Journey to acceptance in LGBTQ musical
The collaboration between Saskatchewan’s award-winning playwright and folk-pop singer-songwriter produces an uplifting musical about a group of teens’ journey to find acceptance and identity at LGBTQ camp, Jeff DeDekker writes.
US
Where: Globe Theatre When: March 1 — March 18 Jeffery Straker got a little more than he bargained for when he agreed to collaborate on a musical production with Kelley Jo Burke.
A successful playwright, Burke felt that Straker would be the perfect fit for her latest production, Us. Straker agreed to the collaboration with the initial commitment on his part being to provide four songs.
But as the two began to work together, Straker’s commitment changed dramatically.
“The initial conversation with Kelley was about using some of my existing songs in the play. I thought that was a fantastic and flattering request,” said Straker. “When I read the story and got a good idea of what the story was going to be, I wanted to make her some new songs that might work even better .... It was a very organic evolution of the whole thing.
“Once I wrote some new songs, then simultaneously I was curious if I could write more and she was open to hearing more and one thing led to another and then there were 17 (songs),” he added with a laugh.
Burke and Straker found they worked well together but the collaboration was rather unique. They rarely worked in the same geographic spot but thanks to modern technology, they were able to make it work.
“I would get an idea of how a scene might go and I would send if off to Jeff. He might find a spot where he felt a song would fit. He’d be like sitting in the Maple Leaf Lounge at the Toronto airport and he’d bang off a song, demo it into his phone and then email it to me,” explained Burke. “I’d go, ‘Yeah, I love it, but I’m thinking maybe a slightly different tempo,’ and he’d bang off another version before he got on his plane that was perfect and it would enter the play.
“Every time a song would enter the play, my understanding of the story changed as well so it really was a co-creation, from the time Jeff started writing music for the show.”
Us is a musical about finding your identity, having the courage to embrace it and discovering that when people are in your corner, you can do anything.
Inspired by Camp fYrefly, a leadership retreat in Saskatchewan for LGBTQ youth, Us follows a group of teens at a camp where they now find themselves in the majority, as opposed to every day society where they are the minority.
“The big theme of the story is the notion of being in the majority and it’s all about the campers looking for acceptance in that community while simultaneously looking for acceptance and understanding of themselves,” said Straker. “The way I’ve come to look at the work in a big picture way is that everybody in the world, until their dying day, struggles a little bit with how they fit in and how they accept themselves. The lens that Kelley Jo wrote this story to tell that message through is at this camp and it’s so present and so topical. I really think that it will resonate.”
Burke also believes that everyone should be able to take something away from the story.
“I think it will resonate with a reasonably broad audience. We’ve really built the show to make everyone in the audience feel welcome so that nobody sitting there feels like they’re watching somebody else’s club,” said Burke. “It’s a show about identity. It’s a show about learning to love yourself. It’s a show about learning to accept love from other people. I don’t think anyone in the room hasn’t dealt with those questions. This is a particular context with these particular characters.”
On Oct. 29, the production received the Stage West Pechet Musical Award from the Playwrights Guild of Canada as the best new theatre production in development for 2017. The national honour was affirmation for Burke and Straker that their work was at the level to which they had strived.
Now they wait for the world premiere on Globe Theatre’s main stage on March 1. That’s not as easy as it sounds.
“It’s always a challenge when presenting a new work. Being received by an audience is the final part of the process for the development of new work,” said Burke. “The wonderful and terrible thing is Jeffery and I are going to have to sit in the audience and listen to the response and hear what went right and what needs work and that’s going to have to happen in real time, live. But that’s fantastic and it’s the only way it will get better.”
The cast is comprised of David Light, Daniel Fong, Angela Kemp and Kaitlyn Semple, with each actor playing multiple roles.
The creative team is comprised of Valerie Ann Pearson (director and musical director), Johanna Bundon (choreographer), Wes D. Pearce (set and costume design), Wendy (Greenwood) Lundgren (lighting designer), Jeremy Sauer (sound designer), Nathan Coppens (assistant director), Kenilee Kehler (stage manager), Alana Freistadt (assistant stage manager) and Craig Salkeld (performance pianist).