Theatre 2026: Toronto Fringe Festival

This year, my husband Rich and I selected six shows to watch at the Toronto Fringe Festival—4 musicals and 2 comedies. It is always hit and miss when we choose which shows to watch based merely on several lines of descriptions. We don’t want to wait for reviews to see which are the hot shows since by then, the tickets might be sold out. So, we take our best guess and the results are usually mixed. Our first three shows ran back-to-back-to-back at the Factory Theatre Main Stage.

The first one was a musical called “1920s - Walking Around in a Dream” which takes an excerpt from the plot of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream”, focusing on the two sets of lovers while omitting the subplot involving fairies.  Now set in 1920s Chicago during prohibition, Hermie and Andy are in love and want to get married, but Hermie’s bootlegger/boxing promoter father Eggs wants her to marry up-and-coming boxing champ Dimitry instead. Dimitry was previously involved with Helen who still carries a torch for him but pursues Hermie to please Eggs and further his boxing career. When Hermie and Andy run off into the woods to elope, Helen and Dimitry pursue them. Instead of fairy magic, it is bootlegged moonshine that cause all the romantic chaos.

This was a clever take on the Bard’s classic comedy and the characters are dressed in cool period clothing but given names close enough to the original source that it was easy to figure out the parallels. Unfortunately, we found most of the cast very difficult to hear. At first, we thought that it was the acoustics in the theatre and lack of microphones, but when the actor playing Andy spoke and sang his songs, we heard him crystal-clear. The other actors did not project their voices or enunciate clearly. The situation was exasperated by the fact that the script was deliberately injected with 1920s slang, to the point where a glossary was added to the program to help us understand the lingo. All of this made it more difficult to catch what was being said or sung. Luckily, we were familiar with the plot of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream so we got the gist of it.

Olivia O is a powerful and heart wrenching musical that shines a light on the travesty that has been happening in the United States since 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first term. His government introduced an immigration policy that separated asylum seekers from their children if caught illegally trying to enter the United States. While the migrant parents were imprisoned or deported, any children under age 18 were handed over to the Department of Homeland Security, which in turn shipped them off to “resettlement shelters” and foster homes across the country. The trauma and angst caused by these inhumane separations is highlighted through the plight of a fictitious family.

When 14-year-old Olivia Ortiz and her mother try to cross the US/Mexico border to meet up with Olivia’s American aunt Isabel, the pair are captured by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and forcibly separated. The mother is presumably deported and Olivia is sent to a detention centre to await placement. While there, she meets Gloria, another detainee who has become hardened and jaded after giving up hope that her family will come for her. Olivia is assigned to be fostered by an abusive and corrupt televangelist and his meek wife. In the meantime, Isabel is desperate to find her niece and joins a humanitarian activist and aid group devoted to reuniting families.

This is a touching musical with an important story to tell but once again, we had audio issues. The voices of several actors were much too soft while the music was too loud, obscuring the words even of the singers with powerful voices. The fact that Spanish was intermixed in the dialogue and lyrics compounded the ability to recognize and grasp what was being conveyed. But the emotions rang through loud and clear and the performances by the two leads playing Olivia O and her aunt Isabel were outstanding.

There were very simple sets for this show, comprised mostly of a few wooden benches that were constantly rearranged into different formations. The show began with several rows of benches each with a clump of tin foil that represented thermal blankets given to the children in the detention centre who were awaiting reassignment.  Video was projected at the back of the stage, contrasting happy, colourful crayon drawings of family that Olivia initially sent to her aunt in correspondence prior to their attempted meeting, and then stark photographs of actual detention centres and court houses in El Paso, Texas where much of these atrocities actually took place. The show closed with an image of beaded bracelets like the one Olivia made for Isabel that became a symbol of the search for her.

Other than not being able to hear properly, my only other issue with the musical was with the character of the televangelist who was so evil and diabolical that you could almost see him twirl his metaphorical mustache. Added for dramatic effect to heighten the danger and horrors that Olivia faced, he came across as cartoonish, detracting from the real-life drama being represented, which was terrible enough without this additional plot device. 

Our final show of the day was “Minimum”, a comedic satire about Simon, the bumbling, narcissistic, newly elected Premier of Ontario who is trapped into fulfilling a campaign promise that he flippantly and foolishly made while high on drugs and partying with college girls. Literally caught with his pants down on camera, he declared that he would live on minimum wage while in office, just like many of his constituents. The video goes viral as voters from all age groups (Gen Z to Boomers and even Taylor Swift) all laud him for this pledge, labeling this #MinimumChallenge. Simon is urged to go through with it by his idealistic assistant Grace while his estranged wife Helen (who campaigned for him but now wants a divorce) demands that he renege on the promise.

Simon’s nemesis, “the Prime Minister” chimes in and “supports” Simon’s initiative by canceling all his credit cards, draining his bank accounts and selling his houses (go with it … this is a satire).  Now Simon can no longer afford his daily $9 Frappuccino drinks, can’t pay Toronto’s sky-high rents so must move all the way out to Hamilton, has to transit to work instead of driving his Porsche (which he lovingly calls Portia), and in a repeated sight gag, instead of drinking his expensive booze, he gets his alcohol fix from chugging bright blue Listerine mouthwash.

Throughout the play, not-so-thinly-veiled references take aim at many of the questionable policies of our actual sitting Premier Doug Ford. This includes Ford’s buck-a-beer in grocery stores pledge which Simon one-ups by offering “quarter-a-beer” made available in all schools. There are also jabs about Ford’s “white elephant” spa project, OSAP (which Ford cut funding to but Simon pledges on behalf of the PM to forgive all loans), eliminating the Freedom of Information Act which Simon fully supports in order to hide his many misdeeds (and coincidentally, Ford supports this too), and the private jet that became such a scandal for Ford. In the play, the premier’s jet has a gold toilet.

This play was extremely funny and clever for 60 minutes and best of all, unlike the other two shows, we could hear all the actors perfectly, again proving that there was nothing wrong with the acoustics in the theatre. The problem is that Minimum ran for 90 minutes and the last 30 minutes lost its way. The same jokes about drinking Listerine or selling Grace’s desk were repeated multiple times, and the central premise of living on minimum wage fell by the wayside and never had a proper resolution.  Then the plot just took a totally wacky turn that changed the tone of the play. We concluded that this was almost a very good comedy that went on too long and could not come up with a satisfying ending.

On our next Fringe day, we watched two plays back-to-back at Soulpepper in the Distillery District. We almost missed watching an original new Canadian musical called Camp! since we had purchased a 10-pack of tickets and this show did not make our initial short list of five shows. However, I had a good feeling about this musical so we bought two extra tickets. Good thing we did, because this turned out to be our favourite show of the festival.

Camp! is set in Camp Clover, where kids to stay each summer and participate in activities including canoeing, crafts, sing-a-longs, trivia, talent contests, sports, and the season ending capture the flag competition. Nova and August first came to the camp when they were nine and became BFFs as soon as they met, progressing to become camp councillors. But something has happened and when they arrive this summer, they are cold and even aggressive towards each other. The other campers including junior councillors-in-training Max and Grace, August’s little brother Leo, Nova’s little sister Frances, and fellow campers Vinny and Moira spend most of the show trying to figure out what caused the rift and how to get Nova and August to reconcile.

