The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Building a New Musical in Canada

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

When so much of the musical theatre available in Canada is based off of existing stories, what does it take to create a fully original musical? We hear from Britta Johnson, the composer and lyricist of the musical "Life After," which returns to Toronto at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renew your 2.0 TVO with more thought-provoking documentaries, insightful current affairs coverage, and fun programs and learning experiences for kids. Regular contributions from people like you help us make a difference in the lives of Ontarians of all ages. Visit tvo.me slash 2025 donate to renew your support or make a first-time donation and continue to discover your 2.TVO. He was like a father figure to me. Unfortunately, found myself in a very vulnerable position. This is a story about a psychiatrist in Toronto accused of abusing two of his patients, which he denies.

It's also a story about a system that is supposed to protect patients. From TVO Podcasts, I'm Krisha Collier, and this is The Oath. Subscribe today wherever you listen. When we think of musical theater today, we might think of the big productions such as The Lion King or Mean Girls, which are typically based on very familiar stories.

So what does it take to produce an original musical in Canada when that's your competition? Britta Johnson might just have the answer. She is a composer and lyricist and also the creator of Life After, a musical about a teenage girl dealing with grief, which makes its return to the stage at the CAA Ed Mervish Theater in downtown Ontario's capital city. And here's Britta Johnson joining us now for more. So great to meet you. So great to meet you.

It's a pleasure. Well, let's start with basically what your show is about. Life After is about what? It follows this 16-year-old girl named Alice in the immediate aftermath of her semi-famous father's very sudden death. We kind of exist in her mind and her imagination as she tries to make sense of it.

Deals with grieving for the first time. It's about growing up. It's about family. It's about figuring out who you are, being a teenager. And all of those things set to song. Well, you've anticipated where I want to go now, because this does not exactly sound like, you know, Mary Poppins or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,

to use two references that are very current today, of course. This is heavy stuff, so why a musical treatment? I mean, music is a very powerful storyteller. It has a way of kind of getting to the very heart of a situation and speaking truth to things that we don't have words for. And I think what I've tried to do with Life After is make it a very layered experience. I think grief is a kaleidoscopic experience. It's

devastating but it's also funny and strange and kind of fractures the reality that you're living in. And music has this way of holding all of that, all of those kind of idiosyncratic truths. So in making this score I tried to do that and it's been a really rich experience for me. And there's nothing like a song to get to the center of something we don't quite have language for, which I think grieving and growing up are two things that would fall under that category.

When did you write your first musical? I wrote my first musical when I was 14, I think, for my high school. I wrote a one act show, and I've kind of been doing it ever since, so. Well, I would never ask you how old you are. How many years ago was that? Well, I'm not good at math. So I'll tell you I'm 33 Almost 20 years ago. You wrote your first musical. Yes, and have done how many since then? Oh man, probably like

18 or something. I've been very lucky to get to keep working. So it's it's been a privileged thing Yeah, what do you think drew you to this form of entertainment in the first place? Well, I grew up in Stratford, Ontario, so home of a lot of theater, a lot of music theater. Both my parents were pit musicians in the orchestra there, so I really kind of grew up in the orchestra pit when we couldn't find childcare. We'd go see Man of La Mancha for like the 17th time. So it was kind of in our blood.

I have two older sisters. We make a lot of music together. And very quickly, I didn't think music theater would be where I landed, but it's a language I seem to understand simply because of what was happening in my house. But you didn't come out with to be or not to be, you came in with song and dance.

Well, I guess because I was in the orchestra pit. You know, my parents were brass players, so if they were a Shakespearean actor, it's perhaps I'd follow a different path. Gotcha. Shall we see some of what you do? Sure. I think it's an idea. Sheldon, if you would, a different path. Gotcha. Shall we see some of what you do? Sure. I think it's an idea.

Sheldon, if you would, a clip, please. There's a certain poetry in knowing you. A certain poetry in losing you. A certain poetry in knowing not a single word of praise can ever do Not for you Because my former logic won't apply When it feels like raining and the ground is dry

And when I love you, but I hate you And I can't articulate exactly why I've never been much of a poet. Nice close-up of your hands in that, incidentally. Yes, they hit here they are, live on TV. She's got a great voice. Who is she? That's Isabella Essler. She's incredible.

