Jan Alexandra Smith directed Fascinating Ladies at Lunchbox Theatre.

Catherine O’Brien on how she worked all the fabulous music in Fascinating Ladies:

It’s International Women’s Day on Thursday May 8th*, so it’s fitting that Lunchbox Theatre’s Artistic Director Pamela Halstead should choose this week to open a show that centres around women, both on stage and off. Fascinating Ladies tells the story of three cousins who get together to sing at their music-loving grandmother’s 100th birthday party.  As described on the Lunchbox website, “some unexpected secrets get revealed as they travel down memory lane through her trunks and journals. As they explore their grandmother’s life through song, their own hopes, fears, and secrets are revealed as well. A delightful journey through a life and decades of music”.

As I have previously written, I generally don’t go for revues  or jukebox musicals that are based on popular (usually nostalgic) music, but in this case, there’s enough of a story to keep things interesting throughout (I laughed, I cried  – yes, even at Lunchbox you’d better be prepared to bring a hankie if, like me, you’re the weepy sort – and I felt like singing; so my three prime criteria for an entertaining musical were met).  The premise also creates a believable excuse for breaking into song (over and over) as the women prepare for their concert.

The cousins, Patty, Francine and Louise, are portrayed by three strong singer-actresses (forgive me if you prefer the term actors for both men and women) who are no strangers to the Calgary professional stage: Katherine Fadum, Esther Purves-Smith, and Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan, respectively.  All three characters are very distinctive, both physically and in personality, and I feel the ensemble, under the direction of Jan Alexandra Smith works well together. I particularly enjoyed a funny scene in which they reenact the night where their grandmother’s band played both the Orangemen’s Hall and The Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society (I think) simultaneously, so as not to offend either group, and run up and down stage, alternately singing songs in French and English, until they feign exhaustion.

If the names of the cousins are strikingly close to those of the The Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxine and Laverne), I’m sure that’s no accident. (If you’ve never heard of the Andrews Sisters, you just might be a tad young for this show). The music hails from the swing, big band and boogie-woogie era, the wonderful tight harmonies are intentionally reminiscent of their style, and the show features many of the songs they made famous.  In fact, in the trio’s medley of wartime hits – Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy, Sentimental Journey, and In the Mood – you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

I like that the songs are a mix of the familiar and songs I hadn’t heard before and that they occasionally throw in a change from the usual keyboard musical accompaniment (by Musical Director Joe Slabe, who along with Lighting and Sound Designer Jason Schwarz is one of only two men on the production team) with Esther Purves-Smith on guitar and ukulele, tracks from old records (or what sounded like old records) and even a music box.  I also was impressed with the period props that lend an authentic air to the set (not sure who should get the kudos here: presumably any or all of set designer Becky Solly, Stage Manager Kelsey Ter Kuile or Apprentice Stage Manager Megan Gurnsey), and with costume designer Rebecca Toon’s perfect choice of dresses for the finale – no doubt aided and abetted in the dressing room by costume assistant, Shannon Iwamoto.

All in all, this isn’t a musical I would normally choose to see (other than the fact that it’s Canadian, and I do have a soft spot for Canadian writers), but I found it a pleasant way to spend an extended lunch hour, and I think most people who like Lunchbox shows, and particularly seniors, will think so too. And certainly, if you want to support and celebrate fascinating ladies in theatre you can’t ask for a much better opportunity.

Fascinating Ladies plays at Lunchbox Theatre until March 24^th.  Show times are Monday to Saturday at 12:10PM, Friday at 6:10 pm and Saturday at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $20 for adults, $17 for seniors and students.  Note that although the website says the running time is approximately 50 minutes, it’s actually about an hour, which is long for Lunchbox plays, so plan accordingly.

*In case you’re wondering, International Men’s Day is November 19th.

Esther Purves-Smith, left, as Francine, Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan as Louise and Katherine Fadum as Patty, in Lunchbox Theatre’s new musical Fascinating Ladies, offer an entertaining snapshot of a family. Photograph by: Chantelle Kolesnik , Calgary Herald

Grandma had a secret life.

But maybe secret is the wrong word. The grandma in question (whom we never meet), in Catherine O’Brien’s Fascinating Ladies, a sprightly musical revue with a big heart, isn’t so much secretive as she is so very well-lived.

About to turn 100, three of her granddaughters — Patty (Katherine Fadum), Francine (Esther Purves-Smith) and Louise (Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan) have gathered at grandma’s house to prepare it for a big 100th birthday celebration.

The house is a jumble of party props and the memorabilia accumulated from a century’s worth of living.

