presents
london
road
By
aleck y bly the
an d
adam cork
jan 19 - fe b 9, 2014
b lu ma appe l Th e atr e
A Canadian Stage production
and North American premiere
Cast
orchestra
Go r do n
Co n duc to r & k e yboar d I
Sean Arbuckle
Reza Jacobs
Alfie
Rehearsal Pianist &
Associate M usic Dir ec to r
Damien Atkins
Nicole Bellamy
Tim
k e yboar d II
Ben Carlson
David Atkinson
Rose mary
pe rcussio n
Michelle Fisk
Jamie Drake
H e le n
g u itar
Deborah Hay
Kevin Rammesar
Ro n
George Masswohl
June
Julain Molnar
Jan
woo dwin ds
Sasha Boychuk
Pol CoussÉe
Verne Dorge
k e yboar d prog r am m e r
Glynis Ranney
Wayne Gwillim
J u lie
Fiona Reid
Creative Team
Do dg e
Dir ec to r
Steve Ross
Jackie Maxwell
Te r ry
Shawn Wright
M usic Dir ec to r
52 oth e r parts ar e pl aye d
by m e m b e rs o f th e co m pany
Move m e nt Dir ec to r
Reza Jacobs
This performance runs approximately 130 minutes.
There is one intermission.
Valerie Moore
Voice & Dialec t Coach
Jane Gooderham
Se t & Costu m e De sig n e r
production
sponsor
Radio
Sponsors
Judith Bowden
Lightin g De sig n e r
Kevin Lamotte
Sou n d De sig n e r
John Lott
1
Creative Team
continued
Stag e Manag e r
Joanna Barrotta
Assistant Stag e Manag e r
AJ Laflamme
Assistant sound designer &
assistant keyboard programmer
james smith
Assistant dir ec to r
Estelle Shook
Assistant Stag e Manag e r
(R e h e arsal)
Ashlyn Ireland
Appr e ntice Stag e Manag e r
Ariel Martin-smith
Sce n e ry b u ilt by
Hamilton Scenic
Specialty
Video Syste ms De sig n e r
Cameron Davis
War dro b e
Phil Atfield
Barbara Cassidy
M illin e ry
Katarzyna Maxine
Pro ps
Karen Rodd
Special Than ks:
Humber College
Soulpepper
Anchor Supplies
Jeff Madden
Ted Glaszewski
Terraced Housing imagery supplied by
Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images.
Mark’s Road photo, photographed by David Clare.
background
In 2006, the everyday life of the quiet town of
Ipswich was shattered by the discovery of the
bodies of five women. Playwright Alecky Blythe
recorded extensive interviews with the residents of
London Road and, alongside composer Adam Cork,
turned them into a compelling medley of voices that
recount various perspectives of this terrible tragedy.
2
Directors Note
I am writing these notes as I sit in the
Canadian Stage rehearsal hall, listening to our
cast working with Music Director Reza Jacobs
on one of the “numbers” in London Road. It
is a real gift to be able to witness the slow but
steady mastering of Adam Cork’s extraordinarily
complex music under Reza’s inspired and
absolutely precise tutelage. This cast contains
some of Canada’s finest theatre/music talents
whose mettle is being tested daily and who have
shown a similar mix of inspiration and sheer graft
to make the music their own. At the same time,
with the help of Jane Gooderham, they have
been listening to and ultimately learning all the
taped material that represents their characters’
onstage “dialogue” with Alecky Blythe, the
verbatim writer who is the co-creator of this truly
original piece of theatre.
All of us working on London Road have been
tested and forced to reevaluate how we work
as we put it onstage – a piece based on a series
of taped conversations between Alecky and
the beleaguered residents of Ipswich’s London
Road as they tried to deal with the murder of five
prostitutes and the eventual arrest of the killer,
all within feet of where they lived. As a director, I
have had to think how I build and connect a series
of “scenes” that are actually all direct address to
Alecky – aka the audience – while Valerie Moore
has had to develop movement that is virtually
invisible and designers Judith Bowden and Kevin
Lamotte have had to shift fearlessly from the
theatrical to the banal and back again.
In the end, however, something has remained
our clear and constant guide: the voices of
those residents, as recorded on Alecky’s tapes
and in Adam’s miraculous musicalization of
them. These voices tell the tale of a group of
people beset by grief and how they struggled
to move forward. They are often very funny,
sometimes ornery and at times shocking. But
they are always honest and, in spite of their
absolute specificity, fully recognizable to all of
us in their sheer full-blooded humanity.
Jackie Maxwell
SINGING FOR REAL
Development
of the project
In the spring of 2007 I was invited to take part in
the Writers and Composers week at the National
Theatre Studio. The purpose of this was to pair
up a handful of writers and composers, put
the pairings in a room together and see if any
interesting discoveries were found by the end of
it. The wonderful thing about the Studio is that
on the surface it gives artists the opportunity to
experiment and “get things wrong”. However,
underneath this relaxed veneer, those who are
lucky enough to workshop projects there know
that in some cases there is the slim but real
potential for them to be brought to life on the
South Bank. It was in this atmosphere of wishful
expectation that Adam Cork and I first met.
I was delighted to be at the workshop as working
with music was a voyage into uncharted territory
for me. As my work is made from recorded
everyday conversations and replicated by actors
as authentically as possible, musical theatre with
its necessary constrictions is not a genre that
sits easily with me. I wanted to find out if I could
adapt the verbatim technique in a way which
incorporated music without losing its honesty.
