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 largest shock will come this summer season, on the heels of its sixtieth anniversary on Could 17, when it enters a realm so surprising for a fast-food large that even its executives anticipate some folks’s first reactions to be, “What?!”
The top-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 primarily based on a 2010 snowstorm that was so dangerous, drivers on a freeway east of Sarnia, Ont., have been compelled 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 inventive as doable, so it didn’t even specify the agency needed to give you an occasion. All of the chain stated was to search out “one thing with coronary heart” and that might mirror the connection the fast-food eatery has with its clients, recalled the chain’s chief advertising officer Hope Bagozzi.
When she was pitched on a play, even she was shocked.
“What on earth would we find out about pulling one thing like this collectively … in a extremely extremely skilled method,” she stated was her response.
“Our company, that’s not their specialty. It’s actually not ours.”
Regardless of it being new territory and Tims having to wrangle expertise properly outdoors its consolation zone, she felt “cautiously optimistic” concerning the thought.
“It’s a bit wacky however certainty it felt grand (and) of the form 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 might 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 needed 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 brand is on one of many backdrops in ‘The Guide of Mormon’ that individuals don’t understand 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 got 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 may need to different folks.”
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 music known as “What would you do for a Timbit?”
The forged 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 “Kind Of” additionally has a task.
Most have been shocked 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 Pageant after 28 years of sponsorship. In March, the Financial institution of Nova Scotia ditched its title sponsorship of the Contact Images Pageant 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 got the alternatives to truly do the factor, and that is the chance to do the factor,” he stated.
He’s approaching the undertaking with the identical seriousness as he does another theatrical manufacturing. There’s been months of perfecting the script and desk reads and shortly, rehearsals will start.
The music has already develop 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 music, 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 are going to vie for is a birthday one.)
And although the play is supposed to combine humour and coronary heart, he stated, “no person will costume 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 have the ability to purchase Tims-centric merchandise from Roots Corp., which doubles because the play’s wardrobe accomplice, and can probably discover a concession stand of Tims favourites, together with Timbits, Bagozzi stated.
“These received’t dance away,” Rubinoff chimed in. “You’ll be able to get pleasure from them.”
