artwork spotlight | tuesdays with morrie

This is the first in a series of blog posts spotlighting the artwork for our 2011-2012 season. We know it's a little different than what you're used to seeing from us, and our artist Emily Cooper put a lot of thought into the various elements of these images, so we thought it would be fun to show them to you! We'll be going in the order of productions, so the first item up for perusal is TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE.

The story of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE is pretty well known to many. First a New York Times best selling book, then a movie and stage play, it tells the real-life story of Mitch Albom's weekly meetings with his former sociology professor over the course of his dying days.  It's quite simply a wonderfully funny and life-affirming story about generosity of spirit in the face of death.

Now, let's unpack this image:

The first is a gimme: the little calendar on the side with Tuesdays highlighted because, well, Mitch came and spent every Tuesday with Morrie.  (Maybe that's where he got the idea for the title?)

Now for the animals.  The zebra is Mitch: fast-paced, erratic, young, and upwardly mobile in a snappy blue suit. The wise, old elephant is mentor Morrie Schwartz who may be a little slow to speak, but (maybe because he never forgets) always has something meaningful to say.

The numbers coming out of Morrie's trunk represent the re-occuring image in the play of Morrie counting how long he is able to hold his breath as the illness progresses.

If you look closely at the text on the left-hand side you can read some of the words: joyous, colour, soft, and bright are a few.