Crave confirmed today that it has ordered a third season of its hit original series, which continues to be the top-performing Canadian title on Crave*. CANADA’S DRAG RACE is available to audiences in Canada in both English and French, and is produced by Blue Ant Studios in association with Crave and World of Wonder.
Canadian drag artists looking to show off their distinct brand of Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent, can now submit their applications at www.crave.ca/canadasdragrace. Applicants must be 19 years of age by November 8, 2021, to apply, and a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
Additional details about the new season will be announced at a later date.
In association with Crave, Season 3 of CANADA’S DRAG RACE will be produced by Blue Ant Studios. Executive Producers for World of Wonder are Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, and Tom Campbell. RuPaul serves as Executive Producer. Executive Producers for Blue Ant Studios are Michael Kot, Betty Orr, Michelle Mama (SHINE TRUE for VICE, Fuse, and OUTtv; and IN THE MAKING for CBC) and Laura Michalchyshyn. Trevor Boris (BIG BROTHER CANADA for Global TV; and PARADISE HOTEL for FOX) is Executive Producer/Showrunner.
All tea, no shade! CANADA’S DRAG RACE judge and the Queen of the North, Brooke Lynn Hytes, leads open, honest, and no-holds-barred conversations about all things queer in the new Crave Original series, 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS. The eight-part series, which is also available to French audiences with subtitles, premieres with two episodes on Thursday, Dec. 9, with subsequent new episodes dropping Thursdays on Crave.
An update to the MTV Canada hit 1 GIRL 5 GAYS, which ran from 2009 to 2014, the new series presents fierce, fiery, and uncensored discussions about sex, relationships, pop culture, challenges facing the LGBTQ2S+ community, and more. Led by Hytes who moderates a panel that represents a variety of sexualities and identities, each half-hour episode of 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS is focused on a single topic, and reflects the awareness and values of a new generation of viewers.
Segments featured on the series include: “Let’s Have a Kiki,” which invites queer people from around the world to share their opinions about the topics covered on the show; “Secret’s Out,” where a secret about one of the cast members is revealed and the others must guess who it’s about; “Come Again,” where the panelists are invited to discuss pivotal moments in their lives; and “Quick Shooter,” where one cast member must answer as many questions as they can, in one minute.
Some of the panelists joining Hytes on 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS include: CANADA’S DRAG RACE guest judge and choreographer Hollywood Jade; Award-winning queer comedian Tricia Black; actor and retired professional hockey player Harrison Browne; model, activist, and multidisciplinary performer Ivory Conover; and lifestyle blogger Myles Sexton. Celebrity guests include: fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi; the first transgender woman to be cast in a transgender role on a daytime soap opera (GENERAL HOSPITAL) Cassandra James; and Peabody and American Film Institute Award-winner Our Lady J; a transgender woman whose credits include producer/writer on series such as TRANSPARENT and POSE.
In association with Crave, 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS is produced by Bell Media Studios and distributed by Bell Media Distribution. Brooke Lynn Hytes serves as Executive Producer and Host.
If not for the pandemic, Tenaj Williams wouldn’t be playing Trey on the third season of Jann. In fact, he likely wouldn’t be acting on television at all.
Until 2020, the Calgary-based actor and singer was happily ensconced in the theatre world, performing in various musicals and plays around the country. But when COVID-19 shut down theatres, he decided to make the jump to film and television, landing small parts in Wynonna Earp, Big Sky and the Hallmark movie Meet Me at Christmas.
When Williams nabbed a role in Jann, airing Mondays at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, he assumed it would be small as well. But he soon found out that Trey, Jann’s (Jann Arden) new personal assistant, is no bit part. On the contrary, the calm, nurturing former nanny will be a major, season-long presence as he works to bring order to Jann’s chaotic universe and develops a strong bond with her mom Nora (Deborah Grover).
“The part was much larger than I thought it was going to be,†Williams says.
During a phone interview from Calgary, Williams told us how he approached playing Trey and explained why he loved joining Jann’s Season 3 cast.
What was your audition process for Jann like? Tenaj Williams: Typically now with COVID, it’s all self-tapes, and I actually really like that. I like that I can control the environment I’m in and my level of anxiety and stress. The way I’ve devised to tell if my self-tapes are good or not is, I always watch back my self-tape before I submit it, and if I find myself distracted by things like ‘Why do you look like that?’ or ‘What are you doing with your teeth?’ or ‘What are you doing with your mouth?’ then it’s not a good take. But if at the end of the take I find that I’m just smiling the whole time, that means I was [in the moment] as a viewer and then I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, that must be a good take.’
