The HarbourFront Centre, Toronto, brought Stan’s Cafe over with two shows – The Cleansing of Constance Brown (performed in the Enwave Theatre, Power Plant building) and Of All The People In All The World (aka. The Rice Show – to be performed in the York Quay Building next door). As a taster to the rice – in advance of the show proper which opens next wednesday to the public – we travelled to the corporate HQ of Siemens (Canada) in Mississauga this morning (friday). Sponsorship and private patronage of the Arts is much more common in North America than it is back home in the UK, it would seem. Take for example the ‘anonymous private donor’ who single-handedly financed the previous ‘Of All the People In All The World (the Americas)’ outing at The Skirball Center, Los Angeles in 2007 – a huge, month-long undertaking. Here in Toronto  The HarbourFront staff were impressed with Siemens vision in opting to sponsor the staging of the rice show, unconventional as it is. Given the widespread appeal and the international touring potential, I’m surprised there hasn’t been more interest from big corporations – but then part of the show’s strength is that it is independent of any corporeal agenda. That would change if it were clearly underwritten by  a commercial organisation.

Siemens let us get on with it, scattering their polished marble foyer with stats about commuting patterns, local demographics and a TV ratings figure for the final episode of that famous, much-loved Canadian soap opera ‘Corner Gas’; one is always learning stuff in this job. Particularly satisfying was to grab the opportunity of their once-a-year Fire drill to count up the number of employees evacuated from the building (195).

Werner von Siemens and the power of telecommunications