lecture 1 – the early days page 1 of 17lecture 1 – the early days page 1 of ... and hair...

Lecture 1 – The Early Days of 17

my info: Susan Blyth-Schofield – [email protected]

class notes: https://carleton.ca/linr/fall-2017-session-ii/class-notes/

• we have all heard of Anne of Green Gables, and Hair and most of us will have heard of The Drowsy Chaperone,Billy Bishop Goes to War, and Come From Away but what about Colours in the Storm, The House of MartinGuerre, Larry’s Party, Little Women, or Toronto, Toronto

• Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Steven Sondheim, and Alan Menkin are household namesbut what about Norman Campbell, Jim Betts, Leslie Arden, Cathy Elliott, David Warrack, Marek Norman,Richard Ouzounian or Mavor Moore

• to start there two real questions to ask – neither is easy to answer

What is a musical?

• could be defined as a living, breathing, multi-faceted, multi-genre, always evolving form of lyric theatre (stageor film) that uses music and text to either tell a story (book musical) or showcase the talents of writers and/orperformers (revues) – trouble with that is that it could aslo be a definition for opera

• today – most of the time – it is clear what is opera and what is musical theatre – Sondheim blurs the barrier asdo others

• generations ago the division was not so clear – especially since the term musical theatre is a 20 century coinage th

• there is a somewhat off-beat definition that I like – if the orchestra is in black tie it is opera; if they are in blackT-shirts it is musical theatre

• also have to take the venue into consideration as it colours what the audience expects to hear – if we go to seea show at The Fours Seasons Centre in Toronto we expect opera; at the Royal Alex we expect musical theatre

What makes a musical Canadian?

• that is really at the heart of the lecture series

• written by a Canadian

• performed by Canadians

• produced by Canadians

• on a Canadian subject

• ...

• problem for Canadian musical theatre is that from the beginning it has been overshadowed by Broadway

• how could it not be? – Musical Theatre is the most successful commercial theatre form of the 20 century andth

nowhere is it done better than on Broadway – just south of the border


• masses of Canadian shows being done all the time by regional companies – they just don’t get the press

• a few examples of shows that have played recently in Ottawa –

• Children of God by Corey Payette played the NAC last June – in fact it was developed in collaboration withthe English Theatre at the National Arts Centre and had its world premiere in May 2017 in Vancouver• tells the story of an Oji-Cree family whose children were taken away to a residential school in Northern

Ontario – Payette’s heritage is Oji-Cree heritage from Northern Ontario• even in its blurb on the NAC page it references Broadway – “Inspired by First Nations music, Payette’s

profoundly moving score also includes echoes of provocative Broadway masterpieces such as Fun Homeand Next to Normal.”

• Sir John A. Macdonald The Musical by Gord Carruth (Gatineau) – currently playing at Centrepointe Theatre• previous musical – Just Watch Me – about Pierre Trudeau and Trudeaumania played Centrepointe in

October 2015• the company that is producing it – Maple Leaf Theatre Productions – specializes in Canadian shows

• The Gladstone features small Canadian shows ...

• Mothers and Daughters by S. Oscar Martin, Jeff Rogers, Rich Rankin, Eric MacIntyre, Andy Ladouceur,and Zach Martin played there in Sept/October• Ottawa-based writers• about complicated family relationships

• Phantom played here to sold-out crowds at the NAC – did the other shows do as well?

• maybe but in small houses/theatres (except Centrepointe) and while they might get good audiences they rarelyget revivals

• in his article “Why Canadians Can’t Write Musicals” Jim Betts talks about the nature of Canadian musical –more amateur or pro-am than professional

• not completely true by the way and he knows it

• http://www.jimbetts.ca/the-canadian-musical-theatre-2/why-canadians-cant-write-musicals/

• but very hard to earn a living writing musicals in Canada – even for established writes like himself, LeslieArden, Cathy Elliot etc

• audiences are also part of the problem – they/we want to see big Broadway shows, and that is usually not whata Canadian written musical is