Camp! is a co-production between Mixtapes Projects, an indie theatre company run by Margo Greve and Ben Kopp who wrote the songs and book for the show, and Bravo Academy, a Toronto performing arts school that offers music/musical theatre training. The amazing cast of the musical are all teens with excellent acting and singing skills and since they were all equipped with headset microphones, there was no trouble hearing them (which has become a major factor in our rating the shows we watch at this Fringe Festival).  The songs were fun, even innovative and advanced the story, the kids were witty and charming and this was by far the most professional production that we had seen at the festival.

The second play that we watched at Soulpepper was in the tiny RBC Financials Studio space which seats only 50 people. The chairs in the front row sit on the floor inches away from the action on the stage. The three subsequent rows follow in stadium style but on a very slight rake. I could not see at all from our original seats in the third row so I grabbed the last seat in the front row while Rich stayed back. Wanting to keep our shows light and happy, we stuck to the comedy and musical genres when selecting which shows to watch. We chose Gratitude since it was in the Comedy section, albeit described as a “dark comedy of teenage angst, insecurities and foibles in a coming-of-age story”.  By the end of this show, Rich and I concurred that what we watched in this 60-minutes play was definitely dark, not the least bit funny and more than a little bit troubling.

Set almost entirely in the boys’ locker room of a private school in Montreal, 15-year-old Dariya’s crush on Drew, the most popular boy in class, starts off relatively innocently with her passing cheat notes for an upcoming test. But soon the interactions escalate into transactional acts of sexual manipulation, seduction, and exploitation involving the two of them as well as fellow students Josh and Ben, where the concept of “gratitude” takes on salacious meanings. Playing almost like a tense psychological thriller with slight comparisons to the movie Dangerous Liaisons, we were taken aback by the explicitness of the dialogue and the simulated sexual acts that were portrayed (some literally at my feet).

Despite this play being not at all what we expected, we found the story to be fascinating and the acting of the entire cast to be superb. Particularly complex is Dariya’s character arc as you come to understand the motivations for her actions once more of her backstory comes to light. The plot is well structured with foreshadowing at the beginning and a plot point that we recognized as a “Chekov’s gun” moment both paying off by the shocking end of the play. The minimal set also cleverly conveyed graffiti on the boys’ locker room with a set of three cloth curtains with lewd graffiti scribbled on they. Despite leaving the theatre a bit shell-shocked, Gratitude spurred lengthy discussions afterwards as we dissected what we just watched.

Our last show of this Fringe Festival was the musical comedy Unsung; Accidental Villains in History. A troupe of six actors reimagine seven important moments in history. Through the use of humorous songs, choreography, costumes and props, they tell each story of how a fictitious character inadvertently caused the momentous event to happen, becoming the accidental villain in that story. The concept was fun and irreverent with some stories working better than others.

One of the best skits involved teenaged Lottie, who was hired to create lifeboats for the Titanic but not given enough time to complete the job. This resulted in not enough lifeboats being available for all the people when the ship hit the iceberg. She is put on trial with a prosecutor and defense lawyer arguing against and for her and then she finally gets to plead her own case.  She points out that the job was too big for one person but it should not have mattered since the ship was supposed to be “unsinkable”. The song ended with a cheeky reference to Rose and Jack from the Titanic movie.  Two supporting characters came out in ridiculous wigs as Lottie declares that more people could have been saved if they had just allowed more than one person on the floating door.

Other skits used hilarious props such as a cardboard representation of the wooden Trojan Horse horse that Trojan guard Calvin allowed through the gates because he loved horses. The horse had two holes cut out around its belly where the “Greeks” smirkingly hid. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was unfairly blamed for starting the Great Fire of Chicago when it was actually Elliot O’Leary having a tryst with Suzanne when they knocked over a lantern.  The expression on the face of the actor on all fours dressed in a cow suit was priceless and the only thing missing was the cow breaking out into song. The cleverest and most effective staging was used for a skit involving two students who tricked their hated teacher into going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. This feat was illustrated using a long blue sheet representing the Falls over which a tiny figure in a barrel was lowered by a string.

The stories that worked less well included Steven who caused the stock market crash of 1929 leading to the Great Depression, Guy whose “Guy-otine” which he invented to chop watermelons was seized by the leaders of the French Revolution, and Josie, who was not given credit for being part of the moon landing and gets revenge by spreading conspiracy rumours that it was faked. If you are in the mood for silliness, this show was for you.

All in all, we enjoyed our all of our Fringe shows to some degree and did not encounter more sound issues after the first two performances. In fact, in this last show, there was actually a “loud noises” warning and offer of earplugs which we found perplexing. Other than one skit where one of the actors yelled very loudly (for no particular reason that we could discern??), the show was quite audible.

Theatre 2026: The Outsiders @ Princess of Wales Theatre

The Outsiders is a powerful coming-of-age novel written by Susan Hinton in 1967 when she was just sixteen. Set in her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the story is inspired by her personal observations of close friends who were in a gang and specifically by an incident where a friend was beat up just for being from the wrong side of the tracks.

The novel details the conflicts of two rival gangs, divided by their socioeconomic statuses as working-class, low-income “Greasers” versus upper-middle class “Socs” (short for Socialites). It is told as a first-person narrative from the main protagonist, a sensitive, intelligent, and bookish 14-year-old boy named Ponyboy (Michael) Curtis who finds beauty in sunsets and escapism in books and movies. Recently orphaned when their parents were killed in a car accident, Ponyboy and his 16-year-old brother Sodapop (Patrick) are being raised by their oldest brother Darryl who had to quit school to support the family. They are members of the Greasers, which include Ponyboy’s best friend Johnny Cade, a shy boy who comes from an abusive home, and Dallas (Dally) Winston, the oldest, toughest and most disillusioned member of the gang who has a criminal background but is fiercely loyal to those that he is closest to.

At the movies one night, Ponyboy establishes an unexpected connection with Sherrie (Cherry) Valance, the girlfriend of Bob, leader of the Socs. This eventually leads to a violent confrontation that results in tragedy and drives the rest of the plot. To save Ponyboy from being drowned by the Socs, Johnny stabs and kills Bob in self-defence. Dallas gives the frightened kids money and helps them escape to an abandoned church in the countryside. While in hiding, the boys discuss the meaning of a Robert Frost poem titled “Nothing Gold Can Stay” that describes the innocence of youth that is transient. After a few days, Dallas comes to them with a plan to drive them to the next state but they decide instead to return home and turn themselves in. As they leave the church, it catches on fire, possibly from a lit cigarette that Ponyboy tossed away. Children on a field trip are caught in the fire and Ponyboy rushes back in to save them with Johnny hot on his heels. While they are able to rescue the kids and are hailed as heroes, Johnny Cade is seriously injured when a burning beam falls on him. To settle their differences over Bob’s death and Johnny’s condition as well as establish the dominant gang, the Greasers and Socs hold a “winner-takes-all” rumble which the Greasers win. When Johnny succumbs to his injuries, Dallas is overwrought with grief and commits “suicide by cop”. From his deathbed, Johnny encourages Ponyboy to “stay gold”.