Development
of the technique
I work using a technique originally created by Anna
Deavere Smith. Deavere Smith was the first to
combine the journalistic technique of interviewing
her subjects with the art of reproducing their
words accurately in performance. It was passed
on to me via Mark Wing-Davey in his workshop
“Drama Without Paper.”
The technique involves going into a community of
some sort, recording conversations with people
which are then edited to become the script of
the play. For my previous shows the actors have
not seen the text.The edited recordings have
been played live to them through earphones
during the rehearsal process, and on stage in
performance.The actors listen to the audio and
repeat what they hear.They copy not just the
Alecky Blythe
words but exactly the way in which they were
first spoken. Every cough, stutter and hesitation
is reproduced. Up till now, the actors have not
learnt the lines at any point. By listening to the
audio during performances the actors are helped
to remain accurate to the original recordings,
rather than slipping into their own patterns of
speech or embellishment.
The considerable musical dimension of
London Road has required a re-thinking of the
presentation of the recorded delivery verbatim
technique to which I have become accustomed.
By setting some of the material to music, even
though Adam has been scrupulously detailed
in notating the tune of the spoken voice so that
it remains faithful to how it was first said, the
fact that at times characters sing their words
instead of speak them, as they did in real life,
is a departure from the purer verbatim form
of my past endeavours. In keeping with the
songs being learnt from the score, the spoken
text has also been learnt.With both the songs
and the spoken text, the audio has remained
intrinsic to the process so that the original
delivery as well as the words are learnt.
I had arrived at the Writers and Composers
week armed with various materials with which
we could experiment. But it was the interviews
that I recorded in the winter of 2006 in
Ipswich that best lent themselves to musical
intervention.What Adam and I discovered with
the music was that it succeeded in bonding
together shared sentiments that were being
echoed throughout the town during those
worrying times. More importantly Adam was
able to set these words to music by following
the cadence and rhythms of the original speech
patterns so accurately that their verisimilitude
was not diminished. I was also excited to
have a new tool at my disposal with the song
writing. By creating verses and choruses, I
could shape the material for narrative and
dramatic effect further than I had ever been
able to do before.To my surprise, we had
between us the seeds of both the subject and
the technique to take to another stage.
3
Development
of the story
My first interviews from Ipswich were collected on
15 December 2006; five bodies had been found but
no arrests had been made. The town was at the
height of its fear. I had been gripped and appalled
by the spiralling tragedies that were unravelling in
Ipswich during that dark time. It would of course
be a shocking episode in any community, but the
fact that it took place in this otherwise peaceful
rural town, never before associated with high
levels of crime or soliciting, made it all the more
upsetting for the people who lived there. It was
not what was mainly being reported in the media
about the victims or the possible suspects that
drew me to Ipswich, but the ripples it created in
the wider community in the lives of those on the
periphery. Events of this proportion take hold in
all sorts of areas outside the lead story and that is
what I wanted to explore.
It was not until six months later, on returning to
Ipswich to gauge the temperature of the town post
Saying in Tune
When I first met Alecky Blythe at the NT Studio
almost four years ago, as part of an experimental
week which brought together composers and
playwrights, I had no idea that I’d be working
with a ‘verbatim’ practitioner. And when Alecky
explained the concept and methods of this
documentary form to me, I have to admit my
very first thought was “how on earth can I turn
this into music?” But when we started listening
to her interviews, I began to feel that this could
be an inspiring new approach to song writing,
or more accurately an exciting development of
an existing way of composing songs. Whenever
I’ve set conventional texts to music, I’ve always
spoken the words to myself, and transcribed the
rhythms and the rise and fall of my own voice,
to try and arrive at the most truthful and direct
expression of the text. Here was an opportunity
to refine that to a much purer process, without
any authorial or poetic interpretation (not to
mention my own bad acting) polluting the
4
arrests but pre-trial, that I stumbled upon what
was to me the most interesting development so
far. A Neighbourhood Watch that had been set up
at the time of the murders had organised a London
Road in Bloom competition and the street could not
have looked more different from when it had been
under siege by the media scrum the winter before.
Hanging baskets lined the road and front gardens
were bursting with floral displays. Such was the
impact of the terrible happenings in that area that
the community had come together and set up a
series of events, from gardening competitions to
quiz nights, in order to try to heal itself. Although
this had some coverage in the local press, the wider
media had not reported this final and important
chapter of the story. Over the course of the next two
years I regularly revisited the residents of London
Road to chart their full recovery.
I would like to say a special thank you to everyone
who shared their stories with me, particularly the
members of the London Road Neighbourhood
Watch, without whose generosity the play would
not have been possible. © Alecky Blythe, March 2011
Adam Cork
connection between the actual subject and his
or her representation in music.
And so we began, with a few ideas about what
we wanted the piece to be.
