Canadian Lawyer

24 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 7 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m ichael Rubinoff is ebullient. The hit musical that was his brainchild, Come From Away, is playing to sold-out audiences in Toronto, and it will soon open in pre- views on Broadway. And for this Toronto lawyer, the transition from a legal career to theatrical producer and associate dean of Sheridan College's Visual and Performing Arts programs in Oakville, Ont. has been a fortuitous one. Greeting a reporter at the Royal Alex- andra Theatre in Toronto's theatre district, where the show opened to rave reviews in November, Rubinoff introduces her to the press and public relations manager for Mirvish Productions for a brief tour of the theatre, which was recently renovated. The seats are all new, Randy Alldread points out, in traditional plush red (about 200 of the old ones were lost to allow for more legroom), the plaster cleaned and re-gilded. Rubinoff is in his element here. The former real estate and entertainment law- yer was first bitten by the theatre bug as a youngster, attending Les Miserables with his mother in this very same theatre. He later directed a staging of Blood Brothers in his last year of law school at the Uni- versity of Western Ontario ("I was for- tunate to have my articling job lined up" during that busy year, he quips). After graduating from Western law in 2001 (he had also earned a B.A. in political science from the university), Rubinoff started his articles at Goodman and Carr in Toronto that September. "9/11 happened on the second day of my articles at Goodman and Carr; the second day of my articles!" Rubinoff exclaims. He heard stories about the pas- sengers who had landed at Newfound- land's Gander airport after their flights were diverted from New York, and who had been taken in by residents of Gan- der and surrounding towns, and "the outpouring of generosity. As a theatre producer, I knew the best way to tell the story was through a musical — which is part of the DNA of Newfoundlanders." C R O S S E X A M I N E D BRAYDEN SWIRE M Michael Rubinoff went from a legal career to teaching theatre and producing the hit musical Come From Away By Elizabeth Raymer Finding his stage Michael Rubinoff with his Sheridan theatre students.

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