New Charlottetown Festival show turns theatre into graveyard

There's a new addition to the Charlottetown Festival lineup this year that already has a major connection to the Island.

The play is called Spoon River, and it won a Dora Award last year for Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto, as the country's outstanding new musical.

It's first run outside of Toronto begins July 6 at the Mack theatre, and director Albert Schultz from Soulpepper Theatre dropped by CBC Radio's Mainstreet to talk about it, along with Adam Brazier, the artistic director of the Charlottetown Festival.

Schultz gave host Angela Walker a quick summary of the play.

"Here's a rousing subject for a musical, a bunch of people in a graveyard," he joked.

Close, but this is no zombie show. Instead, it's taken from a book of poems called The Spoon River Anthology, written 100 years ago by Edgar Lee Masters.

Each poem is from a person in one graveyard, and Schultz had a notion there was something there for the stage as well.

Music by Islander

As it turned out, it came to life thanks to P.E.I. musician Mike Ross, who started at the Charlottetown Festival, and has seen his career blossom at Soulpepper Theatre.

"When he was here in Charlottetown working at the festival over a decade ago, he started working on taking poetry, the poetry of Dennis Lee actually, and turning it into songs," explained Schultz.

"I had heard a lot of these songs, and so one day I was sitting in a meeting with him, and I went back to my office and I brought a Edgar Lee Masters, which is a book of poems, it's not a script, it's just a book of 250 poems, and I threw it in front of him and said, 'Have you read this? I think you should.' And the next day, he came in with two songs, and they're still in the show."

Natural fit for P.E.I.

That connection alone makes it a good one for the Charlottetown Festival, but Brazier said there's much more than that.

"Where it all began was me just going to see the play, and coming out and saying, okay, how do we get that?" he explained, saying he felt it was exactly right for Charlottetown audiences, both local and tourist.

"It's community, in that the show speaks about a community, and I believe that the people in the community of Spoon River are recognizable in your own community today," said Brazier. "And so it's very easy to find yourself, and your neighbours and your families in this play."

"I know that when Mike was writing it, he says it all the time, he was always thinking of home," added Schultz. "He was thinking this piece is so perfect for home, this reminds me so much of home."

Graveyard chats

Home, but in a graveyard too. Without giving too much away, Schultz explained a little of what to expect.

"In the book of poems it's written as you are a passerby walking past a grave, and as you read the name on that grave, that person speaks to you, and then you move to the next grave and they speak to you," said Schultz.

"So how do you do that with an audience? So we had to create an experience at Soulpepper where the audience has a different relationship than they are used to, they're actually involved in the piece from the beginning."

That had to be translated to the space at The Mack, and Brazier thinks the audience is in for a treat.

"This is going to be very different, it's going to be an amazingly wonderful experience, and something I encourage everybody to come and experience," he said. "What I love about it is it's showing The Mack in a way that allows the audience to really take it in better."

Spoon River will play from July 6 - August 20.

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