Creston Concert Society’s 2017/2018 series is coming to a close! On Friday, April 27th CCS is proud to present a finale that will be as entertaining as our opener. Bohemians in Brooklyn provides an intimate evening to experience first-hand what happens when a poet, an author, a composer, his lover, and a book-loving stripper all move into the same house in quiet, wartime Brooklyn… arguments, indulgence, infestation, questionable relationships of every description, a murder mystery, plenty of reasons for the neighbours to bang on the walls and, just possibly, some truly wonderful art.
Something between cabaret, storytelling, chamber music and musical theatre, Bohemians in Brooklyn tells the story of the remarkable collection of artists that lived together at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn, New York from 1939 until the building’s demolition in 1945. Among them were: the poet WH Auden; composer Benjamin Britten and his life partner the tenor Peter Pears; the southern writer Carson McCullers; the burlesque star-turned-author Gypsy Rose Lee; composer and author Paul Bowles and his wife, the author Jane Bowles; composer, musicologist and writer Colin McPhee and the novelist and editor, the unsung hero of the enterprise, George Davis.
Commissioned by the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival and Music Niagara, the show developed with the help of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. It premiered in Ottawa and Niagara-on-the-Lake in July, 2012, and at the Global Cabaret Festival at the Young Centre in October, 2012. Bohemians lives on with regular performances, fuelled by equal parts smut, gossip, jealousy, well intentioned humanity and heartbreaking beauty.
Bohemians features soprano Patricia O’Callaghan, a recording and performing artist who tours around North America, Europe, and Australia, and has built an international reputation as a performer of contemporary opera, early 20th-century cabaret music and the songs of Leonard Cohen. Bryce Kulak is an actor, singer, pianist and composer who has performed professionally since he was 11. Often compared to the great songwriters of the original cabaret era, Kulak carries the torch of this compelling genre into the new century. Lori Gemmell is the Principal Harpist with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and plays often with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She has two recordings of solo harp music, two duo recordings and has also recorded with Feist. Tom Allen, part of CBC music for two decades, is currently hosting Shift on CBC Radio 2 as well as concerts across Canada. He is the author of three non-fiction books, plays the trombone when he can and wrote this show, among many others, including The Judgment of Paris, a “chamber musical” about the composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Mostly, he’s a storyteller.
Tickets are $22 adult and $10 student in advance and available at Black Bear Books, Kingfisher Books and Fly in the Fibre or $25/$12 at the door. Show starts at 7:30 p.m at the Prince Charles Theatre. Like our facebook page for more information and videos!