The book explores class wars, identity and belonging, family and friendship, loyalty, and not becoming jaded (i.e. “staying gold”) despite life’s inequities and unfairness. This modern-day classic has sold over 15-million copies and has been translated into 30 languages, emphasizing the universality of the theme of feeling like an “outsider”.

A 1983 film adaptation of The Outsiders directed by Francis Ford Coppola included a stellar cast of young actors, many of whom went on to become big stars. This included Patrick Swazye as Darryl, Rob Lowe as Sodapop, Ralph Macchio (pre–Karate Kid) as Johnny Cade, Emilio Estevez and Tom Cruise as other Greasers, and Diane Lane as Cherry Valance. Matt Dillon and Leif Garrett, who were already famous, played Dallas and Bob respectively. Ironically, the lead role of Ponyboy was played by C.Thomas Howell who, despite a healthy film and TV career, is arguably the least known of the cast today. The gritty movie follows the main plot points of the book quite faithfully while cutting out details on the Curtis family’s backstory and dynamics. The film also plays up the fight and death scenes for dramatic effect, especially the big rumble and Dally’s death.

Coppola agreed to direct the movie after receiving an impassioned letter in 1980 from a librarian in Fresno, California, and her seventh and eighth-grade students, pleading with him to adapt the novel into a film. The book had greatly connected with the students, especially boys who did not typically read much. Hinton had also received letters from fans including ones who told her “how much the book influenced their life choices”.

A musical adaptation of The Outsiders opened on Broadway in 2023 and won Tony awards in 2024 for best new musical, as well as best direction, lighting design and sound design in a musical. We just watched a touring production of this show and can attest that these awards were well-deserved, especially the technical ones. The show starts with Ponyboy sitting alone on the edge of the stage writing into his notebook. He quotes the opening lines of the novel, which also happens to be the closing lines of the novel: “When I stepped into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home”.

This leads to the opening number,” Tulsa 67”, with lyrics that introduce the characters and describe the backstories of the Curtis family, the Greasers, the Socs, and life in Tulsa in 1967 for the haves and the have-nots. A reprise of this song at the end of the show acts as a bookend for the musical. It recaps Ponyboy’s character growth through his traumatic experiences as he finally understands how much his brothers love and need him. Darryl has a couple of emotional songs (“Runs in the Family” with reprise, “Throwing in the Towel”) that highlight his frustrations with trying to keep his brothers in line and his regrets for the life he gave up in order to keep the family together after his parents died. Sodapop gets his moment in the song “Soda’s Letter” where he pleads for Ponyboy to come home.

I thought the songs do well to service the story, although there is not much nuance or sophistication to either the lyrics or the melodies. But what makes the show special is its stagecraft and the innovative use of lighting and sound effects. As Dallas helps Ponyboy and Johnny escape on a train while singing the jazzy song “Run, Run Brother”, that train is simulated through the use of some planks and rolling car tires with lighting and sound effects bringing the train to life. Unlike the source material, a train is also the vehicle by which Dallas commits suicide while singing “Little Brother” to convey his angst and despair about Johnny’s death. The best use of lighting and sound effects is in the choreography and staging of the climatic final fight between the two gangs. The rumble scene happens in darkness and pouring rain (requiring 180 gallons of recycled water per performance) with a pulsating soundtrack that includes sounds of thunder and the rumbling and horns of passing trains. The fight scene comes across as a violent and visceral dance. The simulated punches and kicks are accentuated with loud, gut-wrenching smacking sounds and flashes of light, as the heads of the actors jolt back and their bodies flail outwards in reaction to each attack. We first experienced this during the 2024 Tony Awards where the cast performed the scene and have been excited to watch this show ever since.

There is also effective use of video throughout the musical, such as the screenings of movies in the background as Ponyboy is speaking about or actually watching a movie, including clips of films featuring his idol, Paul Newman. Video backgrounds are also used effectively to reflect the glow of the sunsets that Ponyboy and Cherry bond over, and the glowing fire raging through the church.  At the end of the show during the bows, the orchestra appears as videos above the actors and then remained in view after they left.

Whether intentionally or not, The Outsiders seems be influenced by, or at least reminds me of, iconic musicals of the past. When Ponyboy survives an initial beating by the Socs and is initiated into the Greasers in the song “Grease got a Hold”, the setting and choreography around an old car in a garage brings to mind “Grease is the Word” from the musical Grease. Dally’s defiant final moments before being struck by a train reminded me of Javert’s suicide in Les Miserables.

The most obvious comparisons must be with West Side Story since they both deal with rival gangs, although the reasons for the rivalries differ. Deviating from the novel or the movie, the Outsiders musical introduced a female Greaser named Ace, reminiscent of the character of Anybodys in West Side Story. Ace does not have much of a speaking role and seems to be there just to fill out the dance numbers. The location and dance sequence of the Friday night drive-in scene in the Outsiders, where the two gangs congregate, seems like a callback to the “Dance at the Gym” in West Side Story. Cherry’s song “Hopeless War” pleading with Ponyboy not to fight in the rumble parallels with Maria asking Tony to stop the fight in West Side Story.

I thought the Outsiders musical did an admirable job of reflecting the novel, including allocating songs that allow characters like Darryl, Sodapop, Johnny, Dallas and Cherry to express their inner thoughts and emotions. I did think that in following the narrative of the novel, everything that followed the pivotal rumble felt a bit anticlimactic. I also felt that the orchestration was a bit too loud for some of the songs, drowning out the lyrics a bit. But overall, I enjoyed this musical very much and thought that it deserved its Best Musical Tony Award.

Theatre 2026: Shaw Festival - One for the Pot, Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, Sleuth

This year at the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake, we watched three thoroughly enjoyable British plays in two days—a farce, a screwball comedy of manners and a psychological thriller.

Our first show was a matinee performance of the British farce “One for the Pot” written in 1959 by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton and first performed in West-End London in 1961. The setting is the country manor of wealthy mill owner Jonathan Hardcastle, who wishes to bestow a gift of £10,000 to the son of his deceased partner, but only if that son is the sole living heir.  Hardcastle advertises in the paper in search of the heir and Billy Hickory-Wood, a simple-minded, lower-classed house painter, arrives to claim the inheritance, accompanied by his scheming companion Charlie. Troubles arise when more Hickory-Wood identical brothers (previously unknown to one another) also arrive in answer to the advertisement. Rupert Hickory-Wood is a posh upper-class gentleman while Michael Hickory-Wood is an Irish con-man and pickpocket. Hilarity ensues as Charlie and Hardcastle’s greedy butler Jugg desperately try to conceal the fact that there are multiple Hickory-Woods. This leads to mistaken identities and many rapid entrances and exits through various doors and egresses leading to the study, a hidden walk-in liquor cabinet, the garden, the ballroom, the upstairs bedrooms, and even a large chest with a fold-down lid. While all the Hickory-Wood brothers are played by the same actor, body doubles and sleight-of-hand staging make it appear as if several of them are on stage at the same time.

