The Atrium at the Princess Margaret Hospital is about a half-dozen floors high, and is open to the hallways that lead to the busy hospital wards. So when there is a “Music in the Atrium” program, it’s not just folks sitting in the audience who see the performance, it’s also people who are watching and listening from above: patients, caregivers, and medical staff. A week before we were on stage for our World Premiere, the cast shared selections from Who Is Esther in that Atrium. While I wasn’t one of the performers, my mind went right back to the day, nine years earlier, when I was there, but as a patient, about to receive my life-saving bone marrow transplant. So when I looked up at the people watching, I was thinking that maybe our performance might spark something in them: comfort, hope, joy, or maybe just a brief respite from the challenges of Cancer, much as music did for me. Enjoy a “slice” of the performance we recorded that day.