• let’s go back to the beginning and see how musical theatre evolved in Canada

• from the earliest days of New France there was always some sort of lyric theatre – music and drama combinedgoing on – opera, operetta, music hall, etc

• immigrants to the new world brought their musical traditions with them


Théâtre de Neptune

• by Marc Lescarbot

• performed in the harbor outside the French settlement of Port Royal on 14 November 1606

• arguably the first North American musical – actually a pageant

• it began with a song in 4-part harmony – “True Neptune, grant us protection against the billows and grant thatwe may all meet again some day in France” – obviously it was in French and this is a translation

• clearly this New World thing was not for Lescarbot – he was a lawyer visiting from France – but he had somemusical training and he was also the first to transcribe the songs of the Mi’Kmaq First Nation peoples

Joseph Quesnel (1746 – 1809)

• wrote a number of early operetta / operas made up of aria and duets held together with spoken dialogue – veryFrench in style

• Lucas et Cécile, an operetta• L’Anglomanie, a comedy in verse• Républicains Français, a comedy in prose• Colas et Colinette, a vaudeville (1788)

• premiered on 14 January 1790 at the Théâtre de Société in Montreal

• popular in its day, then forgotten

• in 1963 Godfrey Ridout re-scored it – first staged in 1963 at the Ten Centuries Concerts in Toronto andbroadcast on television by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in 1968

Calixa Lavale (1842 – 1891)

• between 1865 and 1880 Calixa Lavallée wrote 3 comic operas

• long forgotten – today mostly known for composing the national anthem

• another American comparison – very Victor Herbertish is style

• in the 1880's parodies became very popular

• the same thing was happening in the US

• it is the era of Vaudeville, Farce Comedy, Burlesque Comedy, and Parody

• one such parody/comic operetta was HMS Parliament, or, The Lady Who Loved a Government Clerk

• it adapted the music of HMS. Pinafore, or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor by Arthur Sullivan and set it to a newlibretto by William H. Fuller


• not surprising that Pinafore was the parodied material

• Pinafore had taken the US by storm, and, as is sadly still true, the arts in Canada are hugely influenced – if nottaken over by – the US

• it was first seen in America (in Boston) in a pirated version six months after its premiere in November 1878 inEngland

• different sources cite different numbers but by the time Gilbert and Sullivan and their producer Richard D’OylyCarte brought their legit show to NYC’s Fifth Avenue Theatre on 1 December 1879 (just over a year after theillegal version premiered in America) there were anywhere from 90 to 150 Pinafore companies in the U.S. –all they did was Pinafore

• they took many forms – some were the show (in a pirated version) but the vast majority were some form ofparody

• included burlesques, productions with men playing women’s roles and vice versa, spoofs, Minstrel Showversions, all-black productions, productions starring casts of children and German, Yiddish and other non-English language versions

• north of the border Pinafore was seen in Montreal and then Toronto in early 1879

• that production then toured the US – as if they needed another Pinafore

• it and the rash of US Pinafores inspired HMS Parliament

• premiered at The Academy of Music in Montreal on 16 February 1880 and was well received by the audience

• unlike today – Toronto was not first city for musicals in Canada – Montreal was

• written for the Eugene McDowell Comedy Company – an American-led touring group – it satirisedcontemporary Canadian politics, especially the perceived corruption of Sir John A Macdonald and hisgovernment

• the characters parallel the characters in HMS Pinafore:

• Captain Corcoran is rewritten as Captain McA (John A. Macdonald); • Dick Deadeye becomes Alexander MacDeadeye (Alexander Mackenzie, Canada's second prime minister); • Sir Joseph Porter is renamed Sir Samuel Sillery (Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley, finance minister); • Josephine and Ralph are presented as Angelina and Sam Snifter – no real political comment except perhaps

to the consumption of alcohol

• the production moved to Toronto (opening on 11 March 1880) and then toured to some two dozen towns fromthe east coast to Winnipeg for about five months

• this touring parallelled the beginning of big US train tours of Broadway hits

• by the time the tour ended, the change in the political climate had made the piece out-of-date – always true forpolitical parody


