Mickey & Judy walk the yellow brick road back to Oz in new play
Actor turns his childhood passions and traumas into an award-winning show
When Michael Hughes was a child, he was confused because he wasn’t allowed to join Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion on their journey to see the Wizard of Oz.
Michael didn’t just want to watch the old Judy Garland film on video. He wanted to be in that movie and, more importantly, he wanted to be Dorothy.
He became deeply troubled when his parents contemplated taking all the women’s clothes out of the dress-up box.
It was at this point Michael’s mother decided it was time she sought professional help for her son fearing that, when it was time for him to go to school, he would be bullied and ridiculed.
So it was off to the Clark Institute in Toronto and weekly meetings with psychiatrists and psychologists.
“My parents still point out I was such a happy baby until I watched The Wizard of Oz. Suddenly I was singing all the time and dressing up, mostly in women’s clothes,” says Hughes, who turned his childhood passions and traumas into an award-winning solo show called Mickey & Judy, which runs at Lunchbox Theatre until Oct. 6.
Those doctors at the Clark Institute worked their magic because Hughes “spent so much of my high school years trying to fit in, trying not to act crazy or stand out. I didn’t want to be a target.”
Hughes became an actor and all but forgot about his years at the Clark Institute until he received a letter from there.
“They were doing a study on all the children who had been treated at the Institute for gender dysphoria and wondered if I would be willing to come in and participate.
“When the doctor started discussing my case and reading from my file I realized I didn’t recognize that person the notes were about and that made me really sad,” says Hughes, explaining “that kid he was talking about was amazing. He was funny, carefree and wildly imaginative.”
He asked for copies of his file and they gave him 50 pages which he took home and kept reading over and over.
One of Hughes’ closest friends, Sharron Matthews, a cabaret artist who brought Girl Crush to Lunchbox Theatre, saw the makings for a show in his situation.
“Sharon immediately asked when I was going to start writing a show about me and that kid in the notes. I protested, but she insisted, and in 2011 I presented Mickey & Judy at the Toronto Fringe Festival.
“I was terrified. I was sure audiences were going to hate my show.” Quite the contrary. Mickey & Judy won best of fest that summer, and the next summer Hughes was invited to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and then to the Leicester Square Theatre in London and the Duplex Theatre
(I) spent so much of my high school years trying to fit in, trying not to act crazy or stand out. I didn’t want to be a target.
in New York.
His Lunchbox Theatre engagement is Hughes’ first time gracing a Calgary stage, but not an Alberta one.
“My first job out of acting school was with O Canada Eh? dinner theatre in Canmore 13 years ago. I ditched them to go to Japan and work for the Disney theme park. I was a singer and dancer and, for most of those two years, my leading lady was Minnie Mouse.”
There’s no animosity between Hughes and StoryBook Theatre’s JP Thibodeau, who was the artistic director of Oh Canada Eh? at the time. Hughes got Thibodeau to design the set and lighting for his Lunchbox show.
Hughes says Mickey & Judy “is about my journey to find the amazing kid in those doctors’ notes.”