Ben Caplan takes Old Stock on the road
Hamilton-born singer is releasing an album of the music he wrote for hit off-Broadway play
FOR THE PAST SEVEN WEEKS, six days a week, Ben Caplan has been singing, dancing and preaching his way through the critically acclaimed off-Broadway production of “Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story.”
He’s the star of the show, in the role of The Wanderer, narrator of the play, delivering his lines in a powerful voice that lies somewhere between the baritone of Paul Robeson and rasp of Tom Waits.
Caplan wrote much of the music for the play, which focuses on the experience of two Romanian Jews building new lives after landing at Halifax in 1908.
It sounds like a gruelling schedule — having to perform every night, except for Mondays, in front of a paying crowd of 200 or so patrons in downtown Manhattan, just a few blocks away from the centre of the musical theatre universe.
In fact, it was more like a holiday for Caplan. The Hamilton-born singer-songwriter is used to touring with a band, playing nightly, but each night a different venue usually in a different city.
“In a certain way it represents relaxation from the kind of work I’ve been used to,” Caplan said recently from the New York apartment he shared with other cast members of “Old Stock.”
“We don’t have to sound check every day. We don’t have to load the gear in and out. It’s actually really luxurious.”
For Caplan, the real grind began April 22 when “Old Stock” ended its run at New York’s 59E59 Theaters. That’s when Caplan and his band had to start preparing for their next tour, which opens May 1 at Hamilton’s Mills Hardware.
The tour will take him through a series of Ontario and Quebec club dates before he flies to Edmonton for a five-night run of “Old Stock.”
The last week in May takes Caplan to Europe — three dates in Poland, then the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, back to Switzerland — and then back to North America for 10 dates in the northeastern U.S. A fall tour in western Europe has already been mapped out.
Still, even with the club dates, Caplan is still pushing “Old Stock.” In June, Caplan will release the album “Old Stock,” which features a dozen songs he wrote for the musical. There’s a good chance, he’ll perform some of the songs when he’s here in Hamilton.
The play, which garnered four-star reviews when it opened in 2017 at the world famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is still very much alive. Caplan will be treading the boards again next April when “Old Stock” opens a six-week run at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre.
“Old Stock” will be Caplan’s third studio album in seven years. His unique blend of blues, roots and East European traditional folk, has won him two East Coast Music Awards and a Hamilton Music Award.
Caplan, now based in Halifax, was born and raised in Hamilton, a Westdale high school graduate and son of realtor Judi Caplan and the late Ward 1 councillor Marvin Caplan.
Caplan moved to Nova Scotia to pursue a degree in philosophy and history at the University of King’s College and began his musical career singing in Halifax coffee houses.
“Old Stock” is loosely based on the immigrant experience of the greatgrandparents of cowriter Hannah Moscovitch.
Caplan, however, sees parallels in the way his own great-grandparents came to Canada from Poland.
“It’s absolutely the same impetus that sent them across the ocean,” says Caplan, noting the play’s title came from a comment by former prime minister Stephen Harper describing the nation’s early immigrants.
“There was a lot of social unrest and violence directed toward Jews in Poland, Romania and the western portions of the Russian empire. It’s a very common story.”
Despite his years on the road as a travelling musician, Caplan attributes his success on stage to his summers at Theatre Aquarius where he studied under Lou Zamprogna.
“Absolutely, I use it every day,” Caplan says. “All of those things I learned at Theatre Aquarius play a huge role in my life as a performer and have for the last decade. I don’t think there’s a time that I’ve walked on stage in front of an audience and not called upon something I learned at Theatre Aquarius.”
All of those things I learned at Theatre Aquarius play a huge role in my life as a performer. BEN CAPLAN