The Little Men
In the beginning, Ed created an Empire.
Now the Empire was formless and devoid of culture, darkness hovered over King Street, and the business sense of Ed was hovering above Bloor and Bathurst.
And Ed said, “Let there be musicals,” and there were musicals. Ed saw that musicals were good, and He separated the musicals from King Street. Ed called the light “The Entertainment District,” and the darkness he called “The Business District.” And there were jazz hands, and there were footlights – the magic of Edvianism.
Ok, so the birth of my religion doesn’t work so well when told in the style of that other creation story. But we were different, and didn’t need to live by anyone else’s rules. We didn’t want to fit into anyone’s pre-conceived notions of what a faith was or who its devout should worship. No one was going to tell us that it wasn’t ok to be polytheistic, or to include elements of the occult into our rituals, or sic ten miniature hooligans on our English teachers. But perhaps I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. With matters of religion, it’s important to initiate new recruits – I mean, interested readers - slowly and in a logical manner, so that one doesn’t seem like a Scientologist or something. Ready? Let’s begin.
On a summer evening in 1995, my friend Kendra and I were listening to the original Broadway Cast Recording of Tommy and discussing the emergence of a new musical theatre star, when something miraculous happened: ten small glowing masks began to appear in the darkness across the room; my glow in the dark Phantom Of The Opera boxer shorts were attempting to communicate! As the Angel Gabriel had done before him, one of the masks began to sing: “Keri can you hear me? Can you feel me near you? Keri Can you see me? Can I help to cheer you? Oooh, Keri…” While I’ve never ascertained whether Kendra heard my name or her own in the song, in that moment, our lives would change forever. Those glowing masks, who would come to be known as the Little Men, had given us a mission: to organize and promote the new religion called…Well. We didn’t have a name quite yet. That came later.
In the morning, we set to work planning the religion. Our philosophy was that as man wrote the Bible, there must have been discussions and planning regarding things like the setting, cast, props, and script of Christianity before ink was placed to parchment, and so we did the same. Over a long meeting in my pool and serious debate while playing putt-putt, our religion took shape. Gathering all the things we loved most about the culture of theatre, and what we had noticed about the actors we loved, we compiled a list of people and things that our religion should celebrate. It looked a little something like this:
Setting (a.k.a. Meccas…Meccai?): Toronto
King Street between John and Simcoe (North Side)
The Elgin Theatre
Shopsy’s Deli
Walker’s Line Highway Exit[1]
Props (a.k.a. Sacred Idols)
1) Large backpacks, preferably from Mountain Equipment Co-Op
2) Bottles of Evian water, generally held in the mesh pockets of said backpacks
Cast (in order of appearance)
Little Man 4…………………….……..…………………….Pete Townshend
Little Man 5…….…………………………………....…Stephen Sondheim
Little Man 8…………………….….………….….Andrew Lloyd Webber
Once we had the framework for the new religion, our main focus became finding the right name for it. In the early stages, Kendra and I hoped to bring ourselves glory by including ourselves in the name somehow…Kenri-ism, Kerndram, The KK’s…nothing sounded right. Plus, we obviously wanted to be seen as benevolent founders. The first name that we thought would really stick was Evianism, but when I emailed the people at Evian with the exciting news (thinking they might offer us a free trip to the Evian Spa in the French Alps), they kindly requested we change the name or expect their legal department to be in touch regarding copyright infringement. Some people just lack religious tolerance, and although we feared for their souls, we accepted the disappointment, and kept thinking. Finally, after 40 days and 40 nights, we had a name that both rang true and solved the Evian copyright problem; We christened the new religion Edvianism in honour of our most revered deity, Ed Mirvish, and began seeking out like-minded people to join us.
In the months and years that followed, the bible of Edvianism was released in a very exclusive run from my Dot Matrix printer, and the religion spread across North America and into Europe; At its height, the religion boasted more than 35 members, and was profiled in the February 2006 Edition of the A.N. Myer Student Gazette. But those heady days were not to last. In the early years of the new century, Demi-God and once fresh-faced musical theatre star Tyley Ross turned his back on the Empire that Ed built to join a hip-hopera collective. Environmental concerns forced actors and devotees alike to abandon plastic Evian bottles in favour of the soulless aluminum canteens that can be seen peeking out of many backpacks to this day. Kendra and I were growing up and apart, beginning to stray from our teenage dreams of musical theatre stardom. The final blow came in the summer of 2007, 12 years after the initial appearance of the Little Men, when the namesake of Edvianism, “Honest” Ed Mirvish took his final bow and joined the big kick-line in the sky.
Ed’s death effectively brought the curtain down on Edvianism, and an important chapter in my life. Never again would I flagellate myself when a brand of water other than Evian touched my lips. Nor would I be required to observe a moment of silence each and every time I walked along King Street West. But the end of Edvianism also meant that I was no longer a part of something that gave meaning to my life; now I was out there on my own in the big world without the Ed or The Little Men to guide me. There was only one other option: I had to learn to do that myself. Today, I’m no longer a budding musical theatre star – what I really want to do is direct.
[1] Like the Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca, exiting at Walker’s Line would be a required task in our religion.
[2] Proprietor of “Honest” Ed’s bargain shop and major musical producer in Toronto.
[3] The aforementioned rising musical theatre star. He was pretty cute.
[4] On the television series “Kung Fu: The Legend Continues”
[5] As above.
[6] Star of the Toronto production of “The Phantom Of The Opera” and best Phantom EVER!
[7] Pre hair cut. We are talking 1980’s hair band hair.
[8] The love interest in “The Phantom Of The Opera”
[9] We went to school together, and I’m pretty sure he loved me. I figured it was good to have friends in high places.
[10] We decided it best to include him in some way lest we incur his wrath. Or his Dad’s.
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