We were especially excited to watch this play since we greatly admired the director Chris Abraham and lead actor Peter Fernandes (playing all the Hickory-Woods) from their work at Crow’s Theatre. Unfortunately, because we attended the afternoon matinee, Hickory-Wood was played by understudy Sepehr Reybod instead of Fernandes. Despite our initial disappointment, this romp was still so much fun to watch. The timing and physicality of the entries and exits were impeccable as one Hickory-Wood left (or was shoved) through one doorway and another one appeared within seconds through another. After a while, you forget that the brothers are all played by the same actor although their characters are always easily distinguishable through their accents, vocabulary, demeanor and to a lessor extent, wardrobe.

We watched our next show that same evening. This time, it was the 2013 play “Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense” by playwrights Robert and David Goodale. The brothers took elements of the plot from the beloved 1938 P.G. Wodehouse novel “Code of the Woosters” and turned it into a play within a play. Bertie Wooster had a madcap weekend as described in that book and was convinced by his friends to reenact the events as a one-man stage play.  He explains this to the audience while breaking the proverbial fourth wall. After a few humorous minutes of trying to play the roles of both himself and his butler Jeeves (“then he said., and then I said..”), Bertie enlists Jeeves as well as his Aunt Dahlia’s butler Seppings to portray the other roles in the story.

Jeeves helpfully pushes out moveable sets and props to create the proper setting for each scene. With this background established, the three are now ready to enact the convoluted tale which involves a silver cow creamer, a lost notebook, a stolen policeman’s helmet, and the romantic relationships of Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett, as well as Stephanie (Stiffy) Bing and Harold Pinker. Bertie gets entangled in trying to resolve multiple conflicting pressures while fending off the aggressions from his nemesis, the retired magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett (Madeline’s father) and Basett’s henchman Rodney Spode. In the end, as always, it is Jeeves to the rescue, coming up with the solution to all of Bertie’s problems.

What makes “J&W in Perfect Nonsense” unique from a typical Jeeves & Wooster production is the gimmick of Jeeves and Seppings playing multiple roles and the amazingly quick costume changes that they make when alternating between characters. In addition to himself, Jeeves portrays Sir Watkyn Bassett, his daughter Madeline, Gussie Fink-Nottle and Stiffy Bing while Seppings takes on the roles of Aunt Dahlia, the antique shop keeper, Sir Watkyn’s butler Butterfield, police officer Constable Oates, and the malvolent Roderick Spode. In a talkback, the actors talk about having up to 5 dressers backstage ready to help them switch costumes, with some changes taking mere seconds. One particularly impressive and recurring costume change involves the Spode character leaping into a contraption that elevates him by several feet to create an imposing figure in a trenchcoat. Actor Travis Seetoo, who plays Seppings playing Spode, spoke of how dangerous that device was and how he had injured himself multiple times. At one point in the second act, Jeeves comes on stage with the right side of his body dressed as Sir Watkyn and the left side as Madelaine as “they” carry on a conversation with each other. This is the second show that we have watched where this technique was used.

The next day, we watched our final show, the mystery-thriller Sleuth, written by Anthony Shaffer in 1970. While the play had been a great success in both London’s West End and on Broadway, wining the Tony award for Best Play, it is perhaps even more widely known for the 1972 film adaptation starring Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine. Sleuth involves a psychological battle of wits and clash of class between the older, wealthy, upper-class mystery writer Andrew Wyle and Milo Tindle, the younger, less privileged immigrant that Andrew’s wife has taken as her lover. What starts out as a seemingly cordial meeting turns into a cat and mouse game with multiple twists and turns, and potentially dire consequences. In addition to being a fascinating play with excellent performances by the two leads, this particular production coincidentally was the directorial debut for Peter Fernandes who we missed seeing in One for the Pot, and the actor playing Milo was once again Sepehr Reybod, showing his range in an entirely different role in a totally different genre of play compared to the farce that we watched him in the day before.

Both Jeeves & Wooster and Sleuth were mounted at the Court House Theatre, a retired space forced back into use by the renovation (a.k.a. demolition and rebuilding) of the Royal George Theatre. While the set for Jeeves was relatively simple, as a reflection of the play within a play, the set for Sleuth was more elaborate. This made it all the more impressive to know that the two shows run back-to-back on consecutive days meaning the sets switch daily and sometimes even within hours between the afternoon and evening shows.

Despite the varying genres of each of the plays that we watched, from fast-paced farce to comedy of manners to tense psychological drama, they all had something in common. The theme of class distinction acts as an underlying thread that runs through all three shows. In One for the Pot, the contrast between dull-witted lower-class Billy vs. refined upper-class Rupert is apparent, as is Charlie’s fear that Billy will be looked down upon or even rejected because of his lowly status and menial job. In Jeeves & Wooster, although Jeeves is clearly the brains of the pair, Wooster still makes a point of reminding Jeeves who is the boss (or at least who he thinks is the boss). Typical of comedies of manners, the Jeeves & Wooster stories satirize and make fun of social behaviours and hypocrisies of the upper classes while providing the servants like Jeeves the gift of wit and verbal irony.  The dialogue and action within Perfect Nonsense’s outer play accentuates these concepts. Even Sleuth highlights the class differences between Andrew and Milo, causing Andrew to look down upon and underestimate Milo for being poor and an immigrant.

All three of these plays were a blast to watch and made for a great mini 3-day road trip to Niagara on the Lake.

Theatre 2026: Punch - A New Musical @ Factory Theatre

We have been following musical composer and performer Andrew Seok on Instagram since we watched and thoroughly enjoyed his show “Almost Ever After” at last year’s Toronto Fringe Festival. That show was presented “in concert” with performers singing in front of microphones and featured five interconnecting love stories inspired by movies such as Love Actually.  His latest endeavour, titled “Punch: A New Musical”, is presented in the same way but differs wildly in theme and tone.

The plot is plucked from a heartwarming real-life situation where a baby macaque monkey in a Japanese zoo was abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth in July 2025.  Given the name “Punch” by a pair of zookeepers who raised and bottle-fed him for six months, the baby macaque struggled when he was finally returned to Monkey Mountain to reintegrate with the other macaque monkeys. The other monkeys bullied and ostracized Punch, leaving him feeling alone and isolated. To provide him with some comfort and companionship, zoo officials gave Punch an orange orangutan plushie from IKEA, which he immediately took to and considered his surrogate mother. The story went viral with videos of Punch dragging around and cuddling this stuffed animal, which the public soon dubbed “Oran-Mama”. Eventually, Punch learned to socialize and was accepted by the other monkeys. Today he is thriving and relies on the stuffed animal much less than before.

Andrew Seok learned of this story through his girlfriend and was inspired to write a musical about this tale. At the start of the show, baby Punch is represented by a tiny plush monkey so that it could be cradled by its mother as she sings about not knowing how to care for her child, asking why others make it seem so easy, and then by the zookeepers as they debate what to name and how to help Punch. By the time Punch is ready to be integrated with the other monkeys, he is now portrayed by actress Lara Angela Roda, whose big, expressive eyes convey Punch’s confusion over the absence of his mother, and fear when attacked by the other monkeys. They also beam with joy and spunk, especially when interacting with the zookeeper that he thinks of as “Dad”, and once he meets a new friend in the monkey Momo, played by Belinda Corpuz who we previously saw at Soulpepper in “Narnia”. Momo befriends Punch and teaches him the ways of the macaque in terms of showing deference to the elders, grooming, and other appropriate behaviours. Akira, the leader of the monkeys and main aggressor against Punch is played by Seok himself. In the talkback, he indicated that he casts himself in his own musicals when he relates to a role and can’t find another actor who will portray it in the way that he imagines. Renowned Canadian actress and Broadway star Chilina Kennedy plays the narrator who fills in the backstory of Punch and sets up the scenes.

