Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Britta Johnson's new musical Life After has been attracting attention from all the right people. It was nominated for a Canadian Playwright's Guild Award for best new musical and won a prize from the Toronto Fringe Festival for the script.
After Life is a comedy about 16-year-old Alice who must come to terms with the death of her father, Frank Carter, the famous author of self-help books. He's also a man she feels she never really got to know. He dies in a traffic accident just as his latest self-help book is about to hit it big.
The play will be produced during the Fringe Festival from June 29-July 10 at the Theatre Passe Muraille mainspace. It will be directed by Robert McQueen — he directed the Stratford Festival's most recent production of Man of La Mancha — and features several Festival alums including Kaylee Harwood, Tracy Machallidis, and Alana Hibbert.
On top of all that, her oldest sister Anika will star as Alice.
“I always dreamed my sister would want to hang out with me and now she does, which is cool. I've wanted that since I was three,” she laughed.
“We just have to write an opera our other sister (Eliza) can star in and we're all set.”
The Fringe Festival provides the space but not the production costs. Johnson has to raise the funds herself.
To help her out there will be a musical fundraiser at Revel Caffe May 5 at 8 p.m. The intimate night of music will star talent from the Stratford Festival: Alexis Gordon, Barb Fulton, Sara Farb, and Chris Fulton from Johnson's Big Box Story. And her sister Anika will be there too.
The fundraiser has already sold out but it will be live streamed. There will be an online funding campaign at http://fwyc.ca/campaigns/life-after-new-musical-britta-johnson
It's no surprise there are no tickets left for the show. After all, Johnson did sell out the Avon Theatre for a one-night showing of her musical Big Box Story while she was still a student at Central Secondary School.
The fundraiser is a song book of Johnson's material over the years including Big Box Story and Alligator Tears as well as more recent material including Life After.
Anytime we revisit the music of our teenage years it brings back a flood of memories. That sensation can only be magnified when you wrote the music you were listening to in high school.
“Growing up is a very peculiar experience,” Johnson said. “It's interesting to see how much I've grown. It's cool to see I've learned a lot since then.”
Each song has a specific link to “amazing” memories.
“I spent a lot of time thinking fondly of everyone who touched that show,” she said.
This fundraiser is a small homecoming in some ways. She went to the University of Toronto after graduating high school and has been finding her own success there. Even so, her ties here are binding.
“I think Stratford is an amazing place. I am in no way blind to the huge amount I owe this community. It's very generous with young people and there's an amazing cheering section for any dream you dream up. I feel I owe everything to this community and I always want to find a way to come back and create here.”
Johnson will be back May 19-21 for the Springworks Festival with the show Stupidhead.
From Laura Cudworth for www.stratfordbeaconherald.com.
Photo: Britta Johnson.
2016-04-27
Stratford: Britta Johnson to hold fundraiser on May 5 for her new musical "Life After"