Volume 23 Issue 6 - March 2018

dancer and choreographer
Christopher
Wheeldon (who had
choreographed An
American in Paris
as a ballet for the
New York City Ballet
in 2005) came on
board as director and
choreographer.
What Lucas and
Wheeldon have
brought to the original
story of Jerry,
an American G.I.
painter staying on in
Paris after the war
and falling in love
with Lise, a sweet but
spunky Parisian girl,
is the added dimension
of a Paris more
affected by the war,
and characters also
with a darker or sadder side. There are hints of this in the original
movie (Lise’s parents worked for the resistance, Jerry fought through
and survived the war and doesn’t want to return to the States), but
here they are given more emphasis. Oscar Levant’s role of Adam
(Jerry’s concert pianist friend in the film) has also been given more
depth, and Lise has been made an aspiring ballet dancer, so that, as
Christopher Wheeldon has said, the new version plays on two fronts:
“the friendship and the bonding and the love story,” but also the
“creation of art and the struggle to create art.”
Adaptation is a difficult and fascinating art whatever the original
material; while this adaptation of a beloved classic film musical has
been lauded and given many awards, it will be interesting to see for
ourselves how well it works for Toronto audiences. I am curious about
the added darkness (Leslie Caron herself suffered through the occupation
of Paris so it must have informed her original performance
despite how Hollywood-happy the movie is). I’m curious as well about
the choreography and how well it will stand up to Gene Kelly’s original
dances for the film (for which he received an honorary Academy
Award). When something is that iconic and entrenched in people’s
memories, how do you match it?
Finding the right triple threat performers for the two main leads
has reportedly been a difficult and time-consuming process, but
if the choice of McGee Maddox as Jerry is any indication, we’re in
luck. Already very familiar with Wheeldon’s choreography, Maddox
made a considerable impact as Leontes, the role of the jealous king in
Wheeldon’s ballet version of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (a ballet
created after An American in Paris, but seen in Toronto both in 2016
and this past fall).
Altogether, March is shaping up to be an exciting month for music
theatre in the city.
News has just broken as I write this that a year from now Dear
Evan Hansen, the musical by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (music and
lyrics) and Steven Levenson (book) which won the Tony award for best
musical in 2017, will have its first international production beginning
in Toronto in March 2019, in partnership with David Mirvish. Another
good opportunity for Canadian music theatre performers, and exciting
for music theatre fans.
QUICK PICKS
Mar 8 to 18: Rudolph Nureyev’s version of the classic Petipa
ballet Sleeping Beauty, to Tchaikovsky’s beloved score, features his
famous introspective solos for the prince, as well as the classic rose
adagio for Princess Aurora and the fabulous fun of the wicked fairy
Carabosse. National Ballet of Canada at the Four Seasons Centre for
the Performing Arts.
Mar 14 to 25: Gobsmacked at the newly renamed CAA Theatre
An American in Paris touring company
(formerly the
Panasonic) sounds
intriguing as it
promises an evening
of interwoven stories
told solely through
a cappella singing
from “traditional
street corner harmonies
to cuttingedge,
multi-track
live looping.”
Mar 16 to 17:
newly rebranded
Toronto Musical
Concerts (TMC), a
professional notfor-profit
company
with a mandate to
provide educational
and community
outreach through
the performing arts,
presents a staged
reading of Sondheim’s classic Company at Eastminster United Church
(310 Danforth Ave.) to benefit The Canadian Safe School Network
(647-298-9338).
Mar 16 to 25: On the community music theatre front, the North
Toronto Players present Lear Incorporated, their own new “operetta
meets musical comedy” version of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear,
featuring music by Arthur Sullivan, Bizet and others.
Toronto-based “lifelong theatre person” Jennifer (Jenny)
Parr works as a director, fight director, stage manager and
coach, and is equally crazy about movies and musicals.
THE ECSTASY OF
RITA JOE
THE OPERA
by
Victor Davies
Not Forgotten
by Maxine Noel
VOICE
B OX
OPERA IN CONCERT
Guillermo Silva-Marin
General Director
operainconcert.com
416-366-7723 | 1-800-708-6754 | www.stlc.com
World Premiere
Now the musical
version of a
transcendental
Indigenous story.
Robert Cooper C.M.,
Conductor
Marion Newman
Evan Korbut*
Michelle Lafferty
Rose-Ellen Nichols
Michael
Robert-Broder
Everett Morrison
March 24 & 25
2018
*Awarded the Stuart Hamilton Memorial Fund for Emerging Artists
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 35
MATTHEW MURPHY