Within the final 12 months, Tim Hortons has handled cottaging Canadians to a ship drivethru, revived its beloved Dutchie doughnut and launched flatbread pizzas.
However maybe its greatest shock will come this summer season, on the heels of its sixtieth anniversary on Could 17, when it enters a realm so sudden for a fast-food large that even its executives anticipate some individuals’s first reactions to be, “What?!”
The pinnacle-scratcher will come within the type of “The Final Timbit,” a musical for which Tim Hortons has assembled a who’s who of Canadian artists to stage on the Elgin Theatre in Toronto this June.
The manufacturing is loosely based mostly on a 2010 snowstorm that was so dangerous, drivers on a freeway east of Sarnia, Ont., had been pressured to hunker down in vehicles and others needed to wait out the inclement climate at an area Tim Hortons.
Turning the story right into a theatrical manufacturing was the brainchild of selling agency Intestine.
Tims was decided to provide Intestine as a lot room to be artistic as doable, so it didn’t even specify the agency needed to provide you with an occasion. All of the chain stated was to seek out “one thing with coronary heart” and that will replicate the connection the fast-food eatery has with its clients, recalled the chain’s chief advertising and marketing officer Hope Bagozzi.
When she was pitched on a play, even she was stunned.
“What on earth would we find out about pulling one thing like this collectively … in a extremely extremely skilled approach,” she stated was her response.
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“Our company, that’s not their specialty. It’s actually not ours.”
Regardless of it being new territory and Tims having to wrangle expertise effectively exterior its consolation zone, she felt “cautiously optimistic” concerning the thought.
“It’s a little bit wacky however certainty it felt grand (and) of the type of ambition we had,” she stated.
So Bagozzi and her employees set about making it occur.
Amongst their first calls was Michael Rubinoff, a Toronto lawyer and theatre producer who turned the story of passengers on planes diverted to Gander, Nfld. after the 9/11 assaults in New York into hit musical “Come From Away.”
“We didn’t think about that he would really come on board. We simply thought we’d attempt to choose his mind on, ‘Are we loopy? Ought to we do that? How would we go about it?’” Bagozzi recalled.
Rubinoff wasn’t fazed by the unlikely caller. Although many would assume he was shocked to listen to a fast-food model wished to leap into theatre, he didn’t discover it uncommon as a result of “Tims has been a part of Broadway for a few years.”
“The Tims emblem is on one of many backdrops in ‘The E-book of Mormon’ that individuals don’t notice and naturally, within the musical I’m concerned in, ‘Come From Away,’ Tims performs a extremely vital half,” Rubinoff stated.
“After the opening quantity, the primary line is ‘I begin my day at Tim Hortons’ and we’ve a scene within the Tim Hortons and we come again to it, so Tim Hortons in musical theatre didn’t appear as outlandish to me because it might need to different individuals.”
Alongside Rubinoff, different expertise began flowing in.
Nick Inexperienced, the playwright behind “Casey and Diana,” wrote the script and Anika and Britta Johnson of “Life After” created the music and lyrics, which embrace a tune known as “What would you do for a Timbit?”
The solid options Stratford and Shaw pageant regulars Andrew Broderick, DeAnn deGruijter and Danté Prince, in addition to Broadway stars Chilina Kennedy, Sara Farb, Jake Epstein and Kimberly-Ann Truong. Kaya Kanashiro from TV present “Type Of” additionally has a job.
Most had been stunned Tims, which is spending the 12 months targeted on increasing its afternoon and night gross sales, was behind the play. As soon as they noticed the calibre of theatrical expertise on board, they realized “that is going to be one thing that they’re excited to connect themselves to,” Rubinoff stated.
The manufacturing comes as arts organizations have struggled to retain company funding. Final summer season, Bell stopped funding the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition after 28 years of sponsorship. In March, the Financial institution of Nova Scotia ditched its title sponsorship of the Contact Pictures Competition in Toronto.
Scorching Docs, Canada’s largest documentary movie pageant, has additionally warned its future is in jeopardy.
Such struggles haven’t been misplaced on Rubinoff, who known as “The Final Timbit” a “main funding.”
“We solely get higher and we solely strengthen these abilities when we’ve the alternatives to truly do the factor, and that is the chance to do the factor,” he stated.
He’s approaching the venture with the identical seriousness as he does some other theatrical manufacturing. There’s been months of perfecting the script and desk reads and shortly, rehearsals will start.
The music has already change into an earworm.
“These songs have been on loop. I’m telling you I can’t sleep with out listening to the songs,” he stated. “I get up listening to the tune, so I do know that it’s an amazing signal.”
Whereas he doesn’t wish to give away too many hints concerning the tunes or the play’s plot, he stated on the core of the storyline is a mom and daughter impacted by the storm. (The final Timbit they’ll vie for is a birthday one.)
And although the play is supposed to combine humour and coronary heart, he stated, “no person will gown up and dance like a Timbit, however I don’t wish to say no to something.”
That features touring with the manufacturing, which is able to premiere in entrance of Tims franchisees visiting Toronto after which proceed with 5 reveals for the general public. Tickets go on sale Friday.
Those that snag seats will be capable to purchase Tims-centric merchandise from Roots Corp., which doubles because the play’s wardrobe associate, and can doubtless discover a concession stand of Tims favourites, together with Timbits, Bagozzi stated.
“These received’t dance away,” Rubinoff chimed in. “You may take pleasure in them.”
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