My initial aim was that the music should be as
articulated as possible, otherwise we wouldn’t
be doing justice to the reality and the uniqueness
of the depicted people. I also wanted to grab the
challenge of taking an experimental idea and
developing it into something which could be
interesting as both music and drama. I didn’t want
to reference any overall musical style, but rather,
discover responses suggested by the material on a
moment-by-moment basis. For that reason I didn’t
foresee much cross-pollination of musical motifs
from one song to another, although I did want
the identity of each individual song to be clear; I
felt this was the only way I could create musical
meaning from this un-versified, spontaneously
spoken text. I also hoped that in the spirit of the
documentary concept the musical score would
be like a time capsule inside which the speech
rhythms would be captured and contained,
frozen and fossilised in music just as they have
a fixed existence on Alecky’s recordings. And I
wanted to find a way of singing with the quality of
speech, which is altogether different from either
an operatic or a conventional music-theatre vocal
style. In this last wish I have been very lucky, as
our Music Director David Shrubsole and the voice
expert Mary Hammond have together helped the
cast develop and maintain a speech-like way of
singing which engages their prodigious techniques
from a variety of disciplines.
At the outset I imagined that the process of
finding a way to set words to music while staying
faithful to the ideals of verbatim documentary
theatre would eventually lead us to a whole new
set of ideal principles, a properly developed
written recipe for how we should conduct this
experiment. In the event we never did arrive
at anything that prescriptive. In fact as you
experience the production you’re presented with
the evolution of our approach. Some of the songs
and fragments written towards the beginning
of our process of development – early works
that have ‘made the cut’ – are quite different
from the more recent pieces.As I transcribed
and composed and thought about it all, I found
myself getting better and quicker at doing it, and
representing the music of the speech rhythms
with increasing forensic zeal, to the point
where transcriptions from earlier in the process
started to feel a little naïve, or less faithful to
the documentary ideal than the later songs.
But the slightly freer hand I gave myself initially
had produced some interesting results, and
abandoning the earlier music seemed to diminish
the experience somehow.
Having said that, it’s very easy retrospectively to
describe what we’ve done in terms of ‘rules’, or at
least to say that there are some things that generally
seem to happen.The lack of rhyme or consistent
meter or line length in spontaneous speech, even
after we’ve structured the recordings into ‘verses’
and ‘choruses’, results in labyrinthine tunes which
offer hardly any repetitive potential in themselves,
as rhythmic or melodic material. So the instinct has
been for the most part to contain these anarchic lines
within fairly solid musical structures, and these
containers are often built out of key elements of
the transcribed voice, translated into harmonic
progressions, or rhythms in the accompaniment.And
on the occasions when this approach has repeatedly
led towards the wrong sort of song, I’ve had a good
long think about what the song should express
musically and composed a ‘container’ unconnected
with the musical surface of the words, but inspired
by their literal content, or the tone in which they
are spoken, or the mood of the situation in which
they were uttered, or that of the situation which
they describe.
It’s also possible to notice some effects of the
verbatim song forms we’ve developed, whilst
confessing that many of them were unforeseen.
A presentational style seems to suit more
than a psychological one. As with non-musical
documentary theatre, the actors find they are
inhabited (or possessed) by the voices of the
people they represent, rather than creating roles
using the traditional rules of characterisation.
I find that hearing the natural speech patterns
sung in this way can have the effect of distancing
the audience from the ‘character’, and even the
‘story’, but in a positive way that alters the quality
of listening. Making spontaneously spoken
words formal, through musical accompaniment
and repetition, has the potential to explode
the thought of a moment into slow motion,
and can allow us more deeply to contemplate
what’s being expressed. This seems particularly
interesting when many different people speak
about the same thought or feeling.
In fact the choral presentation of this story in
particular seems to underline the ritual aspect of
human communal experience. The experiences
captured on this stage are not new to our species,
whether it’s the healing process after a tragedy,
the gathering of forces within a community to find
and punish a dangerous individual, or the telling
of all these events to the wider community. This
is deeply ancient shared human experience in all
its facets, no matter how much professionalism
and the division of labour distance us from each
other today. The people of Ipswich, the residents of
London Road, and the news media play their part
in this ritual, and so do we, in presenting this piece
of choric theatre. © Adam Cork, March 2011
5
Cast
Sean Arbuckle
Damien Atkins
Ben Carlson
Michelle Fisk
Deborah Hay
George Masswohl
Julain Molnar
Glynis Ranney
Fiona Reid
Steve Ross
Shawn Wright
Nicole Bellamy
David Atkinson
Jamie Drake
Sasha Boychuk
Pol CoussÉe
Verne Dorge
Orchestra
6
Kevin Rammesar
creative
team
alecky blythe
adam cork
Jackie Maxwell
Reza Jacobs
Valerie Moore
Jane Gooderham
Judith Bowden
Kevin Lamotte
John Lott
Joanna Barrotta
AJ Laflamme
james smith
Estelle Shook
Ashlyn Ireland
Ariel Martin-smith
7
cast
Sean Arbuckle - Gordon
Sean is very happy to be making his Canadian Stage debut. Most recently he played Iago in Othello
(Segal Centre / Scapegoat Carnivale) and Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale (McCarter Theatre/
Shakespeare Theatre Company). Select theatre credits include: The Pirates of Penzance, 42nd
Street, The Merchant of Venice, Cabaret, The Tempest, Trojan Women, The Swanne Part Two, Three
Sisters, Twelfth Night, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Stratford); The Importance of Being Earnest
(Broadway/Roundabout); The Turn of the Screw (Grand Theatre); Humble Boy (Pioneer Theatre);
Phèdre (A.C.T.); The Triumph of Love (Walnut Street); Woman in Mind (Berkshire Theatre Festival);
and the world premiere of The Spitfire Grill (George Street). Television credits: Reign, Defiance,
Nikita, Hope and Faith, Law and Order.