• re-emerged when its book and lyrics were included in a volume of Canada’s Lost Plays in 1978

• it has had a few attempts at revivals – surprised that it didn’t surface again this year for the sesquicentennial

• an early example of linking musical theatre with political satire

• we will see that combination again and again in Canadian works, but satire, and especially political satire, is nota major feature of US musical theatre

• satire was huge in the 1930's not much before and not much since – although The Book of Mormon does cometo mind

• Parliament opening chorus begins like thisWe sail the ship of state, Tho’ our craft is rather leakyOur grindstone’s swift resolve, Tho’ at times they’re rather creakyWe grind away the livelong day, And talk in the house all nightBut if we’re in luck and we don’t get stuck, Our axes will soon be bright

• Gilbert’s lyrics are better – to begin with they scan properly

• the most popular early Canadian musical was Leo, the Royal Cadet

• music by German-born Oscar Telgmann, libretto by George and Charles Cameron

• more of an operetta – very G&S in sound

• had its premiere in Kingston at Martin’s Opera House on 11 July 1889 “under the Patronage of the Commandantand Staff, and Gentleman Cadets of the Royal Military College”

• Martin’s Opera House was located where The Grand Theatre is today – on Princess St.

• went on to tour in Canada and the United States

• by 1925 it had played over 1,700 performances in cities such as Kingston (where it opened), Ottawa, Guelph,Toronto, Woodstock and Utica, New York.

• Toronto Operetta Theatre revived it in 2001 and again in 2010 for TOT’s 25 anniversaryth

• revisions were made to both the music and the script – John Greer (music and orchestration) and Virginia Reh(libretto)

• the story is loosely based on actual events and real-life people• Colonel Hewett is based on Colonel Edward Osborne Hewett, C.M.G. who served as the first Commandant

of the Royal Military College of Canada 1875-86• Leo is likely based on several early cadets who were decorated for valour in the Anglo-Zulu War (1879),

including Huntley Brodie Mackay, William Henry Robinson, and Kenneth J.R. Campebell• Cetcho, a Zulu chief is based on the real-life figure Cetshwayo


• the Battalion Sergeant Major character who sings “The Royal Cadet” was based on the senior cadet at theRoyal Military College of Canada at the time

• a love story between Leo, a cadet at the Royal Military College of Canada who becomes a hero serving duringthe Anglo-Zulu War, and Nellie

• typical/stock character types, events and concerns of the time and place

• in the early years of the 20th century the typical American musical consisted of a series of songs and sketcheswoven loosely around a feeble plot – musical comedy – king of it was George M. Cohan

• Canadian musicals, on the other hand, leant more towards revues

• followed more in the musical hall / vaudeville tradition

• not so much about a plot – relied on the reappearance of performers (in a variety of different roles) for unity

• already mentioned the satirical nature of many of the works

• there were a number of successful Canadian vaudeville acts – and some of them made the big-time

• they included

The Marks Brothers

• The Canadian Kings of Repertoire

• from Christie Lake (near Perth)

• seven brothers

• vaudeville act – a mix of melodrama and comedy

• they were elegant – silk top-hats, diamond rings

• glamourous leading ladies

• Maclean’s Magazine (1958) called them “the most remarkable theatrical family in Canadian history [and] thegreatest impresario performers of our small town stage in the era before the nickelodeon.”

• they performed all over Canada and the United States for fifty years from the 1870's to the 1920's whenVaudeville went out of fashion, to an estimated eight million Canadians and uncounted but sizeable audiencesin the United States

• they were on the road for 40 weeks a year

• returned home (Christie Lake) to rehearse, relax and plan the next season’s performances


• added pizzazz to life in Perth when they came to town

• a number of their old scripts are held in the archives of the Perth Museum and over the years local theatre groupshave borrowed them and done revivals of their material

