Music: {allcanada} Tweet sparks Oprahmania

Sunday, May 15, 2011

{allcanada} Tweet sparks Oprahmania

Oprah? Nope-rah.

Stratford, Ont., went wild when a tiny tweet on Twitter sparked speculation that Oprah Winfrey, one of the most famous and wealthiest entertainers on the planet, had stopped by to take in the Stratford Festival production of The Grapes of Wrath.

In the city where Justin Bieber really is the boy next door and international stage actors shop at the local supermarkets, Oprah Fever was red-hot and created an unprecedented buzz.

"A little too much of a buzz," said Stratford Mayor Dan Mathieson.

Even after the hundreds of visits to Stratford over the years by living, breathing, in-the-flesh celebrities, Mathieson said an absent Winfrey wins the award "for creating the largest stir."

The Winfrey watch began Friday when someone tweeted that a film crew from OWN, Winfrey's TV network, was in town.

That was true - the crew was shooting footage at Rheo Thompson Candies for Christine Cushing's Fearless in the Kitchen.

Logic told everyone that if Oprah's cameras were somewhere near Ontario St., she must be, too.

Mathieson said everyone got into the Oprah spirit. Sightings in local stores were reported on various social media online. Someone from the Ideal Supply store joked Oprah was there on Twitter, sending off another flurry of speculation.

Mathieson said if she had been there, she would have been buying "an oil filter, 5W-30 and some light bulbs."

Undeterred by the lack of real Oprah, some of her faithful gathered outside the Avon Theatre, hoping their hero and TV guru would appear.

They hoped it to be - but it was not to be.

All of the hub-bub was perplexing to the mayor, who said Stratford is no stranger to star power. And when a big star is in town, the festival, police and the mayor know in advance.

Last fall, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their daughter Suri caught a show at the festival and special arrangements were made for their security.

Mathieson was at a meeting at the theatre when the Oprah-a-looza broke out. Stratford Shakespeare Festival general director Antoni Cimolino knew nothing about it, the mayor said. No tickets had been set aside.

But the online Winfrey wave was crashing through the southwestern Ontario city. Soon TV crews from Kitchener, Ont., and London, Ont., were in town, fanning the flames of potential celebrity sighting even more.

Mathieson said the online steamroll of misinformation could be a good case study for University of Waterloo's digital media campus, based in Stratford.

He's also toying with the idea that the city and festival extend a personal invitation to the woman known as O to visit Stratford for real.

If just a rumour of her visit can cause this much buzz, her appearance would be great for business.