And what a life! There was eight years spent studying music and singing in Montreal; a stint in London during the Second World War and touring the English countryside with a travelling band, before a serendipitous reunion with a maritime childhood sweetheart produces a long, happy marriage, children and, ultimately, the grandchildren who have all grown up to have secret lives of their own, too.

Louise is a media type from Vancouver who’s been offered a big job promotion. Francine is a barren closet singer who got divorced and thinks of her life as over at 42; while Patty, the youngest of the trio, teaches piano and fends off the advances of admiring students.

It’s all a bit of an excuse for the three to burst into song at any given moment, which they do with regularity (assisted by musical director Joe Slabe), revisiting a whole grandma’s lifetime worth of classics: Alexander’s Ragtime Band, In the Mood, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and all manner of Irving Berlin songs.

However, what makes Fascinating Ladies fly is that hidden among all of that rec-room randomness, and reminiscing and speculating about their sick old grandma, lies a story that shifts the way that each of the three grandchildren think about their grandmother.

Spearheading the search for grandma’s deep, dark secret is Louise, who won’t play nice and put down the journal the women discover, despite the best efforts of Francine to let sleeping dogs lie.

Stepkowski Tarhan’s Louise is a big personality with an endless fascination with the truth — in other words, a pain in the ass, but a loving pain in the ass to the two others, and Stepkowski Tarhan invests her with all manner of life.

Purves-Smith’s Francine is beaten down by life, right down to her limp, flat haircut — until a song comes along, and she transforms back into someone in love with life. Francine might suffer in the charisma department against the ebullient Louise and pretty Patty, but Purves-Smith has a nice way with a mousey character.

Katherine Fadum’s Patty is the youngest, and vaguest of the three, someone who doesn’t quite seem to know how to get her life on track, and Fadum plays her smartly, letting her flounder her way through to giving her life a sense of direction.

Fascinating Ladies might cause you take a second look at your grandma’s life — that’s the lesson the trio eventually discover, in a charmer of a show (well-directed by Jan Alexadra-Smith) that delivers its heartfelt wisdom with a song.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Fascinating+Ladies+deliver+
heartfelt+wisdom+with+song/6254452/story.html#ixzz1oMfLqy5D

Press Release/Media Call
For Immediate Release – August 19^th 2011

Calgary, AB – Lunchbox brings the East to the West with The Whimsy State or the Principality of Outer Baldonia, by AJ Demers this April! The Whimsy State runs April 2^nd to 21^st and features Graham Percy as Russ Arundel, David LeReaney as Elson / Miguel, Sheldon Davis as Ron and Karen Johnson-Diamond as Anna / Flo.  The play is based on a true story – of a Washington lawyer and two Nova Scotian fishermen who buy a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia and declare it a sovereign nation, but run into trouble when they declare war on the Soviet Union.

“When I read AJ Demer’s play, I knew it had to be in Stage One,” says Pamela Halstead, who directs They Whimsy State and is Artistic Director of Lunchbox Theatre. “AJ did a lot of research into the history, going to Nova Scotia and spending a lot of time in the archives for the area, and the part of the story that’s fictionalized is the love interest. When it was a hit at Stage One in 2010, I knew this fabulous and hilarious true story about freedom taking to ridiculous lengths had to be a part of our season.”

The Whimsy State or the Principality of Outer Baldonia features Sheldon Davis as Ron, Karen Johnson-Diamond as Anna / Flo, David LeReaney as Elson / Miguel and Graham Percy as Russ Arundel. The production team features director Pamela Halstead, costume designer Deitra Kalyn, set and lighting designer Scott Reid and stage manager Patti Neice. The Whimsy State or the Principality of Outer Baldonia runs April 2^nd to 21^st, Monday to Saturday at 12:10 pm, Fridays at 6:10pm and Saturdays at 7:30 pm.

The world’s longest running lunchtime theatre, Lunchbox Theatre is a professional company that caters to downtown office workers over the noon-hour by producing seven plays per season, as well as the Suncor Energy Stage One Festival and the Emerging Director Program. Lunchbox Theatre is located at the base of the Calgary Tower.

Media are invited to a Media Call on Monday, April 2 at 1:15 pm.

1:15 pm – B-Roll of The Whimsy State or the Principality of Outer Baldonia (2 minute scene)
1:30 pm – Interviews as requested with actors Sheldon Davis, Karen Johnson-Diamond, David LeReaney and Graham Percy, playwright AJ Demers, or drector and Lunchbox Theatre’s Artistic Director, Pamela Halstead.

www.lunchboxtheatre.com

For more information, to RSVP, or to request an interview:
Kathryn Blair
Marketing and Communications
Lunchbox Theatre
403 265 4292 x 229
kathryn.blair@lunchboxtheatre.com