When Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his partner Elizabeth first conceived of a new children’s TV show a few years ago, they set out to teach kids about caring for the planet, the importance of community and adapting to change.
A few years into the process, after a vision was developed, characters were fleshed out and a pilot was shot, they realized the lessons, especially around adaptation, were also for them.
Glenn-Copeland, who goes by Glenn, was diagnosed with major cognitive disorder.
With the beloved Canadian musician, trans elder and long-time actor on Mr. Dressup as the star of the new show, Caring Cabin, the diagnosis paused further work on the project.
It also put the question they were asking kids to reflect on back to them: How do you accept a challenge and let it change you?
“That’s exactly what we were trying to do in the show,” said producer Sean O’Neill, reflecting on the turn of events.
“These challenges are going to come that are real. The kinds of challenges that kids face, right? Like losing a friend. You know, we weren’t going to shy away from themes of loss and death and joy and, you know, family… What we were trying to do with the show was to give kids tools to hold the difficulties of life, not to paper them over.”
Glenn, Elizabeth and O’Neill are joining other crew members at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Lightbox for a special screening of the pilot Saturday. As of July 1, it is also now available to stream on the Criterion Channel.
The plan for the show may have changed but the team is still eager to share it with the world.
“We’ve had time to grieve. Now we’re just excited, you know?” O’Neill told CBC Hamilton earlier this week, in a conversation with Glenn and Elizabeth, who have been living in Hamilton for over a year.
It was back in 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, when Elizabeth called O’Neill with the idea.
She had just watched Glenn do an online concert. “I was watching this beautiful human… All you could see in the frame was his face and he was singing to us all. And what was coming out of the screen was just pure love… And I thought, oh my god, this is his medium,” she said. “He’s wonderful at many things but all of a sudden, this vision for this children’s show came fully formed into my mind.”
The idea was a blend of many of Glenn’s talents. He spent two decades as a regular on CBC Television’s Mr. Dressup. He’s also known for his “transcendent” vocals and songwriting — both for children and for the handful of jazz, folk and electronic music albums he’s released over the years.
O’Neill previously collaborated with Glenn for an episode of In the Making, where they travelled to Japan after his 1986 album Keyboard Fantasies found new life there around 2016. The album was awarded the Slaight Polaris Heritage Prize in 2020 and a new version of opening track Ever New with British singer Sam Smith and Glenn was released last year.
Glenn is also a practising Buddhist. Elizabeth, meanwhile, brings her knowledge of the natural world, climate activism and poet’s sensibilities into the Caring Cabin project. The two of them have years of creative collaboration under their belt, including running a theatre school in New Brunswick together.
The result is a show rooted in what O’Neill calls “Elizabeth and Glennergy” — complete with a cast of animal friends in puppet form.
“I’m a child at heart,” said Glenn, now 81, chuckling. “So… I just love puppets, and constantly have slews of puppets. So there you go.”
Clip from Caring Cabin
The 11-minute pilot is a window into the larger world the team created for the show, with music from Glenn, characters like Fred the squirrel, the wilderness setting and exploration of life lessons.
The trio describe the show as one that parents would sit down with their kids to watch, not “plop their kids in front of,” and one that emphasizes interdependence and connection.
“Glenn really insisted through the process that he has as much to learn from the young characters as they do from him. And we had a whole plan for episodes where Glenn would be struggling and the young people would help him, and that spirit of intergenerational exchange was part of our process,” O’Neill said.
“I just saw it as an opportunity to learn things from the kids. I always learn things from kids,” Glenn added.
Saturday’s screening will be special, bringing much of the crew back together.
“We’re all just looking forward to gathering with a group of people and sharing this gem that we spent four years working on,” O’Neill said.
“The energy in that room when we made the [pilot], I still go there sometimes in my imagination,” Elizabeth said.
Elizabeth and Glenn are hopeful the show’s fuller concept may be realized, albeit in a different form.
“We think maybe there is a way for us to take [Caring Cabin] forward,” said Elizabeth.
In the meantime, the pair have a series of tour dates in the UK and Europe set for October, where they will play Glenn’s back catalogue and new music.
Events in Hamilton are also likely in the fall, Elizabeth said, adding that Glenn is in a new creative chapter.
“Glenn is in some ways even more himself. So maybe he can’t remember sequences of things… but he is still building neural pathways, writing music in different ways, and he is even more in the present moment.”
Glenn said letting go of expectations has been freeing, in fact, and has prompted new art.
“I’ve always been one of those people that sought perfection… almost in everything, and you know how grinding that is. Well, now I can’t do it, folks,” he said.
“And that’s good. I had to let go of that. So instead, other parts of my brain are developing, right? The creative parts are developing really, really fast. Yeah, it’s really stunning to me.”