I think she's about to be a huge star. She's only 21 years old, and she's playing our lead. And every day, I'm pretty astounded by what she's doing. Sensational. What's the story behind that song? It's actually one of the very first songs I ever wrote in my life. So it's a bit of a personal show, this one,

because I lost my dad when I was young, when I was 13. And very soon after that, I started to write music. So I didn't know it would be for a musical when I wrote this song, but I was just kind of trying to make sense of a lot of things that weren't making very soon after that started to write music. So when, I didn't know it would be for a musical when I wrote this song, but I was just kind of trying to make sense of a lot of things that weren't making a lot of sense to me at that time. There was a few big losses in my teenage life,

and that's the texture at least that inspired this story. And even though I'm not our lead character in this family, isn't mine, at least that kind of coming of age through grief is my story. And that song is kind of the one that started it all. And the show is kind of blossomed from that first song, which is one of the first songs I ever wrote. You have been hanging on to that song for 20 years,

waiting for the right vehicle for it, I guess, right? I guess, yeah. I mean, the truth is, I started to write the show soon after that. It's had this very long life with me. It's really grown up with me. It's been a very beautiful kind of time capsule for my whole experience as a composer, yeah.

How old was your dad when he died? I guess 55, yeah, he was pretty young. How did he die? He had cancer, leukemia, so different than the story in this show, but still a transformative loss, I would say. No kidding. Yeah. Does the character in your show basically reflect

all of the experiences that you had back in the day. Certainly, she has some of her own. She's kind of not grieving the same way I did. I just kind of like grew out my bangs too long and got kind of weird and quiet, not so theatrical. But certainly a lot of those first questions you ask, the first time something's taken from you before you're ready, are things that I share with her for sure. Musicals, I gather, are not just sort of written and then locked in. This is a very iterative process, right? So where did it start? How did it develop? Take us

through it. Yeah, it's been a really cool journey for this show. So it premiered in the Toronto Fringe Festival back in 2016. So we had like our set was five chairs and I was playing piano on the side and from there we were picked up for our Fringe Festival back in 2016. So we had like our set was five chairs and I was playing piano on the side. And from there we were picked up for our professional debut at Canadian Stage here in Toronto. And then it's had this remarkable journey where we've played at two huge houses in the States.

We were in San Diego at the Old Globe. We went to the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and now it's this kind of incredible homecoming for us to be at the Ed Murvish Theatre back in Toronto with sort of the community that's responsible for the show's success to begin with. That's not a small stage. It's a big stage. Yeah.

How many seats is that place? I mean, I think we're selling about 1,100 for our run. Yeah, it's very exciting. It's very exciting. So this is a big deal. It's definitely the biggest thing that's ever happened to me. So yeah, that's very cool. Now, okay, I suggested in the introduction that we see lots of musical theatre come through this city.

And a lot of it is kind of either brought back from you remember when or repurposed or anyway. It's stuff that already has kind of a big name out there in some respects. Is it difficult to sell people on a completely original musical nowadays? Probably but we have really smart people trying to get the word out there and we're hoping that word of mouth will help us but I do find that audiences in this city are hungry for something new we've been this the audience here in Toronto is really responsible for the success this show has had. You know we sold out our fringe run and then we

sold out our Canadian stage run. It feels like there's something at the center of this that people are really connecting to and it's very exciting that we get to share it with a wider audience than ever. It's very cool. Yeah I don't mean to diss the other side. Like I saw Lion King when it first came here and I saw it again when it came back. And you know, there's a great deal of comfort and joy in that. But what do you get from an original musical that perhaps you don't get from something that's much better known to you and had many iterations? Yeah, I mean, you get something new, something surprising. You get to be surprised by what you feel in the theater. I think we all remember what it feels like to hear a song that we love for the

first time or a song that we connect to that gets to the center of something that feels like the truth for us. So I love new musicals because it's amazing to witness that for the very first time, especially with a live audience, with a community. So I'm hoping that people will get excited about what we're doing at the Ed Murvis this year. Yeah. Do you want this to go to Broadway someday? You know, I wouldn't say no, of course. Of course. I'll tell you why, I mean it's a complicated excited about what we're doing at the Ed Mirvish this year. Do you want this to go to Broadway someday? I wouldn't say no, of course. Of course.

Well, I'll tell you why. I mean, it's a complicated question nowadays, because a lot of people, a lot of Canadians have decided, they don't want to have anything to do with the United States right now. Yes. So that's kind of why I ask. Yeah, it's a complex question, and probably

with a complex answer. And I don't know what it looks like. But I do know that that is the place where amazing new ideas launch and that's so many amazing things happening with the community there and we'll see what happens and we'll also see what I feel like our world is changing so much every day and we're just taking it day by day. Is it well I mean everything's harder in Canada when it comes to the arts right so I almost to ask the question is almost to answer it. But I presume you've got friends in the States who do a lot of the same work that you do.

