Volume 25 Issue 3 - November 2019

Beat by Beat | Music Theatre
The Parts That
Musical Passion
Plays
JENNIFER PARR
Of the many music theatre events in October, one that stood
out for me was the Canadian Musical Theatre Project’s annual
festival of new musicals in progress at the beautiful Winter
Garden Theatre. An international incubator for the creation of new
musicals based at Sheridan College, the CMTP also gives fourthyear
Sheridan musical theatre students an unparalleled opportunity
to be part of the creation and development of new works alongside
working professionals, and, on top of that, to have this exceptional
showcase of their own abilities. Of the three musicals presented in
excerpt, one in particular caught my eye: Pump Up The Volume by
Jeff Thomson (music) and Jeremy Desmon (book and lyrics). Although
based on the 1990 film by Alan Moyle, this show exploded onstage
with youthful energy echoing the energy and passion of the growing
number of youth-led movements to fix what is wrong with our world
today, whether the proliferation of guns or the imminence of climate
disaster. Songs, script and performances added up to more than the
sum of their parts. If the whole musical is this strong, I can see young
audiences responding to it in a big way.
This same energy was captured by Hanna Kiel’s world-premiere
dance piece for Human Body Expression at the end of September:
Resonance, explicit in its own language of movement and 80’s
inspired rock music about the need for all of us to stand together to
fight for what is right. (See my review on The WholeNote blog).
A Million Billion Pieces
Music, as an essential ingredient in portraying youthful passion and
idealism, will also be seen in the
upcoming new “play with opera,” A
Million Billion Pieces by David James
Brock (book) and Gareth Williams
(music). Though a creative extension
of The Breath Cycle Project the
duo began with Scottish Opera in
2013, Brock explains that the play
stands on its own, set in a “SciFi/
Fantasy realm where a simple touch
can cause the two main characters to
explode into a million billion pieces,
due to a rare genetic illness.” Isolated
by their illness, two 16-year-olds, Pria
and Theo, craving connection, create
online personas and correspond as
these ‘ideal” selves for a year before
daring to meet in person. This online
ideal world is set apart from the
David James Brock
real world by being “heightened cosmically and sonically,” as Brock
says, not just with singing but “through vocal effects and scoring, so
that the music evolves into fuller vocal lines and scenes as the relationships
do,” to the point where music enters the real world as Pria
and Theo dare to actually meet in person. When I asked Brock if his
writing process changed for this project since he was writing for a
teenage audience, he said, “not much. The characters are teenagers,
but they’ve lived their whole lives being told they wouldn’t survive
to adulthood, so they’ve had to fit as much as possible in on a countdown.
These characters are hyper aware of the finite amount of time
in a life. I think we all have a sense we’re not using the time we have
correctly – I certainly do. As a side note, at the climate march recently,
I overheard a conversation where two teens truly didn’t think the
planet would be around when they were 50.”
A Million Billion Pieces is directed by Philip Akin and runs
November 25 to December 13 in YPT’s studio theatre. Paired with it
in the season, and beginning two weeks earlier, is a heartfelt musical
version of the classic fairy tale of the boy whose nose grows whenever
he tells a lie: Pinocchio. Created by Neil Bartram and Brian Hill (who
first met as cast mates in the Toronto production of Forever Plaid
in the 1990s), this Canadian premiere will be directed by Canadian
musical and television star Sheila McCarthy, notable for past incarnations
as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors and Adelaide in Guys and
Dolls to name just two.
Orpheus Revisited
Over at the National Ballet of Canada, another classic tale is being
explored and revisited through two short ballets: George Balanchine’s
1975 Chaconne, and the world premiere of Robert Binet’s Orpheus
Alive. Both ballets are inspired by the classical tale of the musician,
Orpheus, who petitions the gods to bring his beloved wife, Eurydice,
back from the dead. Balanchine’s piece, while set to some of Gluck’s
score for his opera Orfeo ed Euridice, is mostly abstract, whereas
Binet’s new work sets out to really tell the story, setting it in our own
times and switching the gender of the leading roles, making Orpheus
a woman artist, and Eurydice a man, her husband. He also turns the
audience into the gods who must judge their case. Set to a new score
by the award-winning composer Missy Mazzoli, and including projections,
and text spoken by some of the dancers to the audience, this
looks like a must-see for fans of contemporary ballet.
Another Brick in the Wall
Walls
Another must-see in November is the Toronto premiere (after the
world premiere in Vancouver two weeks earlier) of The 9th!, A
dance work ten years in the making by co-choreographers Roberto
Campanella and Robert Glumbek of ProArteDanza. Set to Beethoven’s
famously iconic Ninth Symphony and inspired by its connection with
the celebration of of the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago (almost
to the day of the opening), the full-length work also uses the full
four movements of the symphony to explore the idea of the need
to demolish inhibiting walls in our lives, both tangible and metaphysical.
(November 6 to 9, Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront).
(See my upcoming interview with Roberto Campanella on The
WholeNote blog.)
The powerful image of a wall is central as well to Another Brick in
the Wall, a new opera inspired by and based on Roger Waters’ music
from the famous Pink Floyd album, The Wall. The album predated the
fall of the Berlin Wall by ten years, but the themes being explored by
composer Julien Bilodeau and director Dominic Champagne – “the
34 | November 2019 thewholenote.com