Particularly fitting for a concert-style musical but probably even for a fully produced show, the “costumes” of the actors playing the monkeys merely hint at their animalistic nature through the use of muted brown, beige and grey tones and the textures of the tops or sweaters being worn. Punch is dressed in an oversized grey hoodie to accentuate his relative petiteness while Akira wears a brown jacket with a fur-lined hood which makes him stand out and clearly marks him as the alpha monkey. Seok’s height which towers over the other actors helps as well. This worked out well because dressing in actual monkey suits would have changed the tone of this touching tale. This was the same sartorial choice used in the play Fifteen Dogs when depicting the various breeds of dog. By contrast, the human zookeepers are dressed in matching blue, short-sleeved, collared shirts while the narrator wears a red skirt.  These choices clearly delineate them from the monkeys.

The only other prop on stage is of course the Ikea Monkey that Punch calls “Orange Mama”. The choreography is limited but quite effective. In combat scenes where Punch is attacked, the other monkeys stand in formation and each raises an arm and forms a menacing claw with his hand. When they swipe downwards at Punch and later Momo, all synchronized by sound effects from the orchestra, the victims jerk and wince as if struck although no contact is actually made.

Once again, we were impressed by a work produced by Andrew Seok, especially when we heard during the talkback that he wrote all the songs in less than a month. Even more impressive was how short the rehearsal time was for the actors to learn their parts.  Seok is a very talented composer/lyricist and hopefully one day, he can stage a full production of his works including sets, costumes and choreography. I also wish that his shows could be held in a theatre with better sound system. Inside Factory Theatre’s Main Stage, the voices of the performers and the lyrics they were singing were often muddy and difficult to discern.

I had read in the advertisements for Punch: A New Musical that there was an “opening act” before each performance.  Arriving early to watch this, we were treated to a mini-concert by actor-musician James Daly, apparently a regular in Andrew Seok’s shows. We first encountered Daly as one of the pairs of lovers in Almost Ever After where he also played the trombone when his storyline was not being featured. In this musical, he is part of the small orchestra positioned at the back of the stage, as opposed to being in the cast. For the pre-show concert, he sang a series of torch songs that he wrote, and through banter with the audience, we learned that they were all about ex-girlfriends who broke his heart. Daly was charming and witty and his songs were both funny and touching.  This was a lovely way to settle in before the main attraction.

Theatre 2026: Primary Trust @ Crow's Theatre

Primary Trust, the last show of Crow’s Theatre’s 2025/26 season, is a touching tale of a lonely, socially awkward 38-year-old man named Kenneth, who deals with the childhood trauma of being orphaned at a young age after the death of his mother by forming a consistent routine which he has stuck to for over two decades. This involves working at an old bookstore, followed by Happy Hour Mai Tai cocktails and snacks at his favourite joint “Wally’s”, which is the last tiki bar in a fictional small-town just outside of Rochester, New York. We watch him follow his regime, signaled by a loud “ding” (like the sound made by a call bell) to mark the repetition of each day. He has a second coping method that takes a few scenes to become apparent, although the clues are there from the start.

Kenneth’s structured life is turned upside down when the owner of the bookstore decides to sell and move to Arizona for health reasons. Suddenly unemployed and cast adrift, Kenneth’s turmoil is punctuated by more frequent dings. Forced out of his comfort zone, he slowly learns to reintegrate with the real world, landing a job as a teller in the bank “Primary Trust”, the competitor to the bank that his mother used to work at, and even more slowly learning how to form friendships. It makes me wonder if “Primary Trust” has additional meaning than just the name of the bank but rather reflects Kenneth’s journey to learn to trust new people outside of his limited world.

The play is powered by the star performance by actor Durae McFarlane, who we first encountered in Crow Theatre’s 2019 production of Annie Baker’s play “The Flick”.  As Kenneth, McFarlane’s smile lights up the entire stage when he is happy and contorts in agony when he is distressed.  What makes this play special is the way that it eschews typical tropes including the stereotypical jock-bully or a forced romance. Instead, we get a quiet, heartfelt depiction of one man’s introspection as he searches for connection and belonging.

This has been the first show that we watched in a while at one of Crow’s Theatre’s flexibly configurable spaces where the stage was set up with stadium seating. While this is typical for most other theatres, it felt almost jarring at Crow’s where a thrust (3-sided) or in-the-round seating has become more of the norm.  The main set pieces include the run-down looking building representing the old bookstore, the structure with a lit-up neon sign and fringe curtain in the entrance that becomes Wally’s Tiki Bar, and a third building tucked behind that only revealed the letters “UST” from our seats which turned out to be the Primary Trust bank. Seating for the tiki bar and a teller’s counter were also pushed onto and off the stage as the scenes changed. But what caught my eye was a stoplight mounted high up on the right side of the stage. The light went from green to yellow to red as the show was about to start, possibly acting as a visual cue to the audience to take their seats.  Then throughout the show, the lights rotated between green, red and off.  It is possible that this was just used as lighting for the stage, but I became fixated on wondering if there was more meaning to the colours being used.  I was probably just overthinking things and after a while, I became so engrossed in the story that I stopped noticing.

I am finding that so many of the plays being mounted these days are emotionally taxing dramas dealing with trauma, grief, mental illness, and bleak or even horrific existences. This is reflected in the audience advisory section in the programme for each play that we watch.  The list seems to get longer and longer.  While by no means a comedy, the advisory for this play is relatively mild (mature language and themes, descriptions of childhood trauma, simulated smoking and heavy alcohol consumption). You find yourself rooting for this character, empathizing in his despair and cheering for his successes. From that respect, I thoroughly enjoyed this play but I still long for a straight-out comedy to help transport me from the depressing global state of our world today.

For each play, the lobby bar at Crow’s Theatre comes up with one or more “signature drinks” that reflect on the theme or content of show.  For Primary Trust, that drink was integral to the plot, and so, the Mai Thai was on sale. Rich ordered one and said it was a good one!

Theatre 2026: The Division @ Crow's Theatre

I went to watch the play The Division at Crow’s Theatre with no prior knowledge of what the play was about, other than making assumptions based on its title. I thought it might be related to a situation similar to the Partition of India in 1947, or perhaps a more personal melodrama based the breakup of a family unit. It did not occur to me that the “Division” in question would refer to a military unit.

Written by second generation Canadian-Ukrainian playwright Andrew Kushnir, the development of the play stems from the fallout of an article that he had published in the “Lives Lived” column of the Globe and Mail newspaper.  The long-standing obituary-like column accepts short, intimate personal essays that celebrate the “unheralded lives” of recently deceased Canadians. In 2019, Kushnir submitted a piece in honour of his grandfather Peter Kushnir, who passed away in Montreal at age 91 in late 2018. Within his tribute, Andrew described his grandfather or “dyido” as “Ukrainian patriot, Watchmaker, CPR clock man”. Andrew went on to detail his grandfather’s time spent in World War II as part of the “1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army”, fighting on behalf of the Germans against Ukraine’s sworn enemy, the Russians. Peter was captured during the war and spent time in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp until he and two others escaped. He immigrated to Ontario in 1947 and became a skilled watchmaker, leaving his grandson Andrew a pocket watch upon his death.

