Q&A: 2012 Global Cabaret Festival

Young Centre resident artist Mike Ross. Photo by Jason Hudson.

This weekend the Young Centre for the Performing Arts will be transformed into a Cabaret venue, where over 150 of Canada’s leading performance artists will work together to create 20 original one-hour shows for the fifth annual Global Cabaret Festival. Featured artists include Brent Carver, Patricia O’Callaghan and Michael Hughes. Here, we chat with actor Gregory Prest and Young Centre resident artist Mike Ross about the Spoon River Cabaret, an original musical interpretation of Edgar Lee Masters’ 1915 collection of haunting poems, and more.

Theatromania: Tell us about Spoon River Cabaret. How would you describe this performance?

GP: Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology is a collection of poems that collectively
describe the life of the fictional small town of Spoon River. The characters speak from the grave, recounting their lives, deaths, observations and grievances. Mike Ross has adapted some of them and set others to music. He describes it as a piece of concert theatre—Oh Brother Where Art Thou meets Prairie Home Companion. We sit in a formation resembling a cemetery and rise when it’s our turn to speak our poem or gather to sing. Each of us play multiple characters from the town. It’s moving, funny, haunting, beautiful and the music is fantastic

Theatromania: Mike, what inspired you to set Edgar Lee Masters’ words to music?

MR: Albert Schultz actually gave me the book and said it might something that’s in
my “wheelhouse.” Next thing I know I can’t put it down and the songs are flyin.'

Theatromania: The Cabaret also features Soulpepper founding members Stuart Hughes, Nancy Palk and Joseph Ziegler. What roles do they play?

GP: Nancy, Stuart and Joe play various characters in the town, sing and play instruments
as well. Characters such as William and Emily, Margaret Fuller Slack, Washington McNeely, Roscoe Purkapile, Wendell P. Boyd and Fiddler Jones.

Theatromania: Mike, you are also directing the Elvis Cabaret. Can you tell us a bit about that show?

MR: It’s a series of tributes to Elvis. Re-imaginings of Elvis and more. Who knows? Maybe the real deal will show up!

Theatromania: What excites you most about the Global Cabaret Festival?

GP: The energy in the building is exciting with hundreds of people dashing through the atrium to catch the next amazing concert. The artists involved are always superb—especially this year’s lineup. It’s always interesting to watch and be surrounded by the usually chill and easy vibe of musicians in the greenrooms and backstage hallways—spaces that a week ago were being paced and stretched in, in preparation for Death of a Salesman or The Crucible. The energy of the festival is friendly, confident and not careful. I love that.

MR: I agree it’s the energy in the building. The likelihood that you walk through any door and are blown away by something you see or hear.

Check out the Global Cabaret Festival this weekend (October 12 to 14) at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. Visit globalcabaret.ca for more information and to buy tickets.