The O’Connor Sisters

• from North of Toronto

• again a family act – 6 sisters

• sang on the Vaudeville circuit from 1910 - 1937 – the big time

• in 1910, a relative arranged for the four eldest girls – Anna, Ada, Mary and Nellie – to audition in Buffalo forMichael Shea, owner of the Shea Theatre chain

• he was so impressed that he immediately booked them to perform in Buffalo

• two years later (1912) the two younger sisters joined the group

• they became the The Six Singing O’Connor Sisters – the only authentic six sister group ever in show business

• performed throughout the US including in Chicago and they were at the top of the bill in NYC (Strand Theatre)– top of the bill = featured act

• like the Marks Brothers they always returned home in the summer – in their case to help out on the farm

• played on bills with very famous stars including Jimmie Durante, Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker and Eddie Cantor

• by 1925, Ada, Annie and Nellie had married, so sister Madeleine joined the group to form a quartet

• they retired in 1937, coming full circle with a final performance at Shea’s Theatre in Buffalo

• they continued to sing for private parties and wartime benefits

• their last appearance on stage was in 1973 when they were honoured by the CBC

• very popular act – very successful

• paid tribute to in Sugar Babies (1979)

Beatrice Lillie (1894 – 1989)

• born in Toronto

• toured Ontario as a teenager with her sister Muriel and her mother as The Lillie Trio before heading to Londonand stardom


• made her West End debut in 1914

• became known for her parodies of old-fashioned, flowery performing styles and absurd songs and sketches

• debuted in New York in 1924 in André Charlot’s Revue of 1924, which starred the then young GertrudeLawrence

• returned to perform there in 1926

• in 1927 she toured on the Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit

• in 1928 she played the Palace Theatre in NYC (the zenith for a Vaudeville performer) and performed therefrequently after that

• in that same year (1928) she also played at the London Palladium (the British equivalent)

• she was associated with the works of Noël Coward – beginning with This Year of Grace (1928)

• she gave the first public performance of “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” in Coward's The Third Little Show (1931)

• Cole Porter wrote songs for her

• during World War II, Lillie was an inveterate entertainer of the troops

• she won a Tony Award in 1953 for her revue An Evening With Beatrice Lillie

• also made films – • Exit Smiling (1927), opposite fellow Canadian Jack Pickford, the younger brother of Mary Pickford• The Show of Shows (1929)• On Approval (1944) • a cameo role in Around the World in 80 Days (1956) • Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) was her last film – Mrs. Meers

• “There are Fairies at the Bottom of our Garden” was one of her famous songs

• she was nominated for another Tony in 1957 for a “golden jubilee edition” of the Ziegfeld Follies

• she starred in Auntie Mame (the play the musical isbased on) in both New York (1956–1958) and London (1958)

• she made her final stage appearance as Madame Arcati in High Spirits (1964) – the musical version of Coward'sBlithe Spirit, she received another Tony Award nomination for that work

• “Lillie's great talents were the arched eyebrow, the curled lip, the fluttering eyelid, the tilted chin, the ability tosuggest, even in apparently innocent material, the possible double entendre” – Sheridan Morley in the OxfordDictionary of National Biography

Marie Dressler (1868 – 1934)

• born in Coburg


• became a star on Broadway from 1892 – much publicity about her – good and bad

• very successful both on stage in vaudeville and comic operas, and in film

• left home at 14 to build a career on stage in travelling theatre troupes

• not conventionally beautiful – she could make people laugh – sound like someone else? Fanny Brice was heryounger contemporary

• in 1892 she started her career on Broadway – it lasted into the 1920s

• famous for performing comedic roles that allowed her to improvise to get laughs

• in 1914 she played the title role in the first full-length screen comedy – Tillie’s Punctured Romance, oppositeCharlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand

• like many she helped sell Liberty Bonds during WW I

• in 1919, she helped organize the first theatrical union – Actor’s Equity

• in the 1920's her stage career declined (a change in public taste) but she returned to making movies in 1927 andhad a string of successes

• she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930–31 for Min and Bill and was named the top film star for1932 and 1933

• all of these acts helped to put Canada and Canadian stage performers on the map – not yet the time forinternational successes of Canadian shows

