Cote St. Luc Dramatic Society goes back in time to 1960s Baltimore with “Hairspray: The Musical”

The Cote St. Luc Dramatic Society’s past 12 months have been good, to say the least.

Last spring, their high energy production of “Catch Me If You Can: The Musical” played to sold out crowds and critical acclaim. Then last October, the production garnered a Montreal English Theatre Award (META) nomination in the community theatre category. Then this past January, “Catch Me If You Can” was remounted for a brief run at the Segal Centre which was just as successful as its original run.

So how do you follow this tough act? By going back in time to Baltimore of the early 1960s in all of its bouffant hairdo glory with “Hairspray: The Musical”, which will playing at the Harold Greenspon Auditorium, 5801 Cavendish Boulevard, for 19 performances from May 28 to June 14.

Based on the hit Broadway musical, which in turn is based on the classic cult film comedy directed by John Waters, “Hairspray” focuses on Tracy Turnblad, a plump and spunky young girl in 1960s Baltimore whose ambition in her young life is to become one of the regular dancers on “The Corny Collins Show”, a popular American Bandstand-type TV teen dance show. But on her way to local TV stardom, Tracy is made aware of the rampant racial segregation in her hometown, as well as the struggles of the black community in Baltimore, and becomes an early crusader in the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement.

“Hairspray is a much loved musical and a real crowd pleaser,” said Anisa Cameron, the society’s artistic director, who is also serving as the show’s director. “But what I like about it is that it promotes unity and diversity, and that people should be accepted, no matter what their shape, size or creed is. Hairspray not only tackles those issues head on, it also promotes a lot of positive values, and you can’t have too much of that.”

Ms. Cameron also promised that the Cote St. Luc Dramatic Society’s production of Hairspray will stay faithful to the campy, colourful and almost cartoonish spirit of both the original Broadway production and the John Waters film. And to make things even more interesting, most of the stellar cast from “Catch Me If You Can” will be back to perform in “Hairspray”, including Brandon Schwartz, Megan Magisano and Mike Melino, who was remembered for his scene-stealing performance as the overzealous Agent Hannerty, by following in the cross-dressing footsteps of John Travolta and the late Divine by taking up the challenging role of Edna Turnblad.

“And newcomer Amber Jones is just perfect as Tracy Turnblad,” added Ms. Cameron. “She is so bubbly, that you immediately are on her side, and you want her to succeed as a dancer on the Corny Collins Show.”

Rounding out the Turnblad family is Mitchell Brownstein, the show’s producer, who is taking to the stage as Wilbur Turnblad, the family patriarch. Involved with the dramatic society since its inception – both on and off the stage – Brownstein finds Wilbur a more larger-than-life character, the type of person that everyone aspires to be like.

“Wilbur is the type of person who is not only a loving husband and father, but is someone who goes after his dreams and loves what he does,” he said. “Wilbur is a model type of person who is a positive, outgoing person with the will to succeed.”

And joining the 32-member cast to add an even more musical aspect to Hairspray will be members of the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir and the Jireh Choir.

The dramatic society will also use the intimate space that is the Harold Greenspon Auditorium to its advantage by having the performers somewhat involve the members of the audience in several scenes of the production, and not restrict themselves to just the confines of the venue’s stage.

“The audience is gong to get the feeling that they are going to be surrounded by the show,” said Ms. Cameron. “That fourth wall is certainly going to be dropped. At times, they are going to get the feeling that they are actually living in the Turnblad home, or they are members of the studio audience for the Corny Collins Show.”

With the meteoric success of the Cote St. Luc Dramatic Society over the last three years has two trickle down effects: the ability for a local theatre troupe to attract people from within the community, as well as the rest of the island of Montreal, to watch quality productions, and to give talented performers –whether they be professional or amateur – the opportunity to participate onstage in these productions.

“With the type of shows that we present, we want to attract more people across Montreal to see our shows; shows that will be of interest and will appeal to everyone,” said Brownstein, who is also a lawyer and Cote St. Luc city councillor. “And in turn, we want to keep local acting talent to stay in Montreal by offering them many opportunities to participate in quality productions. If you provide them the opportunity to perform, they will perform. And when they participate in a show that is great, it makes them happy that they are doing it, because they are doing something that they enjoy, whether they see acting as something they do in their spare time after work or as their profession.”

Tickets for the Cote St. Luc Dramatic Society’s production of “Hairspray: The Musical” range in price from $25 to $32 (taxes included) and are now on sale at the CSL Aquatic and Community Centre, located at 5794 Parkhaven Avenue, or the Cote St. Luc Public Library, located at 5851 Cavendish Boulevard. For more information, go to www.csldramaticsociety.com, or call (514) 485-6800, ext. 2024.

"The Envelope" pokes the Canadian film industry in the eye with a sharp stick

I remember a period of time between 1979 and 1986 when a series of feature films were constantly being shot on location around Montreal that featured many well-known Hollywood actors (Elliott Gould, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Christopher Reeve come to mind) who made their way to what was dubbed “Hollywood North”. 

Some of these pictures made their way to your local cinema (i.e. “Once Upon A Time in America”, “Snake Eyes”), but many of them ended up with limited releases, straight-to-video, or ended up being shelved and relegated to gathering dust (i.e. “Running”, “City on Fire”, “Crunch”). For most part, these made in Montreal features were committed to celluloid more for the generous government tax credit money than for artistic merit.

In Vittorio Rossi’s play “The Envelope”, which is playing at the Centaur until April 19, he takes a rather satirically pointed look at the Canadian film industry today that insiders will squirm at, but outsiders will luridly appreciate.

The play takes place mainly within (and outside) an Old Montreal Italian restaurant name Da Franco. Michael Moretti, a veteran award-winning playwright is a week away from debuting his latest play “Romeo’s Rise”, which was originally a movie screenplay that was rejected. His play sparks interest to be optioned as a movie; first by a rather oily Canadian film producer Jake Henry Smith, who screwed him over five years earlier, and a small American producer who has connections with HBO. Michael’s dilemma, as “Romeo’s Rise” opens to critical acclaim and a possible extension of its run, is to decide whether to sign with Smith, get a chunk of the $6 million budget, but compromise his and the script’s integrity, or go for the American producer for less money, but for the golden opportunity of being picked up by HBO and expand into a possible TV series on the cable network?

Somehow, everything about “The Envelope” works so well that makes it a 160-minute entertaining, yet wildly informative expose on what’s really wrong with the Canadian film industry today. The ensemble cast of Ron Lea, David Gow, Leni Parker, Melanie Sirois, Shawn Campbell, Guido Cocomello and Tony Calabretta give such strong performances across the board and complement each other so well (especially the scene-stealing performances by Campbell and Calabretta), and defines what the ideal ensemble cast should be like. The script by Rossi is sharply written, with plenty of zingers about the Canadian film  industry that audiences will find both informative and luridly revealing (and don’t miss Lea’s terrific monologue about how Sidney Lumet made a great film out of a great play that was “12 Angry Men” back in 1957 … it’s like a quick mini lesson on how to be a filmmaker).

“The Envelope” is a searing indictment within the confines of a stage play about how convoluting, frustrating, bureaucracy-drowning and an exercise in futility making a feature film in Canada can be, in which it’s a constant battle of progress over the status quo, or a sharp lesson on how to make a mediocre movie vs. how to make a great movie. Once and for all, “The Envelope” should prove without a doubt that Vittorio Rossi is becoming English Montreal’s main man of letters, and that his playwright’s pen is a golden one.