November 19, 2012
The GazetteNovember 16, 2012
By Pat Donnelly
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From Mary Poppins to Rock of Ages, Montrealers who love musical theatre are in for a busy season
An American touring production of the Broadway musical Mary Poppins will be landing at Place des Arts next week, and a new, locally produced $1-million musical about a mouse journalist named Geronimo Stilton is slated to open at the Monument National on Boxing Day.
But toe-tapping shows about umbrella-toting British nannies or ink-stained mice aren’t all that’s in store on the musical theatre front in Montreal over the coming months.
Besides Mary Poppins, promoter Evenko is bringing in two more touring shows: Billy Elliot the Musical (January at Place des Arts), about a boy in a coal-mining town who takes up classical dance, and Rock of Ages (February and March at Théâtre St. Denis), a jukebox rock musical based on hits from the 1980s, from Styx to Bon Jovi.
The Segal Centre, which has just broken its own box office records with Guys and Dolls (its biggest hit since Lies My Father Told Me), is preparing to launch two new musicals: the co-produced Mahalia Jackson Musical, starring Ranee Lee, and Tales of Odessa, based on the works of Isaac Babel, in Yiddish, with funky music by Socalled (a.k.a. Josh Dolgin).
Centaur Theatre is going to host a Danish dance-oriented spectacle, Dance Me to the End On/Off Love, based on the songs of Leonard Cohen, in the spring. And Just for Laughs president Andy Nulman has let slip the festival is about to announce the French version of Hairspray for next summer.
On a more modest scale, there are productions of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, to be presented by In Your Face Entertainment at MainLine Theatre in March (its previously announced November booking at the Rialto Theatre fell through), and an independently produced Godspell, by Beautiful City Theatre, coming to Centaur Theatre in January.
Also on the horizon in the new year: An expensive amateur production of Oklahoma! presented by the Hudson Music Club, and the usual rush of three or four Gilbert and Sullivan shows. (Lyric Theatre, which presented Curtains last spring, is doing only its annual Christmas at Tudor Hall this season.)
Musicals have always been popular here, but Montreal has never been a musical theatre capital in the way Toronto once was, during the heydays of The Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King. Nor has our commercial musical theatre scene declined as precipitously as Toronto’s, to the point that Mirvish Productions now sees its 2,000-seat Princess of Wales Theatre, initially built to house Miss Saigon, as a target for possible demolition.
We’ve never had an ideal musical theatre venue here. Most touring shows, like Mary Poppins, make do with the acoustically challenged Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts, which is now more available than it was before the OSM moved to the Maison symphonique next door. The musical Wicked, also brought to PdA by Evenko, sold more than 50,000 tickets this summer.
Théâtre St. Denis, which once housed Montreal’s bilingual Les Misérables, was recently home to a hugely successful multimillion-dollar Chantons sous la pluie (Singin’ in the Rain) produced by Juste pour rire. But producers with smaller budgets must make do with smaller venues, which may not have enough seats for them to make their money back.
According to Paul Flicker, artistic producer of the Segal Centre, subscription-season non-profit theatres like his don’t even think of breaking even on a musical. They look at the bottom line of the season as a whole. Also, he says, “Touring productions spend an incredible amount for marketing and PR. We just don’t have the budget to compete at that level.”
Even without its sophisticated ad campaign, however, Mary Poppins would still be pretty much a sure thing. Everyone loved the 1964 movie starring Julie Andrews, and most of us know at least some of the songs by heart.
Madeline Trumble, the California-raised 23-year-old who plays the title role in the Disney/Cameron Mackintosh production coming to PdA next week, said when she was a child she dreamed of having Mary Poppins as her nanny. “She’s so otherworldly,” said Trumble, a University of Michigan musical theatre graduate who signed up for the tour two months ago.
“Mary Poppins, the musical, is different than the movie,” she reminded. “It’s not the movie put on stage.” The characters are the same, and songs like A Spoonful of Sugar remain, but new ones have been added. In fact, the first song Trumble sings wasn’t in the film. This makes it easier for her to distance herself from lingering memories of Andrews, she said.
The 2004 musical — which is based on the original book by Pamela Travers as well as the Disney movie — was the result of long negotiations between Mackintosh and the author, who was not a fan of the film.
Mackintosh’s company continues to be involved with the production by, among other things, tipping the scales a bit toward Canadian performers, according to Danielle Benton of Hamilton, Ont., who plays several roles in the show. She’s been with Mary Poppins for 11 months on a work-specific visa. Her one big revelation has been: “We don’t really tour in Canada.”
Or at least Canadian-produced musicals seldom do. It’s easier to book in a show, even from Europe (e.g. the Danish Cohen show at Centaur), than to book one out.
Even a successful Quebec-produced musical like Chantons sous la pluie, which sold about 50,000 tickets in Montreal, is not likely to tour beyond a planned stop in Quebec City. With its 28 actors, eight musicians and technical crew of 15, it’s too large and the regional market too small.
“Musical theatre is a huge risk,” said Chantons producer Lucie Rozon, warning that Quebec unions expect too much and fail to recognize a widespread slump in showbiz.
But according to actor Eloi ArchamBaudoin, who recently landed the starring role in Geronimo Stilton dans le royaume de la fantaisie, its producers harbour high hopes of taking their show on the international road, in English as well as French. (At present, however, there are no English performances scheduled.) After all, he said, Geronimo (or his Italian ghostwriter, Elisabetta Dami) has sold about 75 million books worldwide, in at least 35 languages. Stilton also has a popular animated TV series, aired Saturday mornings on Radio-Canada.
This charming mouse is editor of the Rodent’s Gazette, the newspaper of note in New Mouse City, the capital of Mouse Island. A rather shy fellow, he nevertheless gets swept up in wild adventures.
“What we’re doing,” ArchamBaudoin said, “is an adaptation of one of his most popular books. Geronimo Stilton dans le royaume de la fantaisie is his bestseller.”
The show is adapted and directed by Serge Postigo, with music by Olivier Boyer-Masutti. Its CD was launched this week, which means that ArchamBaudoin, who recently starred in Talisman Theatre’s The Medea Effect, has suddenly become a recording artist as well as a mouse.
Geronimo’s stories can be just as interesting to adults as to children, he insisted: “The characters have a complex psychology. They have all the puns, jokes and double entendres. Parents are going to have a great time at this show.”
Mom and dad might have enjoyed a date night at the bilingual Jacques Brel musical, too. But that will have to wait until March thanks to an unexpected venue switch, due to unfinished renovations downstairs at the Rialto Theatre. Producer/performer Nadia Verrucci said staging musical theatre is never easy. “The rights are more expensive than a straight play. In indie theatre, a lot of actors will do a show for free, but musicians never will. And it takes double the time to rehearse. It’s more of an investment, time- and money-wise.”
Yet musical theatre is alive and well, whether it’s touring to, or living in, Montreal.