Episode Five - Curtain Up

One question, asked of every person who built the show. On the last day, the answer goes to the people in the seats.

Every conversation in this series ended the same way. Same question, same words, read off a cheat sheet so jD wouldn't botch it: if this production does what you hope it does, what do the people in the seats walk out of the theatre feeling? He asked the producer. He asked the director, both writers, and the cast. And somewhere along the way it became clear that the people who made It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken can't really answer it (not from up on the stage). They can hope. Then the lights go down, and it's out of their hands and into yours.

So Day 5 of 5 hands the mic over. The company tells you what they were hoping for. Fans of The Tragically Hip tell you what they walked in with - excitement, nerves, a healthy suspicion of anybody who messes with an arrangement, and, in one case, two packs of tissues. Then opening night from the other side of the curtain, where it turns out everybody was sweating. Then the walk out. Then the whole thing heads home to Kingston.

On Monday, jD promised to stay Uncool and Underqualified to the bitter end. This is the bitter end.

WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE

• Talia Schlanger didn't answer the question. She brought a numbered list.
• A co-writer who got through every preview just fine, then came apart on opening night - and what a friend told him at intermission.
• The one rule Karim Butt gave himself fifteen minutes before curtain, guitar in hand.
• Why 700 people can't all lie to you at once.
• A joke both writers hate that the crowd can't stop laughing at.
• A self-described live guy, wary of anybody messing with a song by The Hip, on what they did to 'Bobcaygeon'.
• A fan who walked in with the whole show figured out, and how that went.
• Brett Christopher of the Thousand Islands Playhouse on the moment Kingston is going to feel like nowhere else.
• The last word goes to the person this whole thing started with.

THE COMPANY

• Michael Rubinoff, producer
• Mary Francis Moore, director
• Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe, co-writers
• Talia Schlanger (Kate), Ali Momen (Waleed), Karim Butt (Sam), Tahirih Vejdani (Didi), and Rebecca Auerbach (Abigail)
• Brett Christopher, Managing Artistic Director, Thousand Islands Playhouse
• And the fans in the lobby, Jeff from Belleville, Leslie from Toronto, and Sarah from Buffalo among them

"It's a seed that we could hopefully plant inside of people, and they will have the choice to water it and to make it a tree." - Ahmed Moneka, co-writer

Big thanks to the cast, the writers, and the creative team, to Theatre Aquarius and the Thousand Islands Playhouse, and to every fan who let a guy with a microphone ask how they felt (most of them weren't strangers by the end). The people on the stage can only hope. A full house in the dark tells them whether it worked, all at once. That closes the run of It's A Good Life on The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Kingston, it's yer turn.

KINGSTON - OCTOBER 22 TO NOVEMBER 8

The Thousand Islands Playhouse brings It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken to the Kingston Grand Theatre. Opening night is sold out. The cast recording is out now, if you want the songs stuck in your head on the drive home.

Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026

THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN

You rank the records. The show starts January 4, 8pm, on YouTube. Ballots close November 30.

Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7

THE TIP JAR

Five episodes in five days. Editing is hard. Buy jD a coffee.

Support: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40

FIND US

Home: home.tthpods.com

Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com

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MORE IT'S A GOOD LIFE

Setting the Scene, The Players, The Craft, and The Music

All episodes: redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474

#ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #HipFans #TTHPods #CanadianMusic

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