.

"He was in his glory playing musical theatre," says Kayla Gordon, the director who cast him. "No one will fill his shoes because he always added that extra flair. There's a song in The Producers about the King of Old Broadway. That name sure fits him."

He was also called the "godfather of Rainbow Stage" by former board president Campbell McIntyre. At the funeral, McIntyre lamented that Ron had not allowed his name to be added to the company's wall of fame while he was on the selection committee. He will surely be there with the next inductees.

It was so appropriate for his Ron's son Brian to carry on his dad's missionary work at the funeral by announcing the names and dates of Rainbow's summer shows and urging everyone to purchase tickets.

In November performer Debbie Maslowsky attended a funeral with Ron, and while they were walking from the gravesite he fantasized about having show tunes and production numbers at his funeral. "Then he said, 'I'd want merchandise sales,'" recalls Maslowsky. "He was all about promotion of musicals."

The parting musical number at the funeral was a no-brainer for the occasion, Over the Rainbow, from The Wizard of Oz, one of Rainbow's most produced shows. His grave is in Shaarey Zedek cemetery, right across Main Street from the domed stage in Kildonan Park.

Somehow the wall of fame is not enough for Ron. On the Great White Way, when someone important dies, all the theatre's lights are dimmed in tribute. It would be a fitting send-off for the King of Old Broadway.

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Tonight the popular Broadway musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee will get its Winnipeg premiere at Edmund Partridge Community School in West Kildonan.

Numerous local professional theatres have been circling this show for years but a middle school gets to stage it first before another non-professional troupe presents it next July at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. The amateurs got it first because the musical's composer and lyricist William Finn took the unusual step of granting the rights to them first.

"It was one of the ones on our list and still is," says Donna Fletcher, co-artistic director of Dry Cold Productions. "I think we're thinking pretty seriously about doing it."

Rainbow Stage considered it and MTC held conditional rights for a while but let them go. If you can't make it to the three-day run at Edmund Patridge, you can catch up Spelling Bee next summer helmed by the same director who staged the fringe favourite Altar Boyz last summer. Director Kayla Gordon is partnering with the amateur company Stage 16 to present the story of six students competing for the county spelling bee title with a ravenous, anxious desperation.

"What I like is that it's about kids but has an adult sense of humour," says Gordon.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 19, 2010 c3