NAC musical theatre 2018 Archives - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

“Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of…”: Docudrama Musical for Black Lives Matter

By Alvina Ruprecht | September 7, 2020

Written by Alvina Ruprecht | 24th Apr 2018 | Canada, Musical Theatre, Review, Theatre and Politics

“Sal Capone The Lamentable Tragedy Of…” Letitia Brookes, Tristan D, Lalla Kim Villagante. Photo-thanks to Urban Ink and the NAC.

The Beginning Of A Most Important Dialogue Initiated By This striking and moving staging of rage!

This docu-drama or docu-fiction, a form of musical theatre that ties together reality and fiction inspired by real-life tragedies, concerns events that took place in Montreal (the death of an unarmed Freddy Villanueva in 2008) and the shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin in Florida (2013) which set off the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the US. We are immediately drawn back to Shakespeare’s work The Lamentable Tragedy Of Titus Andronicus (1623) whose ending is inspired by Seneca’s Thyestes. The Roman play concerns the horrific torture and death of children due to the rivalry between the twin brothers, Atreus and Thyestes. Atreus, takes vengeance on his brother Thyestes by tricking him into eating his own sons who have been slaughtered and served up on a plate. The unimaginable horror of cannibalism in this situation obviously intrigued Shakespeare who ends his version of Titus Andronicus in a similar way. …

The Hockey Sweater: Building a better musical with a little help from the Creation Fund

By Patrick Langston | December 5, 2018

Patrick Langston on artsfile.com

Photo Leslie Schechter

What happens when an existing show suddenly gets $200,000 in funding for expansion and fine-tuning? If it’s The Hockey Sweater: A Musical, very good things occur, according to the show’s co-writers Emil Sher and Jonathan Munro. The musical is an adaptation of Roch Carrier’s beloved short story about young Roch, whose universe is knocked sideways when he mistakenly receives a Maple Leafs sweater from Eaton’s instead of a Habs No. 9 jersey, like Maurice Richard’s.

The show is a Segal Centre production. It premiered in Montreal last year and plays the National Arts Centre starting Dec. 5. Between the two runs, it got $200,000 from the NAC’s National Creation Fund, which was launched in 2017 to help develop ambitious new Canadian works. Over the next several years, the fund will invest up to $3 million annually in theatre, dance, music and other productions. …

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of… the beginning of a most important dialogue initiated by this striking and moving staging of rage!

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 14, 2018

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of ….Letitia Brookes, Tristan D. Lalla, Kim Villagante. Photo thanks to Urban Ink and the NAC.

This docu-drama or docu-fiction, a form of musical theatre that ties together reality and fiction inspired by real life tragedies , concerns events that took place in Montreal (the death of an unarmed Freddy Villanueva in 2008) and the shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin in Florida (2013) which set off the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the US . We are immediately drawn back to Shakespeare’s work The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (1623) whose ending is inspired by Seneca’s “Thyestes” . The Roman play concerns the horrific torture and death of children due to the rivalry between the twin brothers, Atreus and Thyestes . Atreus, takes vengeance on his brother Thyestes by tricking him into eating his own sons who have been slaughtered and served up on a plate. The unimaginable horror of cannibalism in this situation obviously intrigued Shakespeare who ends his version of Titus Andronicus in a similar way . …