Tapestry Pictures, reborn a year and a half ago with the addition of Heather Godin, is expanding its focus on MOWs and miniseries and heading into the world of performing arts, documentary and feature film.

‘With CBC’s new vertical programming structure and its Thursday night performing arts strand, we’ve been in supply talks with them to develop the strand,’ says Tapestry co-principal Mary Young Leckie.

The company recently made its foray into performing arts with the Canada/U.K. coproduction of By Jeeves, shot at CBC’s Studio 41 and distributed by Universal.

Really Useful Films is the coproduction partner on the $3-million project, which wrapped in early April. Andrew Lloyd Webber provided the music for a stellar cast of international performers. ‘It was a quick leg-up into performing arts,’ says Young Leckie.

To continue its entry into the performing arts world, Tapestry is in discussions with the Canadian Stage about its 2002 season, from which it is interested in bringing the following plays to TV: Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman; Tilsenberg by Malachy Mckee, an Irish actor/playwright; and Steve Martin’s Picasso.

‘We want to do what Norman Campbell did for the CBC in the ’60s and ’70s,’ says Young Leckie, whose intention is to shoot the plays using the same directors and performers.

On the doc front, Tapestry is developing a handful of projects with Martin Harbury of Bar Harbour Films, including a doc he made on the making of By Jeeves, which will also be distributed by Universal.

Tapestry is piloting Gotta Dance, a documentary entertainment series for Life Network. Produced and directed by Hasmi Giakoumis, the project is described as a ‘sometimes serious and sometimes comical look at dancing.’

Three different dance environments will be chronicled in a docusoap fashion, including a downtown Flamenco dance school, junior competitive dance and the world of amateur ballroom dancing – the meet-and-greet dance studios.

Tapestry will shoot the half-hour pilot in May, with hopes of it turning into a continuing half-hour series in the fall.

As for projects based on real life, Tapestry is in development on Tagged: The Jonathan Womback Story, a CTV Signature Presentation drama.

Written by Elizabeth Stewart (The Adventures of Shirley Holmes) and Michael Amo (Blessed Stranger), the MOW tells the true story of a young Newmarket, ON boy who was beaten up at school by a gang of peers and how, after suffering severe head injuries, he fought his way back.

The $3.8-million film, produced and exec produced by Young Leckie and Godin, goes to camera in July in Newmarket and Sudbury – a big change for Tapestry, which has been shooting mostly in Manitoba for the past five years.

The producers are in discussions with actor Kevin Zeger (Air Bud) to star.

Salter Street International is distributing.

Another real-life-inspired project in development is the series Sanctuary for the CBC.

Beginning as a one-hour pilot, the series is based on the book At the Border Called Hope, written by Mary Jo Leddi (Order of Canada).

The book, and likewise the series, chronicles the life of Leddi, whose church was forced to downsize and to shut down the convent where she had worked for 23 years. All of a sudden she’s thrust onto the streets looking for a new place for herself, and ultimately lands at a refugee halfway house, where she devotes the rest of her life to helping refugees.

Budgeted at $4 million, adapted by Keith Leckie and produced by Young Leckie and Godin, the series, if greenlit, will go to camera in Toronto in June 2002.

‘Because it’s such an unusual show with such a distinctive central character, it’s a big risk for distributors. It has to prove itself at home before anyone takes it out and invests a lot of money in it,’ says Young Leckie.

Sextant is considering distributing.

But, says Young Leckie, ‘I’m a strong believer that CBC should be able to distribute internationally. It makes a lot of sense, just as BBC Enterprises does, they are the best distributors for their programming around the world.’

On the feature film front, Keith Leckie is adapting the book The Way of a Boy, by Ernest Hillen.

Entitled Small Mercies, the $14-million film, set in Java during WWII, tells the story of a family plucked from their tea plantation and imprisoned by the Japanese. The husband was sent to a labor camp and the mother and children were sent to a POW camp for more than two years. The story is told from the perspective of the son, Ernest, very much in the fashion of My Life as a Dog.

Dutch director Paula van de Oust (her first English-language project) will direct the film.

Canadian-born actors Jennifer Tilly (Bound) and Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction) are attached. Willeke von Amelrooy (Antonia’s Line) is also set to star and the producers are in discussions with Sting.

J&M was distributing until the distrib was sold last fall, so the project is currently up for grabs.

It will shoot no earlier than fall 2001. ‘We’re taking a wait and see for the strike and the new feature film policy,’ says Young Leckie.