• shows were being written at home (and imported from the US on tours) and Canadians wanted somewhere tosee them

• churches and town halls acted as venues in the early days – still do for amateur productions

• throughout the 19 C a number of theatres were built in Montreal and Toronto, and in other Canadian cities –th

including Ottawa

• these new theatres gave a venue for musical theatre to happen in

• already mentioned a number of theatres in Montreal (there was the Theatre District on and around St. Catherine)

• http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/little-trace-remains-of-montreals-glamorous-theatre-era

The Theatre Royal

• the first professional theatre in Montreal

• opened in 1825


• built by John Molson – also know as The Molson – we will see beer money building a theatre a century+ laterin Toronto

• cost $30,000 to build

• had 1,000 seats

Her Majesty’s Theatre • also His Majesty’s Theatre – depending who was on the throne of England

• on Guy Street

• built in 1897-1898 it was in continual operation until it was demolished in 1963

• it was the home of the Montreal Opera Company (1910-1913), the National Opera Company of Canada (1914),the Montreal Orchestra (1930-1941), and the Opera Guild of Montreal (1942-1963)

• in Ottawa the auditorium of the Victoria Memorial Museum (now the Canadian Museum of Nature) was used– still a performance space, as was the Russell Theatre

• 1913 – The Ottawa Drama League (ODL) was founded – known today as the Ottawa Little Theatre (OLT)

• they performed in various location around town until 1928 when they purchased the Eastern Methodist Churchat 400 King Edward Ave. and renovated it into the Little Theatre – same site where they have their theatre today

• in that same year the ODL, in a co-operation with the Orpheus Operatic Society presented its first musicaltheatre work – The Chocolate Soldier by Oscar Strauss

The Princess Theatre, Toronto

• opened circa 1890 on the south side of King St. – Roy Thompson Hall area

• original name was the Academy of Music – changed circa 1895

• first theatre in Toronto of any size that offered live theatre

• served as the Toronto base for touring productions operated by the powerful Klaw and Erlanger (yes, samepeople as the Broadway name) theatrical syndicate

• gutted by fire in 1915 – re-opened as The New Princess in 1917

• demolished in 1931

The Royal Alexandra Theatre

• opened in 1907 on the north side of King St. – a block or two West of the Princess– she is still going strong


• a rivalry developed between The Alex and The Princess – the Shubert Organization used The Alex as a touringhouse (again yes, same people)

• good for the Toronto theatre – and musical theatre

• still there – the grande dame of the Toronto Theatre scene – 110 year old this year

• owned by the Mirvishs – talk more about them later

• Toronto was beginning to step up to Montreal – eventually it would supercede Montreal but not yet

• at the turn of the 20 century Canadian musicals were dominated by American shows but British musicals hadth

a strong influence on home-grown material

The Dumbells – legends of Canadian show business

• the first Canadian musical-comedy act to make a serious impression was The Dumbells

• https://youtu.be/J0uzokksmjY – Simcoe County promo clip on The Dumbbells

• originally an all-male soldier revue

• put together by Captain Merton (Mert) Plunkett (a morale officer during the was)

• group of 10 comedians, singers and actors – included a pianist and a female impersonator

• played for the troops in WWI – front lines and sometimes had to double as stretcher bearers

• their act was a mix of sketches, popular songs, and original tunes

• played the Victoria Palace Theatre in London in 1918 – the big time

• huge hit

• booked by the London Coliseum for a 4-week run

• when he returned to Canada, Plunkett expanded the act and it toured the country

https://youtu.be/btvI8OMTY0g – Albert Plunkett “Too Many Girls” 1923 – younger brother of Mert Plunkett

• The Dumbells played Broadway in 1921 in a revue called Biff, Bing, Bang

• they lasted until 1932 – changing times – end of Vaudeville everywhere

• there were reunion concerts in 1939, 1955 and 1975

https://youtu.be/J0uzokksmjY

https://youtu.be/btvI8OMTY0g


• Library and Archives Canada honoured them by assisting in the production of a record album called TheOriginal Dumbells in 1977, and the stage play The Legend of the Dumbells (conceived by Alan Lund and writtenby George Salverson and premiered at The Charlottetown Festival)

