Imagine a world where the songbooks of American composers, from Jerome Kern to Richard Rodgers to Stephen Sondheim, have never been recorded or captured on film and the only people who knew them well were the performers who originated the roles on-stage and a small community of cabaret connoisseurs. What a great loss that would be not just to theatre but to popular culture of the Americas.
Yet that hypothetically apocalyptic scenario is the reality of the younger, but equally pedigreed world of English Canadian musical theatre. Hundreds of Canadian shows and thousands of songs have been written in the past 60 or 70 years for which there are no recordings or, in many cases, no musical charts.
When their composers and performers leave the mortal coil of grant application and apathy -- musical theatre is normally viewed as too commercial to receive public funding even when it "tells our stories" -- the songs will probably die with them.
Who will keep alive and spread the music of Leslie Arden, Joey Miller, John Gray, Marek Norman, David Warrack, Allen Cole and the godfather of English musical theatre in Canada, Mavor Moore, among others?
Three maverick performers and self-produced artists -- Jim Betts, Charlotte Moore and David Connolly -- have stepped in to set the Canadian record straight. Their work includes a book, a CD and a concert this coming weekend where American and Canadian theatre songs are mixed together.
After years of complaining about the sorry state of musical affairs over red wine with friends in the musical-theatre community, Toronto-based composer, lyricist and book writer Betts dipped into his own pockets to edit and produce Field of Stars: Songs of the Canadian Musical Theatre, Vol. 1.
The first of its kind in Canada, the just-published songbook features piano/vocal arrangements of 17 Canadian theatre songs, from Mavor Moore's The Optimist (1952) to Cole and Vincent De Tourdonnet's Pélagie (2004). The book comes with two CDs, one piano and vocal, and the other only piano, on which 15 of the 17 songs have been captured on disc for the first time.
The range of scores, lyrics and vocal performances -- Brent Carver, Theresa Tova, Lisa Atkinson and Avery Saltzman, among others, contributed their time and singing voices for free -- will come as a revelation to fans and historians of musical theatre.
Says Betts, "I sold a copy to a recent graduate from Sheridan College. He's gone through the entire [musical-theatre]program and he had no idea these songs existed."
While each song tells a character's story, the collection as a whole tells a bigger story not just of how local musicals don't get the recordings they deserve, but also how they strike out in getting productions that will do the lyrics and music justice.
"Our writers need to be good, better than they are, but they need to be supported by directors, choreographers and producers who know what they're doing," says Betts, whose own credits include On A Summer's Night and Little Women. "Unfortunately, our directors haven't had the craft of putting together a new musical. They never get a chance to."
Good songs get lost in murky productions. A typical example from Betts's book is The Dancing Is Done from Pélagie, a gorgeous song I hardly remember from a stage version that was mired in too many technical problems to allow audiences and critics to focus on the music. Betts's collection further proves that, despite urban associations, regional theatre has always been more supportive and welcoming of Canadian musicals, revues and cabaret songs than Toronto. First productions of numerous musicals included in Field of Stars were held at venues off the critical beaten track such as Theatre Orangeville, Kawartha Festival and, of course, The Charlottetown Festival.
It was during the annual PEI celebration of Canadian musical theatre, founded in 1965 by Mavor Moore, that his daughter Charlotte, then four years old, realized she would follow in her father's footsteps. Yet it took Charlotte nearly two decades to fulfill her dream of recording a CD exclusively from Canadian musicals.
Released before Christmas but to be launched at the end of February, Friends of Mine: Songs from Canadian Musicals is an exquisite, jazz-infused collection of Canadian theatre songs performed with great gusto and intoxicating passion by Moore.
"There was never any question in my mind what kind of material to record," says Moore. "The world doesn't need another middle-aged diva singing [Sondheim's] Losing My Mind. I've been toying with the idea for 10 years and was waiting to collect the money to do it when I realized if I waited to have the money, I'll never do it."
Like Betts, who was the resident musical director on the Toronto production of The Lion King, Moore played several roles in Hairspray (talk about the trickle-down economy of the mega-musical). She produced the CD with pianist and arranger Mark Camilleri.
Moore will be singing two songs from her CD, as well as her own contribution to Field of Stars, Bob Ashley's Nostalgia, in the first of The Songbook Series performances by Standing Room Only Concerts, a new venture produced by and co-starring David Connolly.
The first concert, timed to and celebrating Valentine's Day, takes place this weekend at Betty Oliphant Theatre. Also starring Marianne McCord, it features the love-inspired works of Canadian composers (Arden, Norman and Warrack) in addition to Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Sondheim.
"Although in the back of my mind it was important to have Canadian content, I didn't put a parameter on that right away," Connolly says, explaining the song-selection process he, Moore and McCord negotiated. "I instinctively knew that we would [include Canadian work]because we're all Canadian. It's encouraging for me when the song list was done that our composers were at least on a par with all the [American]names we know."
"There's no way if you went in not knowing you would go, 'Oh there's that Canadian song,' " he continues. "Part of the consciousness out there is that we're not as good and we don't have the history. At the end of the day there's no difference in quality. We write equally beautiful and heartbreaking songs."
Although one hates to resort to the "we're as good as" clause, just as politicians dread the "notwithstanding" one on the Charter, there's another area in which we have much to learn from American theatre: selling and strutting our stuff. Ultimately, efforts made by Betts, Moore and Connolly are but isolated gestures given the number of shows and songs in need of recovery, restoration and preservation on record.
The fact that it took Moore two months between releasing and spreading the word about her CD is a case in point. "Christmas got in the way," says the mother of two with a knowing laugh. "How Canadian of me to go through all this trouble and not know how to sell the CD."
The Songbook Series -- Volume 1: St. Valentine launches Feb. 11 and 12 at Betty Oliphant Theatre in Toronto ( or 416-870-8000).