Tapestry is also developing the feature The Seduction of Martin Cruz, written by Janis Cole and directed by Holly Dale (Dangerous Offender).

The $4-million film chronicles the tripartite seduction of hockey, pedophiles and the media, to whom Cruz turned in hopes of exorcising his demons.

Finally, playwright Lee McDougall is developing a $5-million original comedy for Tapestry. Toast is a story of a small Northern Ontario, lawn-chair-manufacturing town about to be taken over by a large industry interested in turning it into the Silicon Valley of the north.

Fun & fantasy in Ottawa

Funbag Animation of Ottawa continues to explore the world of fantasy with its newest underworld adventure series, King, a coproduction with Decode Entertainment and French partner Alphanim.

Created by Funbag’s Gord Coulthart, who’s producing with Decode’s Beth Stevenson and Steven DeNure, the 26-part, half-hour series tells the story of a boy who moves into a new neighborhood and discovers that underneath his new bed exists a portal to the Kingdom of Under. He enters the world through a door that ultimately allows him to become king, and from there his adventures begin.

The traditionally animated series rings in at close to $500,000 an episode and will air on Family Channel in the fall of 2002.

Written by Alan Templeton and Mary Crawford (Watership Down), King was inspired by Coulthart’s son and the mess under his bed. The series has been in development for close to three years.

Decode, which is currently negotiating a U.S. broadcast deal, is distributing worldwide, except in France, where Alphanim is handling sales.

Decode and Alphanim will continue to cultivate their first-time partnership with another yet-to-be-announced production.

King is part of Funbag’s continuing relationship with Decode. Together the two companies produced Freaky Stories and Funbag has just completed the service production of Undergrads for MTV. It also serviced two seasons of Watership Down and Rainbow Fish.

Going forward, Funbag is coproducing Herald’s Gut with AAC Kids, a 13-part, half-hour ‘tween series in search of a broadcaster (AAC still doesn’t own a kids channel?).

About a typical daredevil teenage boy who rides his bike without a helmet, eats too much junk food and watches too much TV, the series, set in an urban environment, cuts between his life inside and out. Two organisms actually live inside the boy’s body and comically manifest the effects of his lifestyle.

The series, budgeted at roughly $400,000 an episode, will mix traditional animation with live action and flash animation.

Coulthart created the series and Dave Feiss (Cow and Chicken) developed the character design.

Curtis Crawford, Funbag’s VP of creative affairs, is likely to produce.

Funbag also recently optioned the Canadian book The Mole Sisters, written by Roslyn Schwartz.

The preschool series, intended to be 13 half-hours divided into four-part segments, focuses on the adventures of three sister moles discovering the world around them.

Crawford is currently talking to YTV and CBC, but a broadcaster has yet to be attached.

Meantime, the Ottawa studio is currently finishing up on the second season of Toad Patrol, produced by Rick Morrison for Teletoon. Distributed by Universal, the series is about toad children who have journeyed to Safe Hollow, venturing out to help other toad children to safety.

The company is also completing final episodes of For Better or For Worse (16 half-hours), also produced by Morrison, for Teletoon.

Nelvana builds The Ark

Nelvana picks up where The Big Snit left off in a new primetime comedy special The Ark.

Developed by Richard Condie, the potential 13-part, half-hour series for YTV and CBC is a post-apocalyptic tale of a family who build an ark after the ‘big flood’ has submerged the world. As the family sails adrift, it copes with ongoing challenges through humor and absurdity.

Further down the Nelvana pipeline is Spy Boy, a 13-part action-adventure series, for ‘tweens about a kid who, through a research experiment, has a chip planted in him, enabling him to save the world when it’s activated. Based on the comic strip of the same name, Spy Boy is a superhero with a curfew.

A broadcaster is still to be attached.

Nelvana is also continuing its expansion into live action with an unnamed comedy series about four high school boys devoting their days to picking up girls.

The project is a coventure with an American and Canadian partner and is shooting in Vancouver.

Marianne Culbert is producing, but further details are being withheld until later this month.

Mythic launches with The Chemist

Mythic Pictures, a new Toronto-based production company helmed by Ashland Video Corp.’s Brian Ash, is going to camera on its first feature.

The Chemist, written by Michael Plato (Dining Out) and directed by David Scott, is a $1-million digital feature set in the 1980s about a boy who invents a nuclear reactor that creates gold.

Privately funded and aimed toward the festival circuit, the film should be shooting by the end of July in Toronto.

No cast, broadcaster or distributor has been attached. *