CHOREOGRAPHER PATTERSON MAKING ALL THE RIGHT MOVES
Most people who caught the first instalment of Captain Aurora the Musical at 2016’s Wild Side festival will agree that one of the highlights was the appearance of Terrence the Terrific Tapper, a wildly camp villain straight out of Adam Westera Batman. It was an appropriate role for Jonathan Patterson, who also choreographed the show: Terrence’s dastardly superpower was the ability to make everybody literally dance to his tune.
The 34-year-old choreographer, director and actor put those superpowers to memorable use throughout 2016. He choreographed Centaur Theatre’s gloriously silly Last Night at the Gayety at Centaur, creating (with burlesque consultant Holly Gauthier-Frankel) witty and vivacious variations on 1950s bump ’n’ grind.
With one foot firmly in the professional and the other in the independent theatre world, Patterson also mapped out the moves for the Yiddish version of The Producers, which played at the Segal in a co-production from the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre and Côte St-Luc Dramatic Society. He also gave a fantastic performance as that show’s cross-dressing director Roger De Bris, belting out Springtime For Hitler with hilariously mincing bad taste.
2016 also saw him performing in the musical A Song of Fiction, Kaleidoscope Theatre’s follow-up to Captain Aurora, as well as keeping busy with various operatic and educational organizations.
2017 looks like being a busy year for Patterson too. One of the shows he’s been given the all-clear to announce is Black Theatre Workshop’s Blue Nose, for which he’ll be choreographing the zany pirateship action. As well as working on several shows here in Montreal (for Opera McGill, the Segal Academy, the Lyric Theatre Singers), he’ll also be going further afield to Sudbury and Thousand Islands to perform and act as music director in the musical Million Dollar Quartet.
Terrence the Terrific Tapper has hung up his cape for now, but clearly his spirit lives on.
My wish for 2017: With Centaur Theatre aiming to announce Roy Surette’s successor in January, here’s hoping she or he will preserve Surette’s big-hearted sense of fun, but with the tough artistic vision appropriate to the political turbulence coming our way from Jan. 20.