Introduction: The Musicals Issue

Canadian musical theatre is having a moment.

As I write these words in the spring of 2017, there is news that Come From Away has entered the "one million club" for weekly grosses on Broadway (joining the likes of The Lion King, Wicked, and Phantom of the Opera), and that it has been nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. There is also news that it has been nominated for Best New Musical by the New York Drama League alongside another recent Canadian transplant, Ride The Cyclone. North of the border, the Char-lottetown Festival has announced a new $50,000 fund for the development of Canadian musicals; Catalyst Theatre's Vigilante is closing out a successful tour with a run at the National Arts Centre; Neil Bartram and Brian Hill's Senza Luce is premiering at Sheridan College under the auspices of the Canadian Music Theatre Project; Corey Payette's Children of God is gearing up for its world premiere; and Soulpepper Theatre's Spoon River is closing an extended-run in Toronto before heading to New York as part of that company's summer season. And all that in just the last few days.

So yes, Canadian musical theatre is having a moment. Certainly, it has had its moments in the past—the Dumbells, Spring Thaw, Anne of Green Gables, Billy Bishop Goes to War, The House of Martin Guerre, The Drowsy Chaperone—however, for the most part these moments have remained just that, moments—discrete bursts of activity rather than aspects of a continuous and thriving tradition.

This might be changing. Our current moment seems different. An infrastructure to support the development of new musicals and new music theatre artists is emerging across the country. In addition to what is happening at Charlottetown, there is the remarkably successful Canadian Music Theatre Project, established in 2011 by Michael Rubinoff at Sheridan College (the birthplace of Come From Away), and the recent Toronto launch of the CMTWC Writers Workshop led by Leslie Arden, with plans for a Vancouver-based version led by Daniel Maté. There is also the growing support for new musicals by established organizations like the National Arts Centre (Children of God, Les Belles Soeurs, Vigilante) and the Segal Centre (Prom Queen, The Hockey Sweater). And there is the maturation of smaller companies dedicated to producing musicals in Canada, like Calgary's Forte Theatre, and Toronto's The Musical Stage Company, which recently announced a massive expansion, including the addition of several programs for supporting emerging writers and new projects.

But is it enough? Writing in 2006, in the wake of the success of The Drowsy Chaperone, journalist and musical theatre writer Mel Atkey remarked:

Does Canada have a strong musical theatre tradition? Not yet. Does it have a firm foundation upon which a unique tradition could be built? I believe it does. Why is it important? As the late George Ryga, author of The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, said, "As a dramatist, I wish … that some continuity might have been maintained to enrich and deepen the field in which we work."

(26)

Now, a decade later, it appears that Canadian musical theatre is finally seeing all of its discrete moments of success coalesce into a continuity of tradition. This special issue of CTR is dedicated to capturing the state of the Canadian musical at this moment, in anticipation of what could be a significant change in its evolution. The issue is structured in three parts. Part one is a series of conversations about new work development; part two is comprised of conversations about the craft of writing musicals, and part three is a series of articles focused on recent works of Canadian musical theatre. Between them are brief intermezzi in which musical theatre artists respond to the question of what even is a 'Canadian' musical.

We are calling this "The Musicals Issue"—admittedly with our tongues lodged rather firmly in our cheeks—as a nod toward such pop entertainment products as Vanity Fair's "Hollywood Issue" and Vogue's "September Issue." There is a long history in Canada of dismissing musicals as flighty entertainments or deriding them as crass...