Local Broadway lovers gather for a sing-along at Segal Centre’s inclusive events
Broadway has a home away from home at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, and not just at its popular musical stage productions. Two events, the Broadway Café and Big Broadway Sing-along with Nick Burgess, pack in crowds of over 200 and form a rallying point for a vibrant and highly inclusive community.
Broadway Café was born a decade ago, the brainchild of artistic director Lisa Rubin. Think karaoke night infused with the magic of the Great White Way. There are no pre-recorded tracks; instead participants take turns to sing, accompanied by a pianist skilled at sightreading any music they bring with them.
“My husband and I had seen something like it while in Vienna, and thought: ‘Why not here?’ ” Rubin said. “It just seemed a natural fit for the Segal Centre — a place synonymous with musical theatre in Montreal.”
She still provides some 50 songbooks for use at the events, now held about six times a year. The wildly popular evenings attract a mix of professional and amateur performers. All are welcome to sign up for a turn at the mic or to just be part of the enthusiastic audience.
The Broadway Cafés have become the place to see and be seen for Montreal’s passionate musical theatre community, said Mélanie Thompson, Segal Centre communications manager, who now runs the project. “They fill an important niche, providing a fun and supportive place for musical theatre artists to practise their craft.”
She liaises with local community groups that put on musicals. Broadway Café performers may belong to such companies as Contact Theatre, Côte Saintluc Dramatic Society and WISTA. Thompson also recruits hosts for each from the musical theatre ranks. They tend to be local performers like Richard Jutras, who starred in the Segal’s production of The Hockey Sweater.
“Anyone I ask to host a Broadway Café event usually jumps at the chance,” Thompson said. “The role has a certain prestige, it seems.”
Such was the case with local multidisciplinary performer and drag artist Abby Long (a play on “I Belong” that she always follows with “and so do you”), who will co-host the upcoming Diva Edition on April 18 with Anton May. Celebrating the great women of musical theatre — from Barbra Streisand to Patti Lupone to Bernadette Peters — is just up this performer’s alley. It was at a Broadway Café in 2018 that she embraced her new persona. Unsure of the reception, with trepidation she sang the appropriately titled song “Safer” from First Date.
“Broadway Café was the first place I felt comfortable expressing this new persona in a non-drag setting,” Long said. “I felt safe to try something new in a space where I was already a regular, and be welcomed and accepted anyway. Which might just be the definition of inclusiveness.”
She will be passing on that feeling as host, doing her best to make everyone feel welcome. Long’s hosting duties will include an opening number, then calling up the participants. With hilarious patter in between and audience participation with Broadway trivia and games like Name that Tune, it’s set to be an evening to remember.
There is an age restriction because the lobby bar is open and usually does brisk business. But people of all ages will be welcome on Sunday, May 31, at the special Any Age Goes Edition.
Inclusivity is what inspired the creator of Big Broadway Sing-along with Nick Burgess four years ago. These events, held about three times a year, give everyone who attends a chance to gather around the piano and warble a show tune or two — or many, many more.
“I got the idea from one of New York’s famous piano bars,” Burgess said. “I was blown away the first time I went to one that is all about show tunes, Marie’s Crisis. There was all the magic of Broadway plus the fun of an old-school pub singalong.”
A multitalented pianist, singer, arranger, Burgess has been directing musicals in the city for over 14 years. At the Sing-along, he takes on the task of hosting and leading the singing, as well as tickling the ivories. Lyrics are projected onto a screen behind him, to help everyone get in the swing.
He is busy scanning his repertoire for the next event on April 4. For every event, he lines up a wide range of tunes from about 80 musicals. Since these events attract a multigenerational audience, he tries to mix time-honoured classics with the new and less-familiar.
His favourite part of the evening is watching the generational exchanges — the younger crowd joining the older for a classic tune from Sound of Music or South Pacific, and the under-30s returning the favour for a more contemporary show like Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen.
“It’s indescribable what happens when you get a crowd of 200 people singing in harmony,” Burgess said. “It’s like we’re all in this together, united by the magic that is Broadway.”
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