With Jann, I sent off the tape, and I knew who Jann was, and I had seen commercials of the show, but I had never actually watched the show before. And then I got shortlisted for it, but I’d been shortlisted for things before, and I know not to get my hopes up for anything. So I continued on with my life, no big deal. I didn’t tell anybody anything, because I didn’t want to be like, ‘Hey, I’m shortlisted, and then I didn’t get the part. So I just pretended like life as usual, and then I got an email from my agent saying, ‘We’re just waiting for network approval,’ and I didn’t really know what that was. I assumed that it could still fall through, so I didn’t want to get my hopes up for that either. And then I got the job, and I was super excited, but I for sure didn’t understand the magnitude of what I was doing. I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll be in one or two episodes, which will be cool,’ you know what I mean? And it wasn’t until I got my script maybe like a week later and I did a fitting that was two and a half hours, and I was like, ‘How many costumes do I have?’ and I looked through the script and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m in all the scenes, I’m in every episode.’ And then I was invited to a table read, which that’s never happened to me before, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is actually a big part,’ and that’s when I got excited.
Trey is a very calm, collected guy who loves astrology. How did you approach playing him? TW: Honestly, first I watched all the episodes of this show, all of them. And it didn’t take me long to do it, either. I really enjoyed the show. When the first season ended, I thought I was like two episodes in, but I’d finished the whole season. And the same thing happened with the second season. And I kind of pieced together Trey from Jann, who has very chaotic energy, and that’s an understatement. I thought, if she’s looking for a personal assistant, I’m imagining she needs the opposite of what she is. You could play it really crazy and really high energy and matching that kind of energy, but I thought it might be more interesting if he comes in and juxtaposes that kind of energy. So I tried to bring him into a more Zen-like place. So that was my main focus, I thought that’s what she would benefit from, someone to balance her off.
And I’m not much into astrology personally, but I did look into a little bit and I talked to a few friends who are into it, and I looked into my own sign—I’m an Aquarius—and I thought, ‘Oh, these are actually quite accurate.’
As you mentioned, Jann’s world is pretty chaotic. How is poor Trey going to handle that as the season goes on? TW: Well, what I will say without giving any spoilers away is, he says in the first episode that he really likes a challenge, and I think that he finds it. I think he finds not only a challenge in Jann but in the people that live in Jann’s house that he’s now surrounded by. So he has a very ridiculously destroyed version of Cale [Elena Juatco], and I think he finds that very fascinating in a terrifying way, and you also have the energy of Nora. I think he’s attracted to the different situations there and the different energies and what that means. I think the challenge of bringing that all together is really exciting.
When we recently spoke with Jann Arden, she told us that Trey develops a strong relationship with Nora. What can you tell us about that? TW: Something about Nora triggers something in his past that he’s dealt with himself. He sees something in Nora that he wants to nurture. He wants to take care of this person, and I think he finds a really good friend in Nora, and I really, really love their relationship. I think that Nora is looking for a friend just as much as Trey is looking to take care of this type of person. Because she’s around Jann’s chaotic energy a lot, and she’s also been, not kicked out by Max, but kind of seeing that we need a change, and I think she’s looking for some stability. I think that Trey provides that for her in a way.
I imagine it’s not always easy to join an established TV show. What was your first day on set like? TW: It was crazy, honestly. It was crazy that I had binged these two seasons and then I did this Zoom reading where I got to see all the faces that I got to see on screen, where we went over the whole season. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe it.’ And they were all such professionals. I cannot rave highly enough about the group of actors that they have brought together, beautiful human souls who genuinely want to make the work so good. There are no egos or anything like that, everybody was so welcoming and warm.
The first day, I was wildly nervous, I didn’t really know what to expect, and my first scene was a two-hander with Jann, and I was like, ‘Of course it is. Of course, my very first day is with the star of the show in a scene that’s just the two of us.’ And so I freaked out and thought, ‘OK, don’t mess up any of your lines because if you mess up even one line, they’re going to kick you to the curb.’
And I was standing there and Jann was with me—and our first time really meeting was on set, the first scene we were doing—and we were just having a very casual conversation, and we just stood there for a second and it was quiet, and Jann just turns to me and is like, ‘So, are you nervous?’ And I thought, ‘How do I answer this question?’ and I was like, ‘You know what? Yeah, I am. I’m very nervous.’ And she just looks at me and said, ‘Oh, thank God, me, too.’ And that actually really helped things.