I found this 2019 article behind the Globe and Mail paywall and read it along with the comments posted by other readers. The well-written article led to several comments praising Andrew’s writing style. But then came a shocking comment from a reader who made note that the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army was better known as the “German 14 Waffen Division SS Galizen” with members of this unit being responsible for one of the “worst atrocities committed against Jews and Poles during WWII”. The commenter went on to reference the book “Hitler’s Foreign Executioners: Europe’s Dirty Secret” by Christopher Hale. 

Andrew Kushnir knew his grandfather as a contradictory man who was both strict and foreboding as well as gregarious and full of stories. But being a part of the “Waffen-SS” was not a story that Peter Kushnir ever told. Learning of this led Andrew on a mission to find out more about his grandfather’s past. He traveled to Peter’s hometown in Ukraine to retrace his grandfather’s steps from his youth, through the war, until his migration to Canada. Andrew traveled from town to town, interviewing anyone who might have known his dyido or was around during the same time periods.

The play The Division reenacts Andrew’s quest with actor Daniel Maslany (younger brother of Tatiana Maslany from Orphan Black fame) playing the role of the playwright. Four other actors (two male, two female) literally act as the Greek Chorus at the start of the play, echoing his words, before transforming into the myriads of people that Andew met during his investigations.  To illustrate what a personal tale this will be, the play begins with Daniel playing a tape recording of what presumably is Andrew Kushnir’s voice informing the audience that the actor holding the tape recorder will be a stand-in for him. As a framing device for conveying the tale, Andrew is documenting his odyssey by writing letters to be read in the future by his young nephew Lev, once Lev reaches adulthood and is old enough to understand. The goal seems to be to end the cycle of silence and secrecy by passing on his grandfather’s past and legacy to the next generation.

At the centre of the thrust stage is a table full of clocks and clockmaking tools to highlight Peter’s profession as a watchmaker. Throughout his journey, Andrew carries a vintage, exquisitely crafted pocket-watch that his grandfather made, encouraging people he meets to hold and examine the timepiece. It feels like Andrew wants people to see the part of the grandfather that he knew, as a buffer against new details that he might be about to learn. The watch feels like a metaphor for the grandfather, as they are both complex with many intricate parts. A gap in the front row of the audience (coincidentally right in front of my seat) was left for a folding chair that allowed Andrew to occasionally sit in, as if joining the audience in watching the scene unfolding in front of him.

The conceit and backstory of this autobiographic tale is fascinating but somehow the play didn’t work for me.  There were so many disparate characters with thick accents that were difficult to understand and so many jumps in locations and dates that it made it hard to follow where Andrew was, who he was talking to, and in some cases, why he was talking to them and how those conversations added any useful context to the story. It felt more like a brain dump of his travels rather than a cohesive tale. A screen at the back of the stage with very faint letters briefly tried to highlight the date and location (e.g. 2019 Krakow) but more often than not, my view of that was obscured either by an actor or a stagehand who was setting up props for the next scene.

There were some interesting discussions about whether the young men from conquered foreign countries were forced into the German army, or in Ukraine’s case, did they go willingly in order to gain access to arms for fighting the Russians? There was some debate about whether it is an appropriate time to put on a play like “The Division”, when Ukraine is desperately battling for its sovereignty and does not need to be painted in a bad light. There was also a scene depicting the political debacle in Canada during the Trudeau administration when a Canadian-Ukrainian “war hero” was given a standing ovation in parliament before it was revealed that he fought for the Nazi Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, providing parallels to Peter Kushnir’s role in the war. What was unequivocal was the playwright’s stance on the Russian-Ukrainaian war.  Graphic denouncements of the unjust and cruel Russian aggression and the atrocities committed included the actors literally spitting onto the stage in disgust.

Although it was only 95 minutes long, the show seemed to drag for me. It was ironic that in a play that so prominently featured watches, I ended up looking at my watch multiple times to see how much longer it would be before the end. The basis for a good story was there but perhaps it needed to be presented in a different way. I was surprised to learn that my husband felt the same way. As a history major and lover/collector of watches, if anyone was going to appreciate this play, it was him.

Theatre 2026: A Beautiful Noise - Neil Diamond Musical @ Princes of Wales Theatre

Neil Diamond is an accomplished American singer/songwriter who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1984) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2011), as well as receiving many other honours. He had ten singles reach #1 on the U.S. Billboard charts, is credited with thirty-eight Top 40 singles and sixteen Top 10 albums and has sold over 130 million records worldwide.  He toured around the world non-stop starting from the 1960s until a Parkinson’s diagnosis in early 2018 forced him into early retirement at the age of 77.

Finally forced to slow down, Diamond became introspective and decided that a Broadway musical reflecting upon his life and career was in order. He approached longtime friend and producer Bob Gaudio (Jersey Boys) for guidance and in 2022, a jukebox musical named after one of his hit songs opened on Broadway. Titled “The Neil Diamond Musical: A Beautiful Noise”, the “Noise” represents Neil’s internal thoughts, memories, emotions, and the mental noise triggered by his anxieties and lifelong bouts of depression.  The physical manifestation of “The Noise” comes in the form of the ensemble who act as a “Greek Chorus” who seem to appear out of nowhere to heighten and enhance his memories.

I typically don’t enjoy biographical jukebox musicals even when I know and like the songs of the artist or band. This is because this type of musical usually does not follow the rules of a book musical where the lyrics of songs move the story along. Most biographical musicals are really dramas where the songs are performed in a diegetic manner either in a rehearsal or concert/performance setting.

A Beautiful Noise uses a combination of diegetic and non-diegetic songs, then adds an interesting concept that gives it a bit more depth and context to the story. Neil Diamond spent years in psychoanalysis and therapy with his real-life long-term therapist Dr. Lu Katzman (since deceased) as he dealt with the pressures of fame as well as feelings of anxiety, loneliness and depression.

These analysis sessions were used as the framing device for the musical which starts with Neil as an old man (listed as “Neil-Now” in the programme) and his therapist (listed merely as “Doctor”) each sitting in a big armchair facing one another. Through their discussions and analysis of his songs, Doctor pries memories and interpretations out of Diamond as we are presented with flashback scenes featuring the younger version (“Neil-Then”), played by Nick Fradiani, a Neil Diamond look-alike/sound-alike actor/singer who won American Idol in 2015. 

With dialogue between “Neil-Now” and Doctor providing background and context, we follow “Neil-Then” through his rising career and multiple marriages. He gets his big break as a songwriter, providing hits for established acts including writing “I’m a Believer” for The Monkees. He starts to establish his own voice and singing career with songs like “Kentucky Woman”, “Solitary Man”, and “Cracklin’ Rosie”.  When “Neil-Then” foolishly and regretfully signs a record deal with Bang Records, which turns out to be backed by the mob, he is pressured into writing silly pop ditties like “Cherry Cherry” as opposed to the deeper, more poetic songs that he wants to release like “September Morn”.  A medley pairing of these two songs effectively highlights what the studio wanted Diamond to write versus what he craved to produce.

