Theatre for Thought, March 29, 2011

A Musi-Call to Arms

Canadian artists have a burning desire to be a part of musical theatre history...so why aren't we?

joel fishbane

The musical is a much maligned art and nowhere has it been more maligned than Montreal, a city which supports the creation of new musicals but has little desire to train its artists in how one actually works. Students who come to one of our many theatrical training programs are not trained in either performing or creating musicals; and if we have been blessed with one or two unique musical events (will Schwartz’s: The Musical be another?) then we have only fortune to thank. Because the schools have certainty not been doing their job. 

Simply put, it is deplorable that that none of Montreal’s many theatre schools offer specialized musical theatre training. Nowhere is this more the case then NTS, which claims to be a national theatre school but remains uninterested in teaching its actors, playwrights and directors about an artform that remains a part of our national theatrical identity.

Ford's Focus: Randy Davies

(photo credit: Shane Kelley, shanekelleyphotography.com)

Hoofer Extraordinaire

If you've seen musical theatre here in the last decades, you've probably seen Randy Davies' work

by Barbara Ford

When you interview someone like Randy Davies, who began his career at age 8 with tap classes from Mrs. Black and is still directing now as he approaches his 72nd birthday, you pray you’ll be able to squeeze everything into just the one article. Shy at first, (unless the spotlight’s on him) as Davies slowly warmed up about his true passion, musical theatre, the more animated he became, his love and respect for the art and its practitioners so sincere, not to mention contagious.  Refreshingly, whenever he referred to his own accomplishments, he spoke of them with true modesty, as team achievements, not solo limelight moments.  

Randy was the only child born to a Welsh father (from whom he inherited his lyric baritone) and a mother with mixed British/French-Canadian roots, orphaned as an infant and who grew up on a farm with an Irish family in Gaspé.  In those days all the Catholics named their daughters Marie, which she hated, so she referred to herself as Andrée.  As a young woman, she modelled for Holt Renfrew and though not involved in the performing arts, she had a definite dramatic flair, favouring all things Spanish (Randy’s middle name is Ricardo!), and is likely the wellspring of Randy’s theatrical gifts.  He inherited his love of animals (his house is never a pet-free zone) from his mom as well, recounting the most fantastic tale of her picking raspberries as a child and encountering a bear who followed her home and all the way up to the third floor of her house before huge, burly men were able to coax him down again.