Did you ever find yourself cracking up at some of Jann’s one-liners and antics while shooting? TW: I would like to tell you that I got to the point where I was like, ‘Oh, I’m a professional, I don’t laugh anymore, I don’t break,’ but that never was the case. I was always breaking, I was always ruining scenes. It’s [Jann’s] show, and if she wants to try something completely different…she’ll just go on the most hilarious tangents, and I’m like, ‘Please don’t zoom the camera into my face, please don’t zoom the camera into my face.’ I just couldn’t keep it together.
What was the best thing about joining the cast this season? TW: The biggest thing was, honestly, it felt like I was part of something so great. I was just so proud of the work. I was laughing out loud constantly while we were doing the work. The script was so funny, everybody was so funny, we had such good chemistry as a cast, they welcomed me in so much, that it just felt like I was playing around. I mean, it’s crazy to me that I’m in a sitcom with Jann Arden and a bunch of other really talented people. I got paid to just literally play with the funnest, wonderfullest people. I tried not to take that for granted.
Jann airs Mondays at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca and CTV app.
As announced today from Content Canada’s Digital Summit, CTV Comedy Channel has ordered the all-new original scripted comedy, ACTING GOOD, loosely based on the life of stand up comedian Paul Rabliauskas (THE STAND UP SHOW WITH JON DORE). Produced by Kistikan Pictures Inc., the series was co-created by Rabliauskas, who is also set to star in the series, Amber-Sekowan Daniels (DIGGSTOWN), Eric Toth (STILL STANDING), and Pat Thornton (FILTH CITY). The hilarious 10-part, half-hour comedy follows self-conscious and gullible Paul (Rabliauskas), who falls flat on his face in the big city and tries to slip back into life on his fly-in rez as if nothing happened. But his eccentric family is having none of it. ACTING GOOD is set to shoot on location in Manitoba early next year, with production and additional casting details to be announced in the coming months.
ACTING GOOD is set in the fictional fly-in reserve of Grouse Lake First Nation in Northern Manitoba, a community that lives by its own set of rules. The series is inspired by Paul Rabliauskas’ own isolated reserve of Poplar River First Nation, and the family and friends that inhabit the community. Pat Thornton, Amber-Sekowan Daniels, and Eric Toth are co-writers for the series along with Rabliauskas.
This all-new comedy series joins Bell Media’s robust 2021/22 development and production slate that includes drama series SULLIVAN’S CROSSING and LITTLE BIRD, as well as scripted comedy series DU ME A FAVOR and LETTERKENNY spinoff series, SHORSEY.
ACTING GOOD is produced by CTV Comedy, in association with Kistikan Pictures Inc. Producers are Tina Keeper (Kistikan Pictures) and Jennifer Beasley (Buffalo Gal Pictures) with Phyllis Laing (Buffalo Gal Pictures) as Executive Producer. Amber-Sekowan Daniels, Pat Thornton, and Eric Toth serve as co-showrunners.
As announced today on CTV’s YOUR MORNING, Co-Host Ben Mulroney is departing the national morning show to focus on a new career developing scripted and unscripted projects, following a 20-year career with the broadcaster. Mulroney’s last day on YOUR MORNING will be this Friday, October 1 on CTV.
“After 20 years, I have made the difficult decision to leave CTV and YOUR MORNING to pursue a career as a producer, developing unique projects for both Canadian and global audiences,†said Mulroney. “I have had an incredible run at CTV, but it’s time to take the leap and fulfill what has been a life-long dream for me. I look forward to connecting with Canadians in this new way and for the opportunity to develop ideas with Bell Media in the future.â€
“Ben is regarded as one of Canada’s premier TV hosts, a broadcaster who helped to put Canada on the map in the world of entertainment news,†said Karine Moses, Senior Vice President, Content Development and News, Bell Media. “As Ben transitions from reporting on stories in front of the camera to telling stories from behind it, we look forward to the opportunity to collaborate with Ben again, and we wish him nothing but the best in his new venture.â€
Ben joined CTV as an entertainment reporter for CANADA AM in October 2001, before joining ETALK in its debut season as Co-Host in 2002. Ben was also a member of the broadcast team for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, reporting on entertainment news for CTV, and was the host of CTV’s CANADIAN IDOL for six seasons, which at the time was the most-watched English-language Canadian television show on record. He became Co-Host of YOUR MORNING when it debuted in 2016.
