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My Toronto: Kurt Browning
| Source: |
National Post |
| Date: |
December 10, 2007 |
| Author: |
Rob Roberts |
Whether he’s taking in the Santa Claus Parade or racing through an
uptown park Spider-Man-style with his four-year-old son, Kurt Browning
appears to be much like Peter Pan, who he plays in a family musical
now running at the Elgin Theatre. It is the first stage performance
for the skater, an eight-time Canadian and world figure skating
champion. The native of Rocky Mountain House, Alta., spoke with Zosia
Bielski about friendly neighbours in Forest Hill and the best guide to
the city — his wife Sonia Rodriguez, who is a principal dancer with
the National Ballet of Canada.
Car-free, neighbourly elite • I moved to the Beaches when I
first came here and then I’ve been bopping around ever since. My wife
[Sonia Rodriguez] and I have two sons, Gabriel and Dillon, and we’ve
settled into the community of communities north of St. Clair. We’re
in Forest Hill. To irritate the people of Forest Hill, you drive
through it because the houses are beautiful. We’ve been here for a
year and a half. I very quickly met my neighbours which sort of
shocked me. I feel very connected to what’s going on around me in the
neighbourhood. My wife especially misses the Beaches. She’s Spanish
so she misses any beach. We go there for our sand and water and the
playgrounds. There’s room to play if you can get a parking
spot.
Dad land • Our little one Dillon is only three months, and our
older one, Graham, is four years old. The Science Centre is big. The
zoo is big. We did the Santa Claus Parade this year. And we go to a
couple local parks in the area. We’re not really into organized
sports just yet - he’s only four. We walk along the Belt Line. There’
s a park on Lytton near Avenue Road. I take my four-year-old and we go
exploring. The other day we pretended we were Spider-Man going through
the forest. You have to think like a kid.
Brick city • When you from out west, you immediately notice all
the brick buildings. In Alberta, you just don’t have brick. We have
siding, aluminum siding or wood siding or stucco. Being an Alberta
boy, I still drive around Toronto and I love the big old houses that
they have here ... I like the Distillery and I’ve only been there a
couple times and it’s something that I wish I had more time on my
hands to do. I would take my wife. When you get out of your car, you
want to walk around and feel like you’re in old Europe. I wish my
house looked like what the inside of most of the restaurants there do:
the exposed beam work, the high ceilings, and again, the
brick.
Toronto guide • My wife is the one that knows the city and
knows when and where to go shopping and how to park, whereas I kind of
bumble through the city and get parking tickets. I’m not a very good
Torontonian that way. I’ve been taking the subway lately back and
forth to work and all the people here in the show just rattle off
addresses. I can just tell that everyone utilizes the city better than
I do.
Black Monday • We rehearsed long, long hours for almost three
and a half weeks, and teching the show with the lights and the sound
and the flying and the rigging took a lot of work. We do eight shows a
week, Black Monday. In the theatre world, Black Monday means there’s
no shows. [Last week], we had a lot of buses come from schools. The
kids were very pumped and they didn’t have their parents with
them. There was a scene where Peter is in peril and the audience was
screaming and warning me with such fervour that we couldn’t keep
going with the show.
• Peter Pan is on until Jan. 6 at the Elgin Theatre.
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