Tomatoestried to Kill mebut Banjos Saved My Life show A True Story
Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me but Banjos Saved My Life isn’t just a show, it’s a cause. A heartfelt passion project that began as a nudge after Keith Alessi’s life took a major turn, it has been his mission to raise money for causes close to his heart. Through donations, including 100% of all artist fees, the show has raised over $1.2 Million Dollars (CAD) as of November 2025 for various charities including cancer organizations, music programs, community groups and artist funding and development.
The show has sold out runs across Canada, Off-Broadway in New York City, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland 3 years in a row. It has toured internationally including Canada, the US, England, Scotland and Australia.
Keith shares his exceptional true story of leaving the world of corporate board rooms behind to follow his long-delayed passion—playing the banjo! When faced with a deadly cancer battle, his musical pursuit took him on a journey that became the key to saving his life. Told through authentic storytelling, heartfelt humor and music, Keith’s story is an uplifting tale of challenge, triumph, and the the healing power of the arts and music.
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I was born in 1954 & in 1985, as I was gazing down the road I was traveling on at the time, there were 2 abstract questions that preoccupying me. “Where will this journey of life take me? Will I be happy?”
So I embarked on a self-introspection program to guide me in my pursuit. Visually, I suppose one could say I pulled off the road and found safe haven at a road-site rest area. Oddly, this is really when my journey began.
In the interest of brevity, I will leave out many details.
We have all been in social settings where people ask “So what do you for a living?” You see, I never wanted to be remembered for this. So, the 1st trail I embarked on was to clearly define what success meant to me. No easy task…but in the end I settled on this. “Success, for me, is adding value to myself, the people I meet & the environment that surrounds me.”
I concluded that if I chose to live my life with this affirmation, I would be happy. In discovering this definition of success, there was a 2nd affirmation that really became embedded in me. This is “I am in the right place, at the right time, always!”
I also always wanted to publish a book, that in an abstract way, would define who I am, not a biography of sorts that would detail what “I did for a living and what happened along the way.”
I’ve also always believed people enter our lives for a reason, and the timing of these encounters is more than coincidence. In 2008, one evening while in Montreal, I met two strangers, now friends, who gave me the inspiration on my book. On 9/11/2008 I completed the unpublished draft. Including front & back covers, in tiny font, it is 8 pages long. My search now is to source an illustrator to co-author the book.
If you are still following my story, the one question in your mind now might be what is the book all about. Well, it’s a book about me and the title is “It’s all about A.B.O.T.
My husband and I purchased a long arm quilting machine in February 2020. We had only been quilting for a few years but we knew we wanted to do more. There was a need for Comfort Quilts: veterans, foster children, cancer patients, babies, nursing homes, etc. And then, of course, Covid happened! But we had plenty of time to practice with the machine and it was all charity work so we spent months getting better. And that first year we completed 300 quilts. We have learned a LOT and attracted a few customers and many more quilty friends. The journey continues and we are still turning out 300 plus quilts each year. The work is immensely rewarding and we are together 24/7 (retired), grateful and blessed to be able to help our community.