The rural P.E.I. music hall that makes history pop

Mike Ross and Nicole Bellamy left Prince Edward Island for Toronto many years ago to establish careers in the performing arts. Over nearly two decades, the couple became fixtures in the worlds of theatre and music. But after becoming parents, they felt the call to return to the island, and made the move back as a family of four in 2020.

While settling back into their Maritime home, they came across a music hall in the town of Hunter River, P.E.I., that was for sale. Though Ross was unsure, it was "risk-averse" Bellamy who pushed to purchase the space. The couple bought the venue, known as Harmony House, in November 2020. Since opening, Ross has employed many artists from across the island, developed a loyal audience and built the majority of Harmony House's original productions himself.

Ross, who previously served as Soulpepper Theatre's music director, always felt a calling to music and storytelling, and to combining these together. "If there was a certain amount of context provided around the performance of a piece of music, that always really enthralled me," he says. This fusion was somewhat satiated by theatre — which includes elements of design, storytelling and music — but once back in P.E.I., he concentrated on a format he has dubbed the "docu-concert." 

Harmony House's docu-concerts use pop songs as a vehicle for historical storytelling. The show Inside American Pie, for example, does a line-by-line breakdown of Don McLean's hit song American Pie, explaining references to historical events, figures and popular music, while also offering commentary related to the present. Last March, they took the show from Hunter River to Mirvish's CAA Theatre in Toronto for a run of sold-out performances. And this summer, it will be Harmony House's fifth season performing Inside American Pie on the island. 

They're also just about to debut a brand new show. Fifty years ago, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank beneath Lake Superior, taking all 29 crew members with it. The shipwreck was immortalized in song by the great Canadian songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. On Friday, Harmony House will begin previewing its new production, Inside the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which explores the story of the ill-fated ship.

During his time with Soulpepper, Ross created docu-concerts inspired by all sorts of subjects, including distant time periods and major historical events. "We've made shows about Paris in the '20s," he says. "[It's] post-World-War-I, everybody's traumatized and this insane art explosion came out of that … with Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein." He's even done a show about the Voyager Golden Record — the album NASA shot into space aboard the Voyager spacecrafts in 1977.

To create the docu-concerts, Ross and co-writer Sarah Wilson begin by building two lists: one of songs tied to the subject matter and another of storylines they want to tell. The pair then find natural relationships between the elements. With Inside American Pie, for example, Ross selected the Creedence Clearwater Revival song Bad Moon Rising "to talk about the end of the 1960s and not knowing what was going to come next," he says. "We've always known the upbeat version; you've never heard it as the apocalyptic, dystopian song that it is." The lyrics — which go: "Hope you got your things together. Hope you're quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. There's a bad moon on the rise" — are actually quite "foreboding" when you remove CCR's happy tune, Ross says. "There's an awakening happening for the listener. It's nostalgia, but it's interpreted nostalgia. It has a really wonderful energy." 

One of the musicians who's been working with Ross on Inside American Pie and other shows is Brielle Ansems. She has been singing and playing music since a young age, but she was unsure about making the leap into a music career because of the lack of financial stability. It was after working a season at Watermark Theatre in North Rustico, P.E.I, that Ansems was invited to perform in a festival Ross was putting together. "I remember showing up and working with him for the first time and just feeling that something clicked into place," Ansems says. 

Afterward, Ross asked the young performer if she was interested in joining a new show he was building with Wilson about the song American Pie. Ansems was intending to move back home, more than an hour away from Harmony House, but she wanted this opportunity to work with Ross so badly that she stayed. 

"I ended up staying with Mike and Nicole and their family every weekend that summer while we did Inside American Pie," she says, "and it immediately felt like this was exactly what I'd been looking for. It's rare that you come across something that is so rewarding artistically, working with people who you connect with on a really intense, emotional and artistic level."

For Ansems, the experience of bringing Inside American Pie to Toronto's CAA Theatre has been surreal. "We're all honoured to be getting that kind of attention for the show that we all care a lot about. But it felt like we were just bringing a piece of home with us and just sharing that home with other people. We had three weeks where we were doing eight shows a week and it was so intense. Then we got home and … we kind of can't believe that it actually happened."

Harmony House has changed Ansems's life. She is now able to work full time as a performing artist between Harmony House and other shows, while also pursuing her own musical endeavours. "It means so much to be able to do this as a career and to have found something that is sustainable, rewarding work in a place where we're treated really well."

Completing its final performance earlier this month, Ansems recently led the creation of her own Harmony House show, entitled Soundtrack Songbook. Ross has seen the success of the docu-concert format and he hopes it continues to thrive long past his time at the helm. 

" There's a community of incredible island artists and storytellers here that have been part of these shows … that are really now starting to understand the format in a way that they can become the captains of their own shows," he says. "We're trying to expand things so that I'm not the only one making these shows."

Preview performances of Inside the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald run May 23-June 7 at Harmony House in Hunter River, P.E.I.