For most of the first act, the songs are diegetic, sung as part of recording studio sessions or live performances as Neil-Then tries to establish himself. But just as I resigned myself to sitting through yet another stereotypical biographical jukebox musical, things changed as the show delved into Diamond’s relationships and how they were affected by his need for fame and success. Some of the songs are sung by other characters and chosen so that the lyrics advance the plot.  When Diamond lands a gig at a Greenwich Village Club, he meets and falls in love with Marcia despite being married to and having two daughters with Jayne. He and Marcia bond as they discuss his constant depression (termed as “clouds”) by singing “Song Sung Blue” with the lyrics “me and you are subject to the blues now and then”. When Neil’s marriage to Jayne falls apart because of his feelings for Marcia, Jayne angrily laments with the song “Love on the Rocks”, changing the lyrics slightly to better fit the plot with the line “Just pour me a drink and tell me some lies”. 

By the second act, Neil Diamond is an international success and touring non-stop, at the expense of spending time with his second wife Marcia and their two sons. Marcia sings “Forever in Blue Jeans” to express her frustrations, declaring that she is willing to give up all the money and fame to spend more time with her husband. The lyrics “Money talks, but it don’t sing and dance and it don’t walk” perfectly alludes to this. When eventually they also break up, they sing the heart wrenching duet “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore” and these lyrics are also perfect for the plot.  Scenes like these where the lyrics of Diamond’s songs are integrated into the storyline are what elevated this jukebox musical for me, as opposed to the innumerable concert scenes, despite all the spectacular lighting effects and spot-on costumes with the frills and then the sparkles worn the Neil-Then character.  During a lengthy concert montage, we did wonder how Neil-Then changed his costume so quickly and frequently.

Through it all, we keep returning to Doctor probing at the source of Neil’s mental strife. As "Neil-Now" talks about having an childhood imaginary friend named Shilo who kept him company, one of the background performers came out and performed the song "Shilo". It was not clear but presumably he was supposed to represent that imaginary friend?  Finally Neil-Now makes a breakthrough epiphany towards the end of the show while recalling childhood traumas, he sings “I Am, I Said” with “Neil-Now” singing for the first time and eventually joined by “Neil-Then”. Diamond realizes that his insatiable need to perform, at the expense of two marriages and two families stems from his attempts to quell the noise in his head and feel like “a king,” not “a frog”, to quote a few words from that song.

Despite arriving to “A Beautiful Noise” with low expectations and prepared not to like the show, I rather enjoyed it and consider it one of the better biographical jukebox musicals.  Granted, this is a relatively low bar, as I still much prefer a “book musical”.  Recently there has a been a resurgence of interest in Neil Diamond, spurred not only by this musical but also the 2025 docudrama film Song Sung Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as a husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute act.

Theatre 2026: Inside American Pie

I initially resisted watching Inside American Pie, which was marketed as a “Docu-Concert“, since I could not wrap my head around what that would involve. It was not the traditional book musical that I love, and not quite the typical biographical jukebox musical. But given the rave reviews that it received during its first run in March 2025, my husband Rich and I decided to give the show a try when it returned for an encore run in 2026. Are we ever glad that we did!!

Inside American Pie is an in-depth and insightful dissection and analysis of Don McLean’s iconic 1971 song American Pie which runs for 8 minutes and 42 minutes, holding the record of longest pop song to reach the Billboard #1 ranking for almost 50 years before Taylor Swift’s All Too Well (10-minute version) took over the title. The five cast members all come from Prince Edward Island.  Each performer plays multiple instruments with four of them taking turns as lead vocalist. The group is led by Bob Ross, former musical director of Soulpepper Theatre, who co-created the show.  He primarily plays piano and narrates as he walks through verses and lines of the song, pointing out references and providing historical context. As he explains which singer, group, song or event that a part of the song might refer to, a different representative song is performed by a castmember, adding nuance and a frame of reference for the lyrics.

Don McLean wrote American Pie as a broad reflection to the cultural upheaval and loss of innocence of the 1960s, inspired by his recollections of the tragic 1959 plane crash that killed his idol Buddy Holly, along with rising teen star Ritchie Valens and singer J.P.Richardson, known as “The Big Bopper”.  In American Pie, McLean referred to this as “the day the music died”.

Starting at the beginning of the song, Ross talks about McLean’s recollection of being a paperboy in 1959 and opening up the paper one morning to read the headlines of the crash (“But February made me shiver, with every paper I’d deliver”). The song referenced Buddy Holly’s “widowed bride” who was pregnant and subsequently lost the baby after learning of Holly’s death.

With the first singing of the chorus, Ross provided two interesting theories about the lines “Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. And them good ol’ boys were drinkin’ whiskey and Rye”. The first theory was that the lines referred to a popular Dinah Shore commercial jingle for Chevrolet. The second and more interesting theory is that McLean was talking about a bar called The Levee in his hometown of New Rochelle, NY, and when finding the bar closed (dry), he drove to the neighbouring town of Rye. Despite most sources quoting the lyrics as “whiskey and rye”, which Ross points out doesn’t make sense since they are the same liquor, the lyrics should have been “whiskey in Rye”.  I listened to Don McLean’s rendition of American Pie on Youtube and it definitely sounds like he is singing “in” and not “and”.

Continuing with the verses, Ross points to “Miss American Pie” as Americana references of the Miss America pageant and apple pie. The musical references come fast and furious as lyrics refer to The Monotones (Book of Love), Bob Dylan (Jester), Pete Seeger and Joan Baez (King and Queen), John Lennon and the Beatles (Lenin, quartet, Helter Skelter), Rolling Stones (Jack Flash, Devil) and Janis Joplin (girl who sang the blues). Historical references were made about concerts and riots including the Rolling Stones’ concert in Altamont.

Some of the songs performed by the cast to give context to American Pie included Richie Valens’ 

“Come On, Let’s Go”, the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace”, Buddy Holly’s “Everyday”, Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changing”, John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” before finishing with the entire rendition of McLean’s song. What made the performances extra special was that the talented cast often gave their own spin to these iconic songs, changing the tempo or the key.

This show was so entertaining and enlightening that we look forward to Bob Ross’ next endeavour, which will be a deep dive into Gordon Lightfoot and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, coming to the Royal Alexandra Theatre as part of Mirvish’s 2026/2027 subscription series.  I am now a converted advocator of the “Docu-Concert”.

Theatre 2026: Drowsy Chaperone @ Theatre Passe Muraille

The Drowsy Chaperone is the first Canadian musical to have substantial success and profitability on Broadway, playing for 674 performances from May 2006 through December 2007.  It was nominated for 13 Tony Awards, winning best book, original score, scenic design, costume and featured (supporting) actress.