Damien Atkins - Alfie
Canadian Stage credits: Someone Else, 7 Stories, Frost / Nixon, Amadeus, The Glass Menagerie,
Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Lucy (Playwright). Select theatre credits: Angels in America,
The Caretaker, The Way of the World, The Importance of Being Earnest (Soulpepper); The Gay
Heritage Project, Real Live Girl (Buddies in Bad Times); Seussical (YPT / Citadel); The Clockmaker
(Tarragon); I Am My Own Wife (Dallas Theater Center); The Retreat From Moscow (Neptune);
Cabaret, Geometry in Venice (Segal Centre). Film and television credits: Take This Waltz, Slings
and Arrows, Our Fathers, The Matthew Shepard Story, The Eleventh Hour. Other: Damien has been
Playwright-in-Residence at Canadian Stage and Crow’s Theatre. He has been nominated for four
Dora Awards for writing and acting, winning one for each. Upcoming: Beatrice and Virgil (Factory
Theatre) and Angels in America (Soulpepper).
Ben Carlson - Tim
Ben was last at Canadian Stage as Simon in Hay Fever (Dora Award nomination for Outstanding
Performance). Recently he has performed at the Stratford Festival as Burleigh in Mary Stuart,
Benedick, Alceste in The Misanthrope, Feste, Touchstone, Leontes, Brutus and Hamlet. For the
Chicago Shakespeare Theater he has played Frank in The School For Lies (Joseph Jefferson
Award nomination for Outstanding Production), Macbeth, Hamlet (Joseph Jefferson Award for
Outstanding Performance). He has appeared at the Shaw Festival in over 25 productions, including
John Tanner in Man and Superman. Musical credits include Floyd Collins, Happy End, and Georg
in She Loves Me. Ben has received the Dora and Max Helpmann Awards. Select film and television
credits: Rookie Blue, Saving Hope, The Firm, Warehouse 13, Grey Gardens, Slings And Arrows. He
was last seen in Toronto in Cloud 9 with the Mirvishes.
Michelle Fisk - Rosemary
Michelle has been a member of Canada’s theatrical community as an actor, teacher and director
for over thirty years, working in studios, regional main stages and festivals including Shaw,
Charlottetown, ten seasons at Blyth and ten at Stratford. In Toronto, she has performed at Tarragon
in Loose Ends (Dora nomination) and Rubber Dolly, at Factory Theatre in Beautiful City, in And Up
They Flew for Theatre Columbus, and at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Orpheus Descending. She’s
pleased to return to Canadian Stage where previous productions include Company, The Melville
Boys, Homeward Bound (Dora nomination), Larry’s Party, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and The
Elephant Man.
8
Deborah Hay - Helen
Deborah is happy to be making her Canadian Stage debut in London Road. Recent credits include: The School
for Lies (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); Caroline or Change (Acting Up Stage - Dora nomination); Kingfisher Days
(Grand Theatre); Othello, Much Ado About Nothing (Stratford Festival); My Fair Lady, Heartbreak House, The
Women, One Touch of Venus, Born Yesterday, After the Dance (Shaw Festival). Deborah recently starred in the
Canadian feature film The Anniversary, written and directed by Valerie Buhagiar. Next, she will return to the Shaw
Festival to play Sally Bowles in Cabaret and Dorothea in Tennessee Williams’ A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur.
George Masswohl - Ron
George is a four-time Dora Award-nominated actor and has appeared on stage and screen throughout
Canada and the US. Canadian Stage credits: The House of Martin Guerre, Sweeney Todd, and The Winter’s
Tale. Other theatre credits include: A Little Night Music and Follies (Shaw Festival); Fiddler on the Roof,
Threepenny Opera, My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls (Stratford Festival); Oh What A Lovely War (Soulpepper);
Seussical, Wizard of Oz, The Princess and the Handmaiden (YPT); Of Mice and Men, Rock and Roll,
Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, Glory Days (Theatre Aquarius); Anything That Moves (Tarragon); Time and
Again (Manhattan Theatre Club); Showboat (Livent / US tour). In addition to his work in theatre, George is
a founding member of the baritone concert trio, Bravura (bravurabaritones.com).
Julain Molnar - June
Canadian Stage credits: The House of Martin Guerre (Dora Award winner), Side by Side by Sondheim,
Larry’s Party, Leslie Arden and Friends. Other theatre credits include: The House of Martin Guerre
(Goodman Theatre, Chicago) The Light in the Piazza, Trifles (Shaw Festival); Ragtime (workshops); The
Phantom of the Opera, Into the Woods (Livent); The Sound of Music (Merritt Award), Oliver! (Merritt
nomination) (Neptune Theatre); Brigadoon (Limelight Theatre - Dora nomination); Coriolanus, The
Taming of the Shrew, The Mikado, Camelot (Stratford Festival); and 13 seasons with the Charlottetown
Festival. Julain received an honours certificate in Vocal performance from Trinity College in London and
has been teaching Musical Theatre performance for 15 years.
