Cheryl Neill 1951 – 2007 "You gotta put one foot in front of the other One step could change it all Ramble all over - no matter where you wander… You’re walkin’ to find who you are"

A consummate human being and performer

Cheryl Neill was a storyteller, singer, musician, spoken word artist, teacher, activist and poet and temperamentally bold, quirky, political and witty. Friend and mentor to many, she was passionate in her encouragement of others to reach their potential. Fiercely determined, she believed in the power of the individual to bring about change. Refusing to be categorized, Cheryl carved her own path, bringing a theatricality, a grin and a bite to enthusiastic audiences with her socially satirical and thoughtful pieces.

Oh Scheherazade Tell me the bedtime prayers that Will keep the story from ending

Over the years, she performed at events from Halifax to Oregon and at International festivals including The Toronto International Storytelling Festival and The Ottawa Storytelling Festival. Her work has been aired on both local and national radio including CBC's OUT FRONT and Definitely Not the Opera. She organized and hosted many evenings empowering women poets and songwriters both in Montreal and Ottawa.

She worked as a children's book editor, a course instructor and director of many plays in the Department of Theatre at Concordia and McGill Universities, an Arts Consultant for school boards and the Quebec Government, a drama specialist, a performance artist in schools, an Acting Coach and a commissioned playwright.

She wrote, produced and directed more than twenty musicals. Cheryl also directed a sold out production of Anne of Green Gables touring both in Montreal and Hong Kong. She was an editorial and freelance cartoonist for five years. She was the founder, writer and director for the zany comedy musical theatre troupe The R.R.1 Players who toured extensively for six years in both Quebec and Ontario, presenting Cheryl's hilarious signature 'plays in rhyme'.  She founded and performed, in and around the Montreal area, as The ArboRRouge Storytellers.

We will miss her profoundly.

To read her stories and poems, to hear her songs, to see her photos and to find out more about Cheryl Neill: http://cherylneill.com/

Click here to see a video clip of Cheryl performing.

A poem by Cheryl Neill:

The Howling

I believe I could be content
With this house,
This street, these friends
If it wasn’t for the howling down the road
Underneath
The wild call of what if

A full moon
Makes me want to throw open the shutters
Jump out on the lawn
Dance naked on rose petals
Open mouthed and barking
Paint blue swirls on my nipples with wode
Take a new lover with dark tangled hair
Lie by some far away fire
Whisper guttural words that don’t mean anything
Be gone by morning

Or maybe catch a train, destination unknown
Ride those clackety steel rails towards the sunset
With only the clothes I’m wearing
A dollar in my pocket
Calling myself Sheila

If it wasn’t for the howling I could bake bread
Sit in the kitchen sipping tea from a red teacup
Dream about the past
Lovers that didn’t last
Careers that go by so fast
And be content

But oh the howling

The howling