They all agree: there’s a certain buzz about New Westminster these days, a sense of energy and vibrancy that pervades the city, especially in the downtown core.
Which makes it the perfect time to team up to make that buzz happen on the theatre scene.
Royal City Musical Theatre, the Massey Theatre and Patrick Street Productions are joining forces to bring Rodgers and Hammerstein: Out of a Dream to the stage at the Anvil Centre this week.
Out of a Dream is a musical revue that pays homage to the work of the prolific Broadway songwriting duo of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It’s onstage April 29 through May 3 – and Patrick Street Productions’ Katey Wright couldn’t be more excited.
“I’m thrilled to be able to bring this to New Westminster,” says Wright, one-half of the husband-and-wife team that makes up the artistic producer team of Patrick Street Productions.
Out of a Dream was created by the other half, Peter Jorgensen, originally for a run last year at Vancouver’s York Theatre. The company brought the production back to life this year – with some new cast members, new costumes and a few tweaks here and there – for a tour that includes a run at Gateway Theatre, at Coquitlam’s Evergreen Cultural Centre and at the Chilliwack Centre for the Arts.
The run at Anvil Centre came up when the company found itself with a one-week hole in its tour schedule and broached the idea of a stint right here at home (Wright and Jorgensen, as it happens, live just up the hill).
They quickly found an enthusiastic welcome from Jessica Schneider, executive director of the Massey Theatre, which also runs the new 360-seat theatre at Anvil Centre. And Royal City Musical Theatre was happy to come on board as a co-presenter.
RCMT’s Chelsea McPeake notes the company – which stages one large-scale Broadway musical at the Massey Theatre each spring and is just winding up this year’s run of My Fair Lady – was excited to be able to take on another project.
“I don’t think the company has ever presented somebody else’s work,” she says, noting this gives the company a chance to offer more theatre choices for its audience. “This is a nice opportunity for us.”
Schneider points out that having Patrick Street stage a production in the new Anvil Centre space is a win for everyone: it highlights the beautiful new theatre at Anvil Centre, it opens up more theatregoing opportunities to RCMT’s already loyal audience, and it brings Patrick Street Productions’ homegrown but still relatively locally unknown work to a new audience.
“What’s good for one company is good for everybody,” says Wright. “It engages audiences more deeply, and in larger numbers. It’s encouraging for all of us.”
Jorgensen laughingly calls Out of a Dream his “gateway drug” to Patrick Street Productions’ work. The company has a mission to present professional productions of contemporary musical theatre that might not otherwise be seen in Vancouver. With Out of a Dream, the company is tapping into the popularity of Rodgers and Hammerstein – “it’s really nostalgic for people who grew up with this music,” he points out – but also exploring much of the boundary-pushing work the duo created. The show contains some 40 numbers, with something from each of the 11 shows they created together – from the classic hits such as The Sound of Music, South Pacific and Oklahoma to lesser-known offerings such as Allegro and Flower Drum Song.
Jorgensen and Wright hope that Out of a Dream will help encourage some audience members to break out of their comfort zone when it comes to musical theatre and be willing to take a chance on some of Patrick Street Productions’ future presentations, even if those productions aren’t as familiar as Rodgers and Hammerstein.
In the meantime, the two are embracing the chance to work in the Anvil Centre theatre.
“A new space is always tremendously exciting,” Wright says, adding she was captivated by the theatre the first time she saw it. “I felt right away that it was warm and that it had been done right.”
And, Jorgensen points out, the Anvil Centre is right in the middle of a growing and vibrant area.
“It’s quite exciting with so much development going on around here,” he says. “It’s such a great neighbourhood, there’s such a real cool energy here.”
They’re hoping the Anvil Centre will do for the downtown what the revitalized Stanley Theatre did for the South Granville area, bringing a new sense of life to the area and helping to encourage a diverse business base.
Schneider notes that with the abundance of new, creative-type businesses opening downtown – from food to craft beer to coffee to juice – there’s an energy that everyone can benefit from. She sees a chance for all kinds of future partnerships amongst businesses, artists and the wide mix of arts groups that are already hard at work in New West.
“New West has a huge and strong community of artists of all types and all generations,” she says, adding the arts community is rallying around the changes – and she sees the Anvil Centre at the core of that. “We all intend to play a role in the next phase of the development of our city.”
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Rodgers and Hammerstein: Out of a Dream is onstage at the Anvil Centre, 777 Columbia St., from April 29 to May 3. It features Peter Jorgensen, alongside fellow New West actor Sayer Roberts, plus Jennifer Andersen, Katie Murphy and Eva Tavares.
Evening shows are at 7:30 p.m., with a 1 p.m. matinee on April 30 and 2 p.m. matinees on May 2 and 3. NOTE: The Thursday, April 30 evening show is a special sing-along edition. Tickets are $32 to $34, with special pricing for the weekday matinee. Call 604-521-5050 or see ticketsnw.ca to buy.
See www.patrickstreetproductions.com for more information.