Glynis Ranney - Jan
Canadian Stage credits: The House of Martin Guerre, Passion, Leslie Arden and Friends. Other theatre
credits: Falsettos (Acting Up Stage); Side by Side by Sondheim (Grand Theatre); Swimming in the Shallows
(Buddies in Bad Times Theatre/Theatrefront); Anything That Moves (Tarragon Theatre - Dora Award); A
Streetcar Named Desire (ATF); The Glass Menagerie (PTE); Blithe Spirit (Theatre Aquarius); The Mikado
(NAC/Stratford Festival); My Fair Lady (Neptune Theatre/Centaur/ATP/PTE); and eight seasons with the
Shaw Festival, including Mack and Mabel, Follies: In Concert, Tristan, The Constant Wife, Happy End, Floyd
Collins, Three Men on a Horse, The Coronation Voyage, Merrily We Roll Along, Easy Virtue, She Loves Me.
Glynis lives in Stratford with her son, Emrys, and husband, actor Mike Nadajewski.
Fiona Reid - Julie
At Canadian Stage, Fiona has appeared in The Arsonists, Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Clean House, Habeus
Corpus, Omnium Gatherum, Sweeney Todd, Indian Ink, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, How I Learned
to Drive, A Delicate Balance, Arcadia, Lids Together Teeth Apart, Six Degrees of Separation, Hay Fever,
Death and The Maiden, and Fallen Angels (Dora Award). Fiona has appeared extensively in theatres
across Canada, at the Stratford and Shaw festivals, and briefly in the US and Britain. Her last theatrical
experience was in The Norman Conquests at Soulpepper, which will be re-mounted in February 2014.
Fiona then appears in the Shaw Festival 2014 season. Her film experience includes The Time Traveller’s
Wife, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She is a Member of the Order of Canada, has an honorary
doctorate from Bishop’s University and is the Vice President of the Actors’ Fund of Canada. 9
Steve Ross - Dodge
Steve has just returned from his tenth season at The Stratford Festival. Canadian Stage credits include:
Sweeney Todd, Indian Ink, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Little Night Music and Into the Woods.
Other credits include: Tommy, Fiddler on the Roof, The Pirates of Penzance, The Grapes of Wrath,
The Misanthrope, Kiss Me, Kate, Cyrano, The Comedy of Errors, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey
(Stratford); Assassins (TIFT / Birdland); A Year With Frog and Toad (MTYP / Citadel); The Producers
(Neptune); The Three Musketeers (Chicago Shakespeare); Guys and Dolls (RMTC / Citadel / TC); Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof (Citadel); The Foursome, For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again (New Stages). Steve will
return for his 11th season at Stratford in Man of La Mancha and Crazy for You.
Shawn Wright - Terry
Canadian Stage credits: The Arsonists directed by Morris Panych and Not Wanted On The Voyage
directed by Richard Rose. Other credits include: Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls (Shaw Festival);
Father Mapple in Moby Dick (Stratford Festival); John in Oleanna (Theatre New Brunswick); Joey in
Pal Joey (Theatre Calgary); Treebeard in Lord of the Rings (Mirvish); Bill Sykes in Oliver (National Arts
Centre); Bob Crewe in Jersey Boys; the original Broadway workshop cast of Ragtime; the original
American cast of Mamma Mia; plays by Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams and Moliere. Television
credits: Murdoch Mysteries, Ron James Show, Due South. Upcoming: Stratford 2014.
ORCHESTRA
Nicole Bellamy - Rehearsal Pianist and Associate Music Director
Nicole Bellamy works primarily in opera as a pianist, vocal coach and music director. She is the
répétiteur for Opera Hamilton and works as a pianist and music director for Toronto’s Opera in
Concert, Toronto Operetta Theatre and Summer Opera Lyric Theatre. Nicole studies conducting with
Caron Daley and has a sound design credit from Tarragon Theatre for The Misanthrope. In 2013, she
was the pianist in La Vie Parisienne, music director and pianist for La Bohème, and music directed a
world premier performance of Laura Secord, by Mark Richards. She has also music directed Canadian
premiers of The Tender Land, and La Mère Coupable. Recent concert work includes performances with
tenor Ermanno Mauro, soprano Charlotte Corwin, and tenor Marc Hervieux.
David Atkinson - Keyboard 2
David is a Dora Award-winning pianist, composer, and music director and has performed in a wide variety
of scenarios, including orchestra pits (Wicked, Jersey Boys), TV studios (CBC’s Over The Rainbow), and
Brazilian psychedelic rock bands (Os Tropies). In 2008, David joined the silent film-inspired Keystone
Theatre as music director, receiving the 2010 Dora Award for Sound Design & Composition for his work on
their first play The Belle of Winnipeg. In 2012, Keystone Theatre embarked on a successful cross-Canada
tour with their second play The Last Man On Earth, which will be playing at The Berkeley Theatre Upstairs
April 2-13. David is also an educator and ensemble director at The Bishop Strachan School.
Sasha Boychuk - Reed 2
Sasha is native of Ukraine and has been in Canada since 1991. Canadian Stage credits include:
Urinetown The Musical and The Rocky Horror Show. Other credits include: Guys and Dolls (Shaw
Festival); Jersey Boys, South Pacific, Drowsy Chaperone (Dancap Productions); Evita, Swing, Cabaret,
Music of the Night, Smoky Joe’s Cafe, Beauty and the Beast (Broadway and US national tours); Aladdin,
Snow White, Little Mermaid (Ross Petty). Apart from Music Theater Sasha is a busy freelance musician.
