PART OF A NEW PUBLIC ART PROGRAM
Drayton’s artistic director Alex Mustakas balances outside St. Jacobs theatre
Drayton’s artistic director Alex Mustakas balances outside St. Jacobs theatre
By Carrie DebroneKitchener Citizen
August 1, 2013
It’s seldom that someone gets a statue dedicated to them during their lifetime, but Drayton Entertainment’s CEO and Artistic Director Alex Mustakas is one of the few to enjoy that privilege.
A bronze statue of Mustakas, dressed as a ringmaster holding a top hat and wearing a coat with tails flapping in the wind as he runs while balanced on stilts was unveiled July 19 in its permanent location at the center of a newly-created patio to the left of the entrance to the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse theatre in St. Jacobs.
Mustakas was born in Cyprus and immigrated to Canada at the age of 6. He found his love of theatre during high school when he worked on shows at Eastwood Collegiate in Kitchener.
The unveiling was coupled with the theatre’s season opening presentation of Spamalot, and a reception for guests and theatre supporters to celebrate the completion of a new $334,000 fly tower and multi-functional space that will give the theatre much more production flexibility.
The fly tower is the upper part of a stage where scenery, drapery and equipment can be suspended and moved out of the audience’s view.
The new fly tower is one component of Drayton
Entertainment’s $1.67-million cultural infrastructure
project, which included the construction of the
Dunfield Theatre Cambridge, and the renovation of three other theatres throughout Ontario: the Drayton Festival Theatre, the King’s Wharf Theatre, and the Huron Country Playhouse.
The federal government contributed $534,000 to this project from the Major Infrastructure Component of the Building Canada Fund. The Ontario government also contributed $534,000 toward improvements, with Drayton Entertainment responsible for the balance of the total project cost.
Canadian Heritage also provided $725,000 through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund to Drayton Entertainment for the purchase and installation of specialized equipment at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse and Dunfield Theatre Cambridge to improve technical resources and the efficiency of the facilities.
“We are fortunate to have theatre of this caliber in our region, Kitchener-Waterloo MP Peter Braid told guests, adding that the success of the Drayton theatre is “amazing.”
“It really has been a balancing act to produce probably 50 or 60 shows in the last four years on top of all these major renovations, so I’m very grateful for our team,” Mustakas said.
The evening also included the major announcement that a new public arts fund spearheaded by Bernard Melloul, CEO of the Waterloo construction company Melloul-Blamey, is being developed.
The fund, to be administered by the K-W Community Foundation, will focus on art that will stand as a reminder of the work that community leaders are doing in the region.
An avid art collector, Melloul would like to immortalize community leaders and create a living history through public art.
“It’s a challenge to the community to invest in our past, in our present, and in our future through the development of public art. We should have art on the inside and art on the outside, all over the place,” said Neil Atchison, host for the unveiling event and Drayton’s director of development.
Kicking off this call for public art, the theatre then unveiled the sculpture of Mustakas titled “Balancing Act.”
It was created by artist Ruth Abernethy, who lives near Wellesley. Her statue of Glenn Gould unveiled at CBC Toronto in 1999 was the first of her numerous distinctive public portraits, including Mackenzie King, John Hirsch and Arnold Palmer. A bronze portrait of Al Waxman was acquired for the National Portrait Collection, 2003 and her recent figure portrait of Oscar Peterson on display at the National Arts Centre was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010.
More details of the public art program are to be announced in the fall.
Bernard Melloul, CEO of the Waterloo construction company Melloul-Blamey, stands with Wellesley artist Ruth Abernethy who created the sculpture of Drayton CEO and artistic director Alex Mustakas unveiled July 19 at the St. Jacobs Country Playhouse.
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