• Library and Archives Canada has holding of their 78's

• the too did an adaptation of HMS Pinafore

• in the years between the wars, there was very little home-grown professional musical theatre in Canada – theshows were almost exclusively touring imports from NY or London

• what there was mostly took the form of revues

• these shows always had a political agendas: We Beg to Differ in Montreal, Beer and Skits in Winnipeg, and aseries of cabarets in Toronto

• all used original musical material to make their political points

• in Montreal Gratien Gélinas’ annual revue – Fridolinons (1938-46)

• a spirited, popular and professional mixture of musical comedy, dance, mime and song, romantic sketches,satires and scenes of contemporary mores and trends – provided social and political commentary

• while most shows in the US remained musical comedies with a few notable exceptions – Showboat and theGershwins’ shows and Porgy and Bess – the satirical type of revue that was so popular here had a parallel inthe US with Workers’ Theatre shows

• in-house shows that were originally intended for members of the unions performed by members of the unions

• but in the case of Pins and Needles – produced by The International Ladies Garment Workers Union – the showtook off

• played Broadway from 1937 to 1940 as Pins and Needles, Pins and Needles of 1938, and Pins and Needles of1939

• at the beginning of WWII The Dumbells had a bit of a revival

• served as something of an inspiration for service shows and there were morale-boosting revues from each of themain branches of the service

• Johnny Wayne, Frank Shuster, and Alan and Blanche Lund all began their careers with these shows

• the 1940's and early 1950's saw the beginning of professional and semi-professional stock companies in Canadathat staged productions of Broadway-style – read American – musicals

• two of them are still around


Vancouver’s Theatre Under the Stars (est 1940)

• produce musicals in the summer

• produced the original BC musical Timber! in the early 1950s

• 2017 – The Drowsy Chaperon (Canadian) and Mary Poppins (not Canadian)

Winnipeg’s Rainbow Stage (opened 1953)

• still produces Broadway musicals

• 2017 season – South Pacific in Concert with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Little Shop of Horrors,Mamma Mia!

• the greatest success story among early Canadian shows is the revue Spring Thaw

• The first production was devised by the New Play Society under Dora Mavor Moore and directed by her sonMavor Moore

• but before we talk more about Spring Thaw let’s look at Mavor Moore

James Mavor Moore (1919 - 2006)

• Mavor Moore is probably the father of Canadian musical theatre • born in Toronto in 1919 he was a dramatist, actor, director, composer, producer, critic, and teacher

• original director of Spring Thaw and was associated with it for decades

• he wrote more than 100 works for stage, radio and TV – his most famous and lasting is

• Sunshine Town (1954), music, lyrics and book by Moore• and a musical retelling of the Stephen Leacock biography – Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town• presented 31 Mar 1954 on CBC radio as The Hero of Mariposa and 19 Dec 1954 on CBC-TV as

Sunshine Town• probably the most ambitious Canadian musical to that time

• pioneer of Canadian TV in the 1950's – producing out of CBC Toronto – he was the creator of the CBC NationalNews, later known as The National

• from 1970 to 1984 he taught theatre history as a professor at York University, and chaired its theatre department(1975-1976)

• he was named to the Canada Council in 1974, and was the first artist to chair the council (1979-1983)

• he was the founding chair of the British Columbia Arts Council (1996-1998)


• he sat on the first Board of Governors of the Stratford Festival

• he was the founding chair of the Canadian Theatre Centre, the Guild of Canadian Playwrights

• and he was a founding director of the Charlottetown Festival – more about that next week

• the honours are extensive –

• he received three Peabody Awards for his radio documentaries produced on behalf of the United Nations

• he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (1973) and was promoted to Companion in 1988

• he was appointed to the Order of British Columbia in 1999

• also in 1999 he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Canada’s highest honour in theperforming arts

• and he was awarded 7 honorary degrees during his lifetime

Spring Thaw • in the Canadian Theatre Review, Ross Stuart wrote: after the Dumbells, Spring Thaw was the most significant

phenomenon in the development of musical theatre in Canada. Although it followed in the tradition of earlierrevues, it far excelled them all.

