Advertisement

Culture Stage

Preview: Total class acts

BRANTWOOD: 1920-2020 created and directed by Mitchell Cushman and Julie Tepperman, with Suzanne Bennett, Claire Calnan, Ralph Small, Andrew Trithardt and the graduating class of Sheridan College’s music theatre performance program. Presented by Canadian Music Theatre Project at Brantwood School meet at Sheridan entrance (1430 Trafalgar, Oakville). Previews begin Tuesday (April 14), opens April 16 and runs to May 3, Tuesday-Sunday 7 pm. $35, parking at Sheridan $4 during the week, free on weekends. 905-815-4049, tickets.sheridancollege.ca.


If you’re over 18, odds are you have strong recollections of high school.

The ambitious, imaginative new musical Brantwood: 1920-2020 rounds up a century of such memories.

Two years ago, Sheridan College’s Michael Rubinoff invited Outside the March’s Mitchell Cushman and Convergence Theatre’s Julie Tepperman to co-create a site-specific show for the graduating class of the college’s music theatre performance program.

The two artists, who share a background in location-based, immersive theatre (Mr. Marmalade, The Gladstone Variations), have set their show at Brantwood, a school soon to close and be developed as a condo.

“What started out as a one-act play has exploded into a show with over 15 hours of scripted material, songs and dance numbers that unfold simultaneously,” says Tepperman. “We’ve come up with a show that begins in 1920 and has scenes set in every decade through 2015.”

The audience is bused to the school from Sheridan along with 38 students (who take on multiple roles) and four adults (actors Suzanne Bennett, Claire Calnan, Ralph Small and Andrew Trithardt) who play the school’s principals and teachers over the years. Viewers are alumni attending a ceremony when a 1920s time capsule is dug up.

“But opening the capsule creates a cosmic disturbance that takes us all back in time,” adds Cushman, “and after the opening ceremony, viewers can follow whomever they want for the rest of the three-hour show, changing characters when opportunity permits.”

High school, both writer/directors acknowledge, is a transformative time in many people’s lives, its social dynamics creating patterns we keep playing out.

Brantwood, which Cushman says “had its DNA blueprint forged last summer over four weeks at Stratford, where we cut-and-pasted a school project across a very big wall,” is a huge piece. Don’t expect even on several visits – the creators hope audiences will return more than once – to see the entire show.

You’ll appreciate whatever you watch, though, since the stories unfold in vignettes viewers can get something from every scene without prior knowledge of the action. You’re also sure to take part in the audience voyeurism that’s key to the production.

The 1920s plot involves an affair between a male teacher and a male student that leads to murder in the 30s and 40s, racism is central to the plot. The 70s deals with a porn movie, while the 60s and 90s are linked by Marilyn Monroe, an acid trip and a transgendered student.

Each decade has a musical highlight, too, composed by Bram Gielen, Anika Johnson and Britta Johnson.

“The songs are the show’s heartbeat, and they track the evolution of contemporary music over a century,” smiles Tepperman, who admits that over the course of the work’s creation she and Cushman began sharing a brain. Given the 15 hours a day they were working, they left their partners behind and rented an apartment in Oakville.

“We’re all so committed to the project, and we hope it will have life after this production,” admits Tepperman. “But this time around the show is an unusual graduating project for the students we wrote it with this specific group in mind.

“They’ve even asked for a sleepover at the school as their last hurrah.” 

jonkap@nowtoronto.com

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.