Dear Editor:
Re: City arts icon dies, The Record, May 3.
"We've got trouble, right here in River City," when city council representatives allowed the "parade to pass them by" without saying goodbye and "thank you" to their own native son, Ed Harrington, the "Music Man" of Royal City Musical Theatre.
A ripple of discernible disappointment swept through the crowd gathered at Massey Theatre on Saturday, May 11, when it dawned that a not a single member of our city's representative body was in attendance to pay tribute to a man who really knew how to build a community crescendo.
Massey Theatre was filled with luminous Royal City Musical Theatre alumni who belted out all the top notes of Broadway's best for the love of a man with a mighty heart and a talent for assembling disparately skilled people into a cohesive course of activity.
They united in a single purpose - to make something beautiful in the Royal City.
Thousands of Lower Mainland residents, as well as citizens from across B.C., Canada and the United States, flooded the theatre with accolades annually. The Royal City became truly regal.
We are saddened at the loss of a man who not only "struck up the band," but struck chords in us that we never felt before.
Sadder still, his hometown representatives missed the opportunity to send him off in theatrical style.
All that he did, he did for love, love of the Royal City, the River City.
Thank you Ed. The music plays on and the love never leaves.
Louisa Lundy and Vic Leach, via email