• a new show mounted annually in Toronto 1948 to 1971 (24 years) and revived in 1980 and 1981

• its first production opened on 1 April 1948 at the theatre in the ROM and ran for 3 nights

• staged in a succession of Toronto theatres – The Museum, The Avenue, The Radio City, The Odeon Fairlawn,The Crest, The Playhouse, The Global Village, and The Royal Alexandra

• poster from The Royal Alex – the list of names reads like a who’s who in Canadian (or at least Toronto) theatreof the day – Dinah Christie, Douglas Chamberlain Don(ald) Harron, Catherine McKinnon, Barbara Hamilton,Alan Lund directing and choreographing

• at the height of its success its spring run extended into mid-summer

• Mavor Moore bought the rights to the show in 1961 and later leased them to others

• toured Canada in 1962, 1964, and 1967

• produced until 1961 by Dora Mavor Moore

• other directors of Spring Thaw included Brian Macdonald, Leon Major, Paxton Whitehead, and Don Harron

• a combination of topical and satirical songs, dances and skits, mostly on Canadian subjects – took its lead from the Toronto Arts and Letters Club spring revues and Gélinas’s Fridolinons in Montreal


• contributors including Lucio Agostini, Pierre Berton, Morris Davis, John Fenwick, Harron, Ray Jessel andMarian Grudeff, Norman Jewison, Keith MacMillan and Ronald Bryden, Ben McPeek, Raymond Pannell, AnnaRussell, Lister Sinclair, Robert Swerdlow, Frank Tumpane and Godfrey Ridout, and Johnny Wayne and FrankShuster

• other performers included Salome Bey, Dave Broadfoot, Dinah Christie, Jack Duffy, Don Francks, RobertGoulet, Barbara Hamilton, Rich Little, Jane Mallett, and Catherine McKinnon

• never became a TV series but CBC’s The Big Revue relied heavily on material and personalities from SpringThaw• 1 ever production of CBC televisionst

• directed by Norman Jewison and written by John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt• the pilot episode first aired on 9 September 1952

• Don Harron’s character of ‘Charlie Farquarson’ debuted that year and was an enduring legacy of Spring Thaw– heard on CBC radio for years

• two of the greatest successes among Canadian-written musicals of the 1950s were the previously mentionedSunshine Town (1955), and

My Fur Lady (1957)

• a student show from McGill University that featured songs by Galt McDermot who 10 years later would writethe music for Hair

• directed by Brian Macdonald – later of Stratford fame

• premiered in Montreal on February 7, 1957

• title is a steal from the then new and very, very popular My Fair Lady but it is not a parody of that show

• a revue with a story

• about Princess Aurora Borealis of “Mukluko” (“near” Baffin Island) who is searching for a husband to helpkeep her country independent from Canada

• the music combined elements of 1940's tunes, the contemporary 1950's rock and roll era and a bit of jazz

• the lyrics reflected the political events of the times

• co-written and produced by James de Beaujeu Domville, Timothy Porteous, Donald MacSween, GaltMacDermot, Harry Garber and Roy Wolvin

• played the Stratford Festival in 1957, and toured Canada during the rest of the year and into 1958 for a total of402 performances in 82 locations – successful show

• an original cast recording was made in June 1957


• https://youtu.be/6u-jJAbJxZE – overture and opening number

• https://youtu.be/azgLAznCkN4 – full show

• already seen that most Canadian musicals up to this time were revues

• CBC radio, and later CBCTV were huge producers of Variety Shows

• what is a Variety Show but a revue – Vaudeville re-invented – in fact in the 1880's Variety Show was justanother name for Vaudeville