10
Pol Coussée - Reed 3 Pol was born and raised in Belgium, later becoming a staff musician at the Casino de Monte-Carlo in
Monaco. He then moved to London, UK and toured and recorded with many famous and even more
infamous popstars of the day – including Barry White, Carmel, The Temptations, and The Four Tops. Pol
played with the BBC Jazz Orchestra, and worked in the West End on Cats, Blood Brothers, Fame, and
others. Since moving to Toronto, Pol has played Guys & Dolls, Dirty Dancing, Jersey Boys, Mary Poppins,
and many more. Pol is active in the local jazz scene, performing at the Toronto TD Jazz festival, and
appearing in local jazz clubs. He also performs regularly with the KW Symphony Orchestra.
Vern Dorge - Reed 1
Saxophones, and woodwind specialist Vern Dorge is a fixture on the Canadian and international music
scene, featuring in many live concerts, television and recordings in a variety of music genres. He is
known as a featured soloist with the likes of Blood, Sweat, & Tears, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, and
many other artists. He has had great performances with highly acclaimed artists such as Tony Bennett,
Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Roberta Flack, Ray Charles, Diana Krall, Herbie Hancock and others. He
continues to be active as a performer, composer/arranger, educator, and is involved in many settings
such as Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Orchestral, Musical Theatre, and as a studio musician. Past Canadian
Stage performances include Ain’t Misbehavin’, and Hair.
Jamie Drake - Percussion
Jamie Drake is a Toronto-based percussionist and drummer, and is pleased to be making his Canadian
Stage debut. As a theatre musician he has collaborated with the Shaw Festival, Soulpepper, National
Arts Centre, and Theatre Direct, among others; played over 70 full scale productions, including the
Dora Award winning TIFT/Birdland production of Assassins, and performed in numerous concerts and
cabarets. A member of the critically-lauded TorQ Percussion Quartet, he has performed with TorQ
across Canada and internationally. This summer TorQ will be Artist-in-Residence at Stratford Summer
Music. Jamie is also Artist-in-Residence with the renowned Hamilton Children’s Choir. He is currently a
Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at the University of Toronto.
Kevin Ramessar - Guitar
Multi-instrumentalist Kevin Ramessar has been a featured soloist with numerous orchestras, and
has taken his music to major concert halls and festival stages throughout North America and Europe.
His performances have earned him accolades from the likes of Pat Metheny and Christian McBride.
London Road is Kevin’s debut for Canadian Stage. Other theatre credits include: Jesus Christ
Superstar (Broadway); Tommy, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Bartholomew Fair and Fuente Ovejuna
(Stratford Festival); Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Grand Theatre, London). Kevin
is currently recording an album of original songs and arrangements to be released this Summer. For
more information on Kevin’s performances and projects, please visit www.kevinramessar.com creative team
Alecky Blythe - Librettist-Lyricist
Alecky is a playwright and screenwriter who won a Time Out Award for her first play, Come Out Eli,
and was selected as one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow in 2007. In 2003, Alecky set
up her verbatim theatre company, Recorded Delivery. The term “recorded delivery” has now become
synonymous with the verbatim technique she employs. In 2010, Alecky’s Do We Look Like Refugees?
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won an award at the Edinburgh Festival. London Road won Best Musical at the Critics’ Circle Awards
and was revived in 2012 at the National Theatre after a sell-out run in 2011. Alecky’s most recent
play, Where Have I Been All My Life?, was produced at the New Vic Theatre in 2012. She is currently
working on new commissions for the National and the Almeida and adapting London Road for film.
Adam Cork - Composer-Lyricist
Adam is composer and co-lyricist of the documentary opera/musical London Road (National
Theatre), which won the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical in 2011. He received a Tony Award in
2010 for his music and sound score for Red (Donmar), and an Olivier Award in 2011 for King Lear
(Donmar), also receiving the Evening Standard Best Design Award 2011 for Anna Christie (Donmar)
and King Lear. In 2010 Adam was nominated for the Tony Award Best Score (Music and Lyrics) for
ENRON. Other work includes scores and sound designs for Henry V, Danton’s Death, All’s Well that
Ends Well (National Theatre Olivier), Phedre and Time and the Conways (National Theatre Lyttelton),
Hamlet (Donmar), Ivanov (Donmar), No Man’s Land, and A View From the Bridge (Duke of York’s).
Jackie Maxwell - Director
Jackie Maxwell is well known across Canada as a director, dramaturge and teacher. She is currently
in her 12th season as Artistic Director of The Shaw Festival where her directing credits include
Major Barbara, Ragtime, Come Back Little Sheba, Age of Arousal, An Ideal Husband, The Entertainer,
Rutherford and Son, Gypsy, The Three Sisters, The Coronation Voyage and Picnic. Previously she
was Artistic Director of Factory Theatre where she produced and directed works by George Walker,
Ann Marie MacDonald, Mary Walsh, Daniel Danis and many more. Directing credits include Tarragon
Theatre, Canadian Stage, Mirvish Productions, Centaur Theatre, National Arts Centre, Theatre
Calgary, Arena Stage Washington, and The National Theatre School. She is the recipient of a Queen
Elizabeth II Jubilee medal, two Honorary Doctorates from Queen’s University and the University of
Windsor and several Dora Awards as Producer and Director.
Reza Jacobs - Music Director
Reza Jacobs is an award winning composer, lyricist, sound designer and music director, known for his
versatility in style and genre. His credits include sound design and composition for the Shaw Festival,
Factory Theatre, Volcano Theatre, Cahoots Theatre, Acting Up Stage Theatre, the Luminato Festival,
and Harbourfront’s World Stage Festival. As Music Director he has won Dora Awards for Caroline, or
Change (Best Music Direction and Best Musical, 2012) and Assassins (Best Musical, 2010). This summer
he was the Associate Music Director of the World Premiere of Evangeline at the Confederation Centre.
