Meet little Maurice Vellekoop the youngest of five children raised by Dutch immigrants in the
1970s in a middle class suburb of Toronto. He loves watching Cher and Carol Burnett on TV
making clothes for his best friend's Barbie dolls and helping his mum with her hair salon
which she runs out of the basement of the house. In short: he is really really gay. Which is a
huge problem because his family is part of the Christian Reformed Church a strict Calvinist
sect which is not accepting of homosexuality to say the least. We see him participating in
weekly church services catechism classes going to Christian schools his stint as a member of
the Calvinist Cadet Corps. Vellekoop struggles through all of this until he finally graduates
high school and gets accepted into the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1982. It is there
that his life truly changes thanks in no small part to his taking a class called Plays In
Performance taught by the wildly flamboyant and brilliant Paul Baker. Baker is the first out
gay man Maurice has ever met and the two soon become close friends. It is through witnessing
Baker's functional relationship with his long-time partner Martin that Maurice finally starts
to reconcile with himself and begin to accept who he actually is. But it's going to be a long
messy difficult and occasionally hilarious process. I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together is
an enthralling portrait of what it means to be true to yourself to learn to forgive and to be
an artist.--