• in 1937 we have The Happy Gang – ran for 22 years on CBC Radio

• Bobby Gimby (Centennial Song – Ca-na-da) one of its most famous alumni

• TV Variety Shows were one of the first types of programming when CBC TV began in the early 1950's

• they produced a large number of them and because of that it can be seen as a huge promoter of early Canadianmusicals – or at least they gave work to musical performers and helped build an audience for the genre

• Holiday Ranch• aired on CBC from 1953 to 1958• initially aired on weeknights then moved to a weekly Saturday night schedule before Hockey Night in

Canada• used the best of Canadian talent – singers, comedians, actors, musicians • https://youtu.be/NxjTSNYzsQA• the clip features Marg Osborne

Don Messer’s Jubilee • a television folk musical variety show• produced at CBC Halifax and broadcast nationwide from 1957 until 1969• https://youtu.be/Ood-VjgXBXE • features Charlie Chamberlain

• the TV Variety Show inspired a musical – Don Messer’s Jubilee (1984) – with music, lyrics and book by JohnGray (Billy Bishop Goes to War)

Juliette• Canadian music variety television series which aired on CBC Television from 1956 to 1966• hosted by Juliette Cavazzi who had been featured on Holiday Ranch• she was a regular on The Billy O’Connor Show (another TV Variety Show) from 1955 and inherited that

show’s time slot in 1956• produced at CBC Toronto and was broadcast live• aired on Saturday nights after Hockey Night in Canada (remember there were only 6 teams then!)• rehearsed just prior to the airing – while Hockey Night in Canada was on the air• Bobby Gimby was a regular performer during the initial years

Slide 36 – https://youtu.be/Oo7NldI0uoM – Juliette and the Good Company (1968)

https://youtu.be/NxjTSNYzsQA

https://youtu.be/Ood-VjgXBXE

https://youtu.be/Oo7NldI0uoM


• the tradition would continue into the late 1970's/early 1980's with shows such as All Around the Circle (1964-75), The Tommy Hunter Show (1965-1992), Canadian Express (1977-80), and The John Allan Cameron Show(1979-80) – notice the runs get shorter as time goes by

• in addition to Variety Shows, CBC TV also did full Canadian musical

• mentioned earlier how Mavor Moore’s Sunshine Town had been broadcast on both CBC Radio and TV in 1954

• another TV musical of the late 1950's was Look Ma, I’m Human (1957)• a collaboration between Ray Jessel (1929-2015) and Stan Daniels (1934-2007) • caveman musical• broadcast on CBCTV on 28 November 1957 (so just about 60 years ago)• more about Jessel next week

• from the early 1950's musicals had been being broadcast on US TV as well

• except here they were big Broadway shows

• began in Oct. 1950 – Musical Comedy Time on NBC – stage shows cut to one hour in length

• 1954 Producers’ Showcase – 90-minute anthology series that aired every fourth Monday for three seasons

• in 1955 Peter Pan (with Mary Martin) was the first full-length Broadway production on colour TV (seen on 7March 1955) – estimated 65 million viewers – US population in 1955 was 165.9 million – if those numbers arecorrect well over a of the entire population of the US saw that show on one night – the recent Hairspray Live(also NBC) had significantly fewer viewers (estimated 8.9 million)

• so where was Canadian Musical Theatre at the end of the 1950's”

• Broadway had had the musical comedies of George M. Cohan, the operettas of Herbert, Friml and Romberg,and the shows of Kern, Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, The Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Rodgers andHammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Frank Loesser, Leonard Bernstein and Sondheim as a lyricist

• in his 2012 article “Why Canadian Can’t Write Musicals” Jim Betts states that we are about 50 years behind theAmericans – not sure he is right – wish it was only 50 years

• but I’m not sure we are necessarily trying to write the Broadway smash hit type of show

• in “Canadians Prefer Intimate Musicals” (an article in the Toronto Star 19 March 1994) one of their theatrecritics Robert Crew said the following - “Canadian have rarely tried the broad sweep of the traditional Broadwaystyle musical. Our style, right from the start of the century [20th] has been intimate, ironic and detached”

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