He is also the resident Canadian Music Director for Andrea Martin’s show, Everything Must Go. Currently
Reza and Andrew Kushnir have teamed up to write a new musical, commissioned by the Belfry Theatre
and Acting Up Stage. Upcoming, Reza will be appearing in 2P4H at the Centaur and Globe Theatre. Valerie Moore - Movement Director
Choreographer: Ragtime, The Admirable Crichton, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Gypsy, A Little Night
Music, Merrily We Roll Along (The Shaw Festival); Love’s Labour’s Lost, Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Much Ado About Nothing, The Cherry Orchard (Stratford Festival); Emily the Musical, Legend of The
Dumbells (Charlottetown Festival); Anything That Moves, Pal Joey, The Colored Museum (Tarragon
Theatre); Susannah, La Traviata (Opera Ontario); Assassins (Grassy Knoll); Herringbone, Health, Rock
and Roll (Vancouver Playhouse). Directing credits: Rock and Roll, Dancing in Poppies, Little Shop of
Horrors, Cabaret (Betty Mitchell Award), Berlin to Broadway (Theatre Calgary), Follies: In Concert
(The Shaw Festival). Television and film credits include: So You Think You Can Dance Canada (CTV);
Sugartime (HBO); Jim Carrey’s Unnatural Acts.
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Jane Gooderham - Voice and Dialect Coach
Canadian Stage credits: Rock ’n Roll, The Syringa Tree, and The Homechild. Other theatre credits include:
11 seasons with the Stratford Festival; War Horse (Royal National Theatre / Mirvish); Romeo and Juliet,
Buried Child (NAC); Chair, Oroonoko (Theatre for a New Audience, New York); Cloud Nine, The Lord of
the Rings, The Producers, Mamma Mia (Mirvish); Happy Days (Soulpepper / DVxT); St. Christopher, The
Doll House (DVxT). Television credits: The Borgias, Republic of Doyle, Triple Sensation. Teaching credits:
Head of Voice - The National Theatre School of Canada, Stratford’s Birmingham Conservatory for Classical
Theatre, Soulpepper Academy, Centre for Indigenous Theatre. Jane has an MA in Voice from the Central
School of Speech and Drama in London and a BA in Acting from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Judith Bowden - Set and Costume Designer
Canadian Stage credits: The Clean House. Other credits include: The Great Gatsby (Theatre Calgary);
costume design: My Fair Lady, Music Man (Arena Stage, Washington DC); Gone With the Wind, The Tempest,
Pride and Prejudice (Manitoba Theatre Centre); set and costume design: Major Barbara, Misalliance, An
Ideal Husband, Helen’s Necklace, Sunday In the Park With George (Shaw Festival); Nativity, Belle Moral
(National Arts Centre). Next Judith will be designing the costumes for Cabaret at the Shaw Festival.
Kevin Lamotte - Lighting Designer
Kevin Lamotte is one of Canada’s leading lighting designers and has created lighting designs for most
of the country’s theatre, dance and opera companies. He has designed lighting for 22 Canadian Stage
shows since 1994, including: The Clean House, Of Mice and Men, Closer, Wit, Picasso at the Lapin Agile,
Billy Bishop Goes to War, Angels in America, The House of Martin Guerre and others. In a 25 year career
he has been awarded many times for his work including the Province of Ontario’s Pauline McGibbon
Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award (Toronto), the Prix des Masques (Montreal), the Betty Mitchell
Award (Calgary), the Jessie Richardson Award (Vancouver). Kevin is the Director of Lighting Design for
the Shaw Festival and a member of The Associated Designers of Canada.
John Lott - Sound Designer
A Toronto native, John has been designing sound for theatre for the past 25 years throughout North
America. He has toured Canada with Showboat, Sunset Boulevard, and Phantom of the Opera, and toured
internationally with The Kids in The Hall, Riverdance - The Show and KODO Drummers of Japan as their
designer and engineer. Select musical design credits include: The Fantasticks, Oh What a Lovely War, The
Odd Couple, Ghosts, Parfumerie, The Threepenny Opera (Soulpepper); Story of My Life, Side by Side by
Sondheim, Cookin’ at the Cookery, Sweeney Todd, and Larry’s Party (Canadian Stage); Songs for a New
World, Sound of Music (Citadel Theatre); Dracula (Charlottetown Festival); Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda
(Marquis Entertainment); Ragtime, My Fair Lady, Mack and Mabel, Hotel Peccadillo (Shaw Festival). He has
also designed at the Charlottetown Festival, Stratford Festival and Atlantic Theatre Festival.
Joanna Barrotta - Stage Manager
Joanna is a stage manager who splits her time between theatre and opera. Recent theatre credits include:
THIRD FLOOR (Thousand Islands Playhouse); carried away on the crest of a wave (Tarragon); The Arsonists
(Canadian Stage); paper SERIES (Cahoots Theatre Company); Brothel #9, Essay / The Russian Play (Factory
Theatre); and three seasons at Blyth Festival. Recent opera credits include: SVADBA-WEDDING, Beckett: Feck
It!, Beauty Dissolves (Queen of Puddings Music Theatre); La Bohème, Turandot (Opera Lyra); Acis and Galatea,
Actéon / Dido and Aeneas (Opera Atelier); Bluebeard’s Castle / Erwartung (Opéra de Québec); eight seasons at
Canadian Opera Company including Ariadne auf Naxos, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Götterdämmerung
from Wagner’s Ring Cycle. This season, Joanna will be returning to the Canadian Opera Company as an assistant
stage manager on Hercules, and will stage manage She Loves Me at Thousand Islands Playhouse.
