The sun had barely risen on the 2007 edition of Nuit Blanche before the local blogosphere relegated the second annual all-night contemporary art thing to the sophomore-slump file. The complaints were legion: too many people jockeying for too little street and sidewalk space, and too-long lineups yielding too few rewarding experiences in return.

For those of us who love the idea of Nuit Blanche (i.e., all-night entertainment) but don’t want to deal with the logistics (i.e., schlepping all over the city just to see an inflatable bug), we have Stephen Eyes. Unlike most Nuit Blanche participants, Eyes (yes, it’s his real name) is not an artist by trade, but he arguably has the most demanding job of any ahead of him this Saturday night, when his live Eyes on Toronto talk show caps a year of monthly, standing-room-only performances at the Gladstone Hotel by staging a continuous, 12-hour edition for Nuit Blanche. You know, just like a Jerry Lewis Telethon, but without the worthy cause.

“We’re not collecting a cover charge, so we’re actually not raising any money,” Eyes clarifies over lunch with his three-person team. “We thought about doing a cause in earnest, but you don’t want to get an organization’s hopes up and say, ‘We’re doing Nuit Blanche and we’re going to have 5,000 people coming through the room,’ and then you hand over a cheque for $146.50.

“The show is more of a fund-waster,” he continues. “Every time we show a video sketch, we’ll count off the production costs, or if a guest comes by and puts some drinks on our tab, we’ll deduct them…”

Adds resident writer-performer Keith Berry: “We’ll start with a number and then it’ll gradually decrease throughout the night.”

But even if the bank of telephone stations Eyes plans to set up this Saturday at the Gladstone isn’t actually connected to any real landlines, you could argue that what his show provides is a form of charity in itself.

After spending years trying to crack the local comedy circuit by hosting soul-sucking open-mic nights, Eyes found himself more enthused with the cross-pollinating activity in Toronto’s indie-music, visual-art and literary scenes; alongside fellow frustrated comics James Salisko (hired as Eyes’ trusty second banana), Berry (initially hired to play second banana to Salisko’s second banana) and writer-actor Amanda Terfloth, Eyes adopted the hoary old talk show format as a platform to showcase and celebrate local artists of all disciplines. 

The choice of venue was easy enough; Eyes is a regular bartender at the Gladstone, a gig that’s earned the decidedly heterosexual host a built-in fan base among the Queer West lesbian set. “I think they like me because I’m completely harmless,” he observes. “My testosterone levels don’t raise far enough to set off any alarm bells.”

Despite being held on that most unforgiving of nights — Monday — Eyes on Toronto has routinely drawn capacity crowds thanks to an intriguing mix of local luminaries (from director Bruce McDonald to 102.1 The Edge personality Alan Cross to EYE WEEKLY’s own sex columnist Sasha), comedians (including MuchMusic pundit Fraser Young and Last Comic Standing contender Debra DiGiovanni) and indie-rock acts (Laura Barrett, The Diableros), interspersed with topical yet absurdist sketches courtesy of Berry and Terfloth and all tied together by Eyes and Salisko’s casually wry repartee. And, over the course of a year, Eyes on Toronto’s gang of four has expanded to include a volunteer technical crew of 20, who are entrusted with the task of filming each episode for live simulcasts on the show’s website — a feature that, in spite of the show’s intensely local focus, betrays a more ambitious, nationally minded master plan at work.

“There really isn’t a late-night talk show in this country,” Eyes observes. “There was Open Mike With Mike Bullard however many years ago, but just because one thing goes bad doesn’t mean Canada doesn’t deserve a national show. I think there’s a hesitancy to compete, because there are so many shows in the late-night time slot.”

“Eyes on Toronto is not just a show about performance; it’s a show about performers,” stresses Salisko, who in contrast to his goofball onstage demeanour, speaks about the show with intense sincerity. “Nobody comes on and just does their thing and gets off — everybody who goes on gets a chance to be vocal and express themselves, and that disarms the audience. Canadians are passive viewers, but they’re very intelligent — I don’t understand why we don’t have more talk shows.”

“We just have something like eTalk Daily, with Ben Mulroney,” adds Terfloth with appropriate derision. “And they don’t really feature Canadian celebrities. It’s just shot here.”
“And no electronic talking either, which I find strange,” cracks Berry.

 “I just wanted to bring something that highlighted the artistic community, something that was reflecting what was going on in Toronto,” says Eyes, more seriously. “There were all these comedians and musicians and artists that don’t get that kind of exposure. You go see their show, but you don’t get to know them as an artist. We try to pick people you don’t always see [on talk shows], like novelists or fine artists — you’re not going to turn on Letterman and see him sitting down with some fine artist that’s breaking through in the New York scene. It just doesn’t happen.”

Of course Nuit Blanche presents Eyes with a fortuitous opportunity to connect with and showcase Toronto’s unsung artists, but it also poses significant challenges: beyond the formidable task of Eyes and his cast being on their game for six times longer than their usual two-hour shows, the transient nature of the audience means that certain reliable comic techniques must be discarded. (Salisko laments the impossibility of “callbacks,” or running gags built from references to previous interactions.)

However, Eyes’ greatest strength as a host is his flair for off-the-cuff quips and quick comebacks, and rather than try to schedule a set lineup of guests and performances — “the nature of the night is that people say ‘I’ll stop by,’ so we don’t want to make any promises” — Eyes will take advantage of the event’s random nature by transforming the show into a sort of unofficial Nuit Blanche crash pad: the action will move offstage and all over the Gladstone Hotel; participating Nuit Blanche artists will be invited to come down and discuss their work; and a field correspondent will check in with telephoned reports and live images from other Nuit Blanche exhibits around town.

“I went to Nuit Blanche last year,” says Terfloth, “and the biggest complaint from everyone I met was the walking distance between venues — I walked for like nine hours just to see something, and then walked another great distance just to see something else. And a lot of the exhibits closed early — we got to a couple that were locked up. So I’m just saying, if you’re lazy and like being in one spot…”

“…have we got the show for you,” Salisko replies.

Says Eyes: “We’re basically doing this so nobody has to leave to go see any of the other installations. We’ll be like the Wal-Mart of art shows.”

And if it all goes to hell, Berry is ready with the backup plan: “I think we’re just going to show Grease on the big screen for the last couple of hours.”