{"id":5777,"date":"2010-10-19T12:37:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-19T17:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=5777"},"modified":"2010-10-19T12:46:33","modified_gmt":"2010-10-19T17:46:33","slug":"musical-theatre-takes-centre-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2010\/10\/musical-theatre-takes-centre-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Musical theatre takes centre stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Virginia

"If we can get people fired up, it'll get bigger," says Virginia Reh, in the props and scenery room for Brock's Dramatic Arts department, of Canadian musical theatre.<\/p><\/div>\n

Canadian musical theatre is a little like Canadian film and Canadian writing. It takes place in our own backyard, but our brightest stars are often hidden from public consciousness.<\/p>\n

Virginia Reh is on a mission to change that.<\/p>\n

An assistant professor of Dramatic Arts, Reh is the driving force behind an upcoming conference called Lyric CANADA 2010<\/a> from Oct. 21 to 23. David Vivian, associate professor and director of the Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, is also an organizer.<\/p>\n

With the conference, Reh hopes to push Canadian musicals and opera into the minds of academics and the general public. That way, she said, more people will write about it. More people will study it. And most importantly, more people will know that it exists.<\/p>\n

Most people associate the term \u201cmusical theatre\u201d with the lavish, multimillion-dollar American and European productions shown in Toronto, Reh said. But Canada has a rich and varied musical theatre scene that is understudied and underappreciated. Its talents include artists such as Ted Baerg, a renowned London, Ont.-based opera singer who will present a paper at the conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are hundreds of musicals in Canada, and there are two books written about Canadian musical theatre,\u201d Reh said. \u201cI\u2019m hoping this is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue. I\u2019m a woman on a musical crusade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyric CANADA is held in conjunction with the Shaw Festival. Its daytime program will be at Brock. Its evening showcases will be held in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The conference\u2019s 30 paper presentations and 10 showcases are open to the public.<\/p>\n

The keynote speaker will be Stewart Wallace, a New York-based composer of operas such as Harvey Milk<\/em> and The Bonesetter\u2019s Daughter<\/em>. Jim Betts, composer, lyricist and librettist from projects such as Colours in the Storm<\/em> and Thin Ice<\/em>, will give the plenary speech \u201cWhy Canadians Can\u2019t Write musicals (And Why Almost No One Else Can, Either).\u201d Sarah Schlesinger, a lyricist and librettist who chairs the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program at New York\u2019s Tisch School of Arts, is also a plenary speaker. She\u2019ll speak about nurturing the development of future writers of musical theatre.<\/p>\n

The presentations will not look like typical academic fare, Reh said. Many will use performance and audio-visual materials. She encourages the public to come out and learn about a little-known art form \u2014 the Canadian musical.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid of it,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of interesting stuff happening, and you may learn something you didn\u2019t know about musicals and opera.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reh grew up in New York City and recalls being enthralled by her first trip to a musical. She saw Mary Martin as Peter Pan, and when she went home, she pretended to be Peter Pan flying around her room. She\u2019d like Canadian kids to have the same experience with homegrown culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my passion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tickets to the presentations and showcases are available through the Centre for the Arts box office at 905-688-5550 x3257 or 1-866-617-3257.<\/p>\n

Related links:<\/strong>
\n\u2022 Lyric CANADA 2010<\/a>
\n\u2022 Virginia Reh bio<\/a>
\n\u2022 David Vivian bio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Brock conference strives to push Canada’s long-ignored musical theatre to the forefront.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[187,109,46,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5777"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5780,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions\/5780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}