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AJ Laflamme - Assistant Stage Manager
Canadian Stage credits: The Arsonists, Red, Another Africa. Recent credits include: Spoon River, La
Ronde, True West (Soulpepper); Tainted (Moyo Theatre); La Traviata, Die Zauberflöte, Le Tragedie de
Carmen (Highlands Opera Studio); The Intuition of Iphigenia, Elektra in Bosnia, Ajax in Afghanistan
(Ryerson Theatre School); Cabaret, A Chorus Line (Rose Theatre); Everything Must Go (Andrea Martin);
Love, Loss, and What I Wore (M. Rubinoff Productions); The Africa Trilogy (Volcano Theatre); Death
and the Maiden (Osculum Productions); Lucky Stiff (Toronto Youth Theatre); Criminals in Love, A
Funny Thing Happened..., Thirteen Hands (Hart House Theatre); Oklahoma! (Georgetown Globe); Les
Miserables (Stage Door Schools). AJ is a graduate of Sheridan College and the University of Toronto.
James Smith - Assistant Sound Designer
James is a musical director, composer and sound designer. This is his Canadian Stage debut. His recent
credits include three seasons at the Shaw Festival as the Musical Director Intern in 2011, Assistant
Sound Designer for Ragtime in 2012, and, most recently, he was the Composer / Sound Designer
for Faith Healer, and the Assistant Sound Designer for Guys and Dolls. Other credits include musical
director for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Thousand Islands Playhouse); Guys and
Dolls, and Great Expectations (Talk is Free Theatre); Associate Musical Director / Band Leader for
Assassins (MTC); Composer / Sound Designer for The Ends of The Earth (Vertigo Theatre). Next, James
will musical direct Parade at Sheridan College and She Loves Me at Thousand Islands Playhouse.
Estelle Shook - Assistant Director
Artistic Director of British Columbia’s nationally acclaimed Caravan Farm Theatre from 1998 to 2010,
Estelle Shook has produced, developed, and directed over 30 outdoor productions for the company.
Highlights include: The Ballad of Weedy Peetstraw, a “Bluegrass Opera” based on Goethe’s Faust by Peter
Anderson and John Millard; Cowboy King and IOU Land, two western tragedies by Linz Kenyon adapted
from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and Wagner’s Ring Cycle; Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King Lear;
Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, each of which utilized the famous Caravan Clydesdale horses
as stage machinery; and Everyone, a modern morality play in seven horse-drawn acts created with six
Vancouver theatre companies. For Canadian Stage she directed The Winter’s Tale during Shakespeare in
High Park. Estelle is a candidate in the second iteration of York University’s MFA program in collaboration
with Canadian Stage and is supported by the M. Bragg Fund.
Ashlyn Ireland - Rehearsal Assistant Stage Manager
Ashlyn is pleased to be making her Canadian Stage debut. Other theatre credits include: Stage
Manager - Alligator Pie, Brief Lives (Soulpepper); Assistant Stage Manager - Entertaining Mr. Sloane,
Great Expectations, Home, The Royal Comedians, The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, Billy Bishop
Goes to War, The Price, Our Town, The Time of Your Life, Under Milkwood, BLiNK, Three Sisters, Blithe
Spirit. Ashlyn has also worked at Studio 180, The Pleiades Theatre, Young People’s Theatre and Actors
Repertory Company. She looks forward to returning to YPT for Minotaur in the spring.
Ariel Martin-Smith - Apprentice Stage Manager
Most recently, Ariel served as Assistant Stage Manager for SVADBA-WEDDING at Opera
Philadelphia. Ariel’s apprentice stage management credits include Figaro’s Wedding (Against the
Grain Theatre), The Dialogues of the Carmelites (Canadian Opera Company), Svadba (Queen of
Puddings), Der Freischütz (Opera Atelier), La Calisto (Royal Conservatory / Glenn Gould School), and
The Barber of Seville (Opera Hamilton). As Stage Manager, Ariel has worked on La Boheme (Against
the Grain Theatre) and Fairest Isle (Toronto Masque Theatre). Ariel holds a Master’s degree in English
Literature from the University of Toronto.
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canadian premiere
“the best-written,
best-plotted,
deepest,
most daring
– and funniest –
new play
in recent
years”
- wall street
journal
“Critics Pick”
– The New York Times,
New York MAgazine,
The New Yorker,
THe Daily News,
Backstage
“Best of 2012”
– Entertainment Weekly,
Time Out New York,
New York Magazine,
The New Yorker,
Huffington Post,
Playbill
tribes
Proud
Sponsor:
13.14 Berkeley
Season
by
Nina Raine
Directed by Daryl Cloran
A Theatrefront Production Produced in association
with Canadian Stage and Theatre Aquarius
feb 2 - mar 2 Berkeley Street Theatre
Proud to support
London Road.
We are working together
with Canadian Stage
to make a difference
in our communities.
M04198 (0610)