The show had an unusual beginning. In 1997, it was created by theatre friends as a 30+ minutes musical spoof presented as a stag/doe party gift to Canadian actor/comedian Bob Martin and his fiancée Janet Van de Graaff, a Canadian improv artist and Second City performer. Written as an homage to and in the style of 1920s-40s musicals, it featured characters named after Bob and Janet who were about to be married. Robert was an oil tycoon and Janet a Broadway starlet in the Feldzeig Follies (a play on Ziegfeld), who was about to give up fame and stardom for love and marriage. Rounding out the cast were the eponymous drowsy (as in drunk) chaperone, Latin lover Adolpho, Follies producer Feldzeig, a pair of gangsters disguised as pastry chefs, and Robert’s best man George. Held at the Rivoli Club on Queen St. West, the musical was fully staged, complete with period costumes and featured bawdy or slightly racist jokes, pastiche torch songs, comedic duets, and rousing anthems. The plot was typical of the golden age musical era including hapless gangsters, wedding sabotage, seduction attempts and mistaken identities before the prerequisite happy ending.

The party sketch was such a hit that Bob Martin, along with the original writers Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison and Don McKellar decided to expand and rework it to be shown at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 1999. They added the framing device of a narrator billed only as “Man in Chair”, a lonely, elderly musical lover who talks to the audience throughout the show. He is feeling blue and plays his double-vinyl cast album of the fictional 1928 musical (also named The Drowsy Chaperone), to cheer himself up. 

Here the show gets a bit “meta” as he describes the musical, the creators and actors playing each role in great detail, occasionally tossing in “Easter eggs” for musical theatre buffs to recognize. He tells us that The Drowsy Chaperone is written by Julie Gable and Sidney Styne, which seems like a tribute to the renowned composer Jule Styne (1905-1994) who wrote songs for many hit musicals including Gypsy and Funny Girl. More characters and plot points were added to the Fringe show including the odd duo of dotty Mrs. Tottendale and her stoic butler Underling who provide comic relief with a slapstick patter involving a traditional vaudeville-like “spit-take” gag, Kitty, the ditzy aspiring actress who wants to replace Janet as star of the Follies, and Trix the Aviatrix whose importance becomes apparent at the end of the show. Once the misunderstandings and mistaken identities are cleared up, there are four weddings to be held including Janet and Robert, Mrs.Tottendale and Underling, the Chaperone and Aldolpho, and finally, Feldzeig and Kitty, who turned out not to be as clueless as she appeared since she was able to trick the producer into marrying her.

Following a successful appearance at the Toronto Fringe Festival, David Mirvish financed a limited 3-week run at Theatre Passe Muraille, followed by a four-month run at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre in 2001 where the show was further expanded into a full-length production.  This eventually led to the move to Broadway where it played at the Marquis Theatre.

Now almost 30 years from its origin, the musical Drowsy Chaperone makes a triumphant return to its Theatre Passe Muraille roots. This is a production by the Shifting Ground Collective, a Toronto-based theatre company formed in 2022 with the goals of nurturing young Canadian performers and emerging musical theatre artists as well as developing new Canadian musicals. My husband Rich and I had not heard of this group before, but we fully support their mission.  So, we thought we would give the show a chance but had no idea what to expect.

We were blown away by the talent and professionalism of this excellent cast of triple-threat performers who were stellar actors, singers and especially dancers, all clothed in stunning period appropriate costumes. Particularly impressive were two dances —the tap dance number led by the actors playing Robert and George in the song “Cold Feet” and the ironic, semi-strip-tease performance by the actress in the role of Janet, who in the song "Show Off" proclaimed “I don’t want to show off” as she proceeded to do exactly that by strutting around and executing a cartwheel and a frontal split.

The main setting of the “outer” show is the apartment of Man in Chair which is decorated with posters of iconic musicals such as My Fair Lady, Oliver, Brigadoon, Anything Goes and A Chorus line, along with some black and white photos. One photo in particular is of actress Georgia Engel who played Mrs. Tottenham in the original Broadway cast and appears on the cast recording where her very distinctive voice harkens to her role of Georgette on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. While Man in Chair sits in his armchair with his record player on one side of the stage, the inner musical comes to life in the middle of the stage.  His couch and other furniture are moved around as the scenes dictate and the actors emerge and exit both from the back of the stage, and through the closet doors on either side.

The space at Theatre Passe Muraille felt too small for the huge cast of 16 actors from the inner show, especially when they are all on stage at once in the large group dance numbers that involve high kicks and waving arms. This might be why a few scenes wisely incorporated a catwalk balcony that overhangs the stage. This was especially effective in a closing scene from the second act when Trix the Aviatrix flew back into town and saved the day, since best man George forgot to book a minister for the wedding. Being the “captain of her plane”, which is almost like the captain of a ship who can perform weddings at sea, she is able to fly the four couples off to Rio and marry them while in the air. Having the couples gather on the balcony while the rest of the cast celebrate below provided enough separation so that the audience can see everyone.

Speaking of the “Second Act”, this was a feint since there is no second act despite references in the original cast recording song list and Man in Chair referencing it by changing to the second record of his cast recording. Instead, the lights brightened for a few seconds, then dimmed again as the show proceeded. Lighting effects were used multiple times in the musical. At the start of the show, the audience sat in the dark for several minutes as we listened to Man in Chair talk about how he hates the moments before a show starts when he prays that he didn’t waste his money and will watch a good show. Then towards the end of the show, just as the cast is about to sing their final note of a song, the power goes out and the theatre goes dark again.  There was a transformer issue in the apartment and the superintendent had been trying to phone Man in Chair throughout the day, with the constant ringing phone causing him all sorts of annoyances. When the problem is fixed and the lights come back on, the cast, who were frozen throughout this interaction come back to life and finish the final note. At other times, the record skips causing the actors to repeat a sentence again and again until Man in Chair gives the record a nudge. This is all very cleverly staged and the timing of the actors is impeccable.

Prior to the start of the show, we were given the usual pre-show preamble and then given the “content warnings” which went on for so long that we thought it was a joke.  We were advised to be prepared for sexual content, strong language, racial stereotypes, alcohol abuse, mentions of drug use and abuse, mentions of eating disorders, mentions of death, sudden loud noises, sudden bright lights possibly aimed at the audience, and haze.  It felt like we should have been handed a Bingo card to check off each occurrence.

We listened to the original Broadway soundtrack before attending this show and therefore noticed a significant change in lyrics in one of the songs. After the prerequisite “Boy loses girl” misunderstanding, Janet sings “The Bride’s Lament” as she regrets calling off the wedding.  Man in Chair warns the audience ahead of time to ignore the lyrics which “are not the best” and just listen to the beautiful tune, so we are prepared for some dumb lyrics. 

In the original lyrics, Janet sings “I put a monkey on a pedestal and trying to make it stay...monkey, monkey, monkey...” and then proceeds to wail on about her monkey.  In our version of the show, this has been changed to “bunny” along with a dance number where the chorus prances around with bunny ears.  I searched online to find out when and why this change was made. Apparently since 2020-2021, it was deemed socially unacceptable and racially derogatory to use the word monkey (a past slur against Blacks?) so future productions were changed to reference a bunny. While I understand why the lyric changes were made, I think doing so undercuts the forewarned and intended ridiculousness of the lyrics. Adding the chorus dancing with rabbit ears balances that out a bit since in the original torch song, there is no such choreography.

We really enjoyed this production of The Drowsy Chaperone and look forward to watching future shows produced by Shifting Ground Collective, especially if they end up developing original new Canadian musicals.