Volume 23 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2018

NEIL-SILCOX
Dr. Silver: A Celebration of Life
– where music is an integral element in telling a theatrical story. This
year the mix is very interesting and even more experimental than last
year. Do you see music theatre as always being an essential part of
the Luminato recipe, particularly as it crosses borders and genres?
Well, I’m particularly interested in artists and their work where
they are not working in art-form silos; and distinctions between the
definitions of particular art forms now are so blurry. Also, music to
me is really central so it’s not surprising that so many works that we
are looking at are cross-genre. I also think that the ability that music
has to speak to audiences who perhaps might not think of themselves
as being a “theatre audience” or a “dance audience,” for example,
is exciting.
How did you choose the music theatre pieces this season? Did
you start with one that was a cornerstone, the Irish Swan Lake, for
example, or did you begin with the underlying themes and ideas you
wanted to engage with this season and go from there?
I think it’s partly that I am always drawn to music and so there
is no one answer to that. I have a long relationship with Teaċ Daṁsa,
Michael Dolan’s company (Swan Lake), and have seen a lot of
Michael’s work over the years as a director and choreographer. He is,
I think, a unique and important voice, and Toronto audiences and the
artists working in Toronto should see the works that he is creating
The excerpts that I have seen online look wildly theatrical.
It’s a completely original reading of such a well-known work, and
all the elements of the Swan Lake story are there, but of course it is
completely transformed into this really poor community in Ireland.
There are no kings and queens and princes here, and the music
is original Irish music (with folk references) played live onstage.
Somehow even with all of that transformation, the classic story is
there, which to me is just magical.
And the Canadian pieces – how did you choose those, Dr. Silver
for example?
In the case of Dr. Silver, A Celebration of Life I was invited by
Mitchell Cushman of Outside the March, very soon after I arrived in
Canada (the middle of 2016), to go to a day of workshops they were
holding, and this was one of those works in a very raw form. I met
and talked with Mitchell and then also with Mitchell Marcus of The
Musical Stage Company, as it was absolutely evident to me that Britta
and Anika Johnson are a real creative force. I was interested in not
just the direction of that work but of whatever else they were doing,
and wanted to signal that I would be interested in finding a way for
Luminato to be part of that story to support those artists. Although Dr.
Silver has its official presentation in September as a finished work, I
asked if it would be useful for them to have an opportunity on the way
through to put it in front of an audience, so that’s how that conversation
went.
Hells Fury: The Hollywood Songbook [Tim Albery’s concept based
on the life and songs of composer Hanns Eisler], on the other hand,
came to us as an idea from Lawrence Cherney at Soundstreams. He
said “We want to create this work and need a partner.” So, there are
many ways in which these projects can come to life. You have to be in
the room, seeing work, having the conversation for these outcomes to
even occur.
And if artists are interested in having a conversation with you how
should they approach you?
I try to go to see artists working at all scales and at all types of work,
so people do tend to find me in foyers, but I can also be easily be
contacted at Luminato.
The Ward Cabaret you mentioned is also a work in progress – can
you tell me a bit more about it?
I think it’s a really important piece because it comes from the recent
book The Ward from Coach House Books that deals with the importance
of the Ward [an area bounded roughly by Queen and College,
Yonge and University] and the cultural diversity of its original inhabitants
as being the real basis of Toronto’s cultural diversity today. What
David Buchbinder (the show’s originator) has done is have a musical
response to that material, and I think it’s going to be really interesting
and very rich.
Now that playwright Marjorie Chan and director Leah Cherniak
are newly involved in the collaboration, is there any sense yet of how
theatrical it is going to be?
What we have now is really a cabaret concert performance, but
eventually it will be a fully staged theatrical experience. I can’t tell you
when that will be but we are certainly there for the journey.
Before we finish, could you tell me a bit more about Riot, the other
show you are bringing from Ireland? It sounds like a smorgasbord of
different genres, including music theatre, all mixed together.
Riot is uplifting. It’s funny, energetic, has got real heart and soul,
and deals with – going back to your first questions – issues and ideas.
It covers quite a lot of really important territory of social politics, in
particular, but does it in a way that is very entertaining and lightly
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