Is it easier for them because they're in the States and it's harder for us because we're in Canada, it's so much smaller, etc.? I mean, I think being a freelance artist is pretty hard for everybody, for sure. I do think there's just a lot more of musical theater in the States, more theaters, more theaters doing new musicals, so just a bit more opportunity for writers there, but I do think there's a very exciting thing happening with Canada, in Canada. I think that people are getting excited about new work, starting to ask how we can support Canadian work. There's very smart producers and thinkers starting to kind of create some homegrown work, and I'm very excited to be a part of that and keep building this community.

Can I ask you a completely inappropriate question? Sure. Because people who make their living in the arts in this country, the average, I mean, I know what the average wage is, right? Yeah. It's below the poverty line for the average city. Like, how much money do you make?

Well, I'm not going to give you an exact number, but I've been really lucky. I've been really lucky to get to do this as my full-time job for a while now. I've had a very blessed path in that I got going early, and there's very cool artistic directors here who've been working in partnership with me. So it changes so much year to year.

Last year, I was part of the team that wrote the Tim Hortons musical. That helped me pay off my student loan. But I am lucky to call this my full-time job. And it's a very dynamic and rich full-time job that comes with a lot of challenges. But I think there are a lot of really smart thinkers trying to make it continue to flourish.

Artists' lives continue to flourish in Canada. And I hope to continue to be a part of that. You know, I never did see the Tim Hortons musical. I never made it to it. Was it any good? I thought so. Of course. Imagine if I said no.

Well, it's after the fact. You can tell us. I'm so proud of what we made, to be honest. I'm so proud of what we made. Yeah, we had an amazing team, truly. Yeah. You obviously, when you undertook this work, had very, I mean, everybody I know who makes their work in culture

has huge dreams about the possibilities out there and what they are hoping happens to them. So let us in on a bit of that. What are you hoping for? I really, I hope to just keep doing this and doing it with people who are smarter than I am. I've been really lucky to have an amazing community of collaborators and a kind of rich

and varied dynamic artistic life and that feels like a privilege it isn't easy and not everyone is granted that privilege so I just hope I get to keep doing it in a way that continues to challenge and expand what I'm able to do yeah have your family members seen this show at the big theater yet they haven't seen no they haven't seen it yet but they're about to they're going to to see it on the big stage. So they've seen it in the fringe, but not on the big stage. I'm a very supportive family.

I've seen every iteration that we've done. And each one kind of has gotten bigger, but I think this is the biggest. And I think it'll be a very intense experience for my mother. I was absolutely. I mean, you're good. You've anticipated my next question,

which is when your mom watches this, and it obviously hits so close to home, I mean, how has she reacted so far to it all? I think it's a very rich experience for her. And I have the best mom in the world, and she's the best musician I know. And I love talking to her about art. So I love talking to her about this show.

And it's a lot to receive. But I think we've built a show that makes people feel held in their grief, the complexity of it. I think it's been a really beautiful thing for our relationship to be able to talk openly about grief together. And yeah, I'm so lucky to have her support. She's so on the level.

And I pretty much run every idea I have, Pastor, because she's a really smart artist herself. She's still playing she's not playing anymore She's retired, but she still we always make a lot of music together in many capacities. Yeah siblings I got two older sisters two older sisters. They've seen previous incarnations Yeah, my eldest sister actually has worked on every internet She played the lead in our fringe production has since been our dramaturg Which is kind of like the editor of the show. We're very close collaborators.

We are a songwriting team and on a lot of other projects. She's also a songwriter. So she's been very close. She's right next to me in rehearsal a lot. And my middle sister lives overseas. She's an opera singer. But she has seen many iterations as well. Did any of them, this will be a bit too personal,

but here we go anyway. Did any of them object to the fact that you were taking what is also their story after all and putting it out there for everybody to see? No, they didn't, and I think it helps that it really isn't our story. Like the loss, this is a quite sudden loss, it's a quite, a different age group,

a different family configuration, the journey that it takes. The only thing I'm borrowing from is just that texture and the questions that come with grief. I think, yeah, no one is objected, but it's invited a lot of really open conversations about our experience, which has been quite healing, actually. Yeah. Does a day go by when you don't think of your dad?

No. Of course not. Still? Yeah. I think everyone who has lost someone they love would would feel the same way. But I think it's it's a gift. I like to feel him close and when I work on this show I feel him quite close and that's been a real blessing for me. So yeah, I think of him often and fondly and that's a rich part of my life. Well, almost everybody who sits in that chair, having done a play or a show or something like that,

I've seen the show ahead of time. But I don't know if you heard, there's a little election and a little leaders debate going on this week. I've heard. It's been tough. But I'm going to get to see the show after this airs, and I can't wait. I can't wait to have you. So good of you to come in today. Thank you so much for having me. And share after this airs. And I can't wait. I can't wait to see it. Have you? So good of you to come in today. Thank you so much for having me.

And share all this with us. Britta, thank you very much. And can't wait to see it.