With a comedy series set to premiere on CBC next month and his award-winning Broadway musical The Drowsy Chaperone about to be turned into a movie, it seems unlikely Canadian comic, performer and writer Bob Martin has much to feel anxious about.
But watch his new show, Michael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and, according to Martin, you’ll learn a lot about his fears.
The series, says Martin, is based on his co-star Matt Watts’s experiences trying to overcome his neuroses with his therapist but hits upon some of Martin’s anxieties as well.
“I’m not crazy about being in confined spaces,” Martin says, “and height,” he adds. “Height plays prominently.”
Martin’s character, David, is the therapist to Watts’s neurotic Michael. The show, directed by Toronto’s Don McKellar, follows Michael’s therapy sessions in which David tries to tame his fears by gradually introducing him to what he’s afraid of. Unbeknownst to his patient, David’s got his own mess of problems.
“The situations make for a lot of anxiety,” Martin says. “The comedy is in the characters’ dealing with their absurd situations.”
Having forged a path writing and performing his own material, Martin has found success drawing upon his own observations and experiences and reproducing them for the stage or screen. “Writing is extremely personal for me,” he says.
Having grown up in a household with two brothers and three sisters in a two-bedroom house in North York, it would seem Martin, the youngest, would have a lot of colourful material to draw from.
Born in England, Martin moved with his family to Toronto when he was four. His mother was a waitress and his father a carpenter.
His first foray into the world of performing was at the age of 12 when his mother put him in acting classes as a way to combat his intense shyness.
“It worked,” he says. “It [acting] became my thing.”
Martin says his interest in acting and writing was heightened at his high school, Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute. It was there where he met McKellar, who became a long-time friend and collaborator.
“Don was into theatre and writing,” Martin says. “I was competitive, so I was always trying to compete with him.”
Although Martin studied English and cinema at the University of Toronto, he continued acting and writing in fringe theatre. But once he graduated and found his creative pursuits weren’t earning him money, Martin took a job as an editor with a children’s book company. Although short-lived, it seems the stint benefited Martin in the long run.
“I quickly realized I would be absolutely miserable if I didn’t do what I love.”
He quit the job, returned to performing and took “a vow of poverty.”
Shortly after taking his “vow,” Martin auditioned for The Second City in Toronto, a move he made following a bad breakup that proved to be a turning point in his career.
“I wanted to change my life,” he says. “So I surrounded myself with interesting, creative people.” At Second City, Martin says he thrived in the collaborative environment. He overcame any fears he had of acting in front of an audience by performing improv.
“When you go out [onstage] with nothing and end up entertaining people night after night, it means no stage fright,” Martin says.
He went on to direct Second City’s mainstage company and was artistic director for a year.
But the real turn of events happened when Martin became engaged to actress and Second City performer Janet van de Graaff — with whom he now has a four-year-old son, Harrison.
It was at his stag where the first version of The Drowsy Chaperone — a spoof of jazz age musicals — was performed as a gift from Martin’s circle of friends in the Toronto comedy community.
Martin and McKellar took the original script and rewrote it, adding the central character Man in Chair, played by Martin throughout the show’s transformative years.
After premiering at the Fringe Festival and with financial backing from producer David Mirvish, it moved on to Theatre Pass Muraille and the Winter Garden Theatre.
New York producers took interest, and after The Drowsy Chaperone played at a theatre in Los Angeles and a festival in New York City, it landed on Broadway, all within a span of eight years.
After its initial 2006 Broadway run in which Martin was the only performer left from the original cast, The Drowsy Chaperone won five Tony Awards including Best Book and Best Original Score. Martin earned a Best Actor Tony Award nomination and later an Olivier nod after performing Man in Chair in London’s West End.
The musical is being performed in theatres all over the world.
“It’s got a life of its own,” Martin says. A film adaptation is set to shoot within the next year, starring Oscar Award-winning actor Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech), who recently played Man in Chair in an Australian production.
As a writer, Martin also figured prominently in creating Slings and Arrows (2003 to 2006), a comical Canadian TV series starring a who’s who of Canadian actors, including Paul Gross, Rachel McAdams and Martha Burns. He recently co-wrote the Broadway musical Elf, the stage adaptation of the Will Ferrell movie, with American writer Tom Meehan (Annie, The Producers) and has several musicals in the works.
But as much as his career takes him elsewhere, Martin says Toronto will remain home for him and his family, and he says he wants his son to grow up here. Plus, he says, he loves living in the Beach neighbourhood where, in his time off, he can walk by the lake.
With so much working in his favour, can Martin really relate to feeling anxiety?
“Every time I get slammed by a bad review, I question it all,” Martin says. “It’s just I’ve had more victories than failures to keep me going.”