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Theatre Orangeville’s new show, The Darktown Strutters’ Ball, amazes audiences at the Opera House

May 2, 2024   ·   1 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

The Darktown Strutters’ Ball is a remarkable show. It opened for its World Premiere at Theatre Orangeville on April 25 and runs until May 12. Starring Leslie McCurdy and Cassel Miles, with Nicholas Mustapha as music director, this is truly a must-see.

Five friends get together with the intention to create a new show, based on a smaller show Leslie wrote some years ago. Its theme was Darktown Strutters Ball by Afro-Canadian, Shelton Brooks. It was the first jazz song ever recorded. Shelton Brooks has been proclaimed as the music industry’s first superstar.

The stage is an open set with the grand piano, the bass and the drums, a cabaret bank of lights behind. Nicholas Mustapha is seated at the grand piano, looking ready for anything this show may throw at him. Along the back of the stage are Matthew Leombruni on bass and Matteo Romaniello on drums.

Coming on stage, already in conversation with each other, are Cassel Miles and Leslie McCurdy, who wrote the show. They are talking about this show and how they are going to put it together with the help and the input of the three brilliant, young musicians.

Thus, it begins and progresses. Yet, there is no fiction here; no artistic license is taken. The storytellers, Leslie and Cassel, tell their own true stories and, likewise, the compelling and true stories of the Black singers and their own struggles from the 1920s to now.

The Darktown Strutters’ Ball is a tremendous roll call of the music and the people who wrote and performed it over all those years. You could be surprised time and again, by what a lot of those old tunes you remember and what good times they were. How Leslie and Cassel analyze the Black music of recent and present years, later on in the show, are revelations into what is to admire and what is not.

To prove intent, they start the show with Brook’s song, Darktown Strutters’ Ball: “Oh, honey, don’t be late. I want to be there when the band starts playin’…”

Still, this compelling Black history of great music may well inform you for the first time about the strange and difficult lives Black musicians lived in the music industry.

Let us tell you here: these two brilliant singers/actors bring every note of the history and songs they talk about to the stage; they sing in the voices of the Black musical heroes they honour. Cassel sings Paul Robeson, for example, with his Old Man River, reaching successfully for those low dark notes. Further on, he gives us Unforgettable with Nat King Cole, keeping the lilt and that silky smooth voice just as your memories might serve.

So, too, Leslie sings, “J’ai Deux Amours,” as did Josephine Baker, singing in French, so clearly and charming. Later, though, she recites “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” from Gil Scott Heron. Leslie is a revelation herself, belting some and tender with other songs. She is pure dynamite.

Amongst the five of them, they handle bits of many songs, of which several were concerned with the Civil Rights movement. Telling it so we can understand. They brought us in and we wanted to hear it all and know it in a way we never have.

A conversation between two friends, who refer to their three other friends where this show should go next. It’s funny and straightforward tough, but it moves along and Cassel even does a great tap routine for us. Nicholas Mustapha is a delight on the piano. He treats us to his own brief composition, written specifically for this grand piano, a sparkling moment on its own.

Matthew and Matteo, brand new to Theatre Orangeville, are fine additions to the whole, for the music in this production is the glue that keeps it rolling out the stories.

This is a very demanding production but the artists have stretched their considerable talents to make it marvellous. At the end, we, the audience rushed to rise for a very enthusiastic standing ovation.

During the Opening Night reception, catching a few words with Cassel, he was emphatic about the mastery of David Nairn’s input, fine-tuning the details of the content and delivery as director of the Darktown Strutters’ Ball.

“This show is a thrill for me,” Cassel Miles told the Citizen. 

Leslie was being called for photos but she stopped to say how excited she was with the production. A bigger job for her, she was so ecstatic to have written it. 

A quick word with members of the audience proved they were dazzled by the energy, the music and the entire experience. 

Be sure to see this wonderful couple of hours of theatre. For folk who are not able to come to the theatre, there is a single chance to see it live streamed and that is on May 9.

For tickets, subscriptions to the new season, 2024/25, and more details, go to www.theatreorangeville.ca or call the charming people at the Box Office: 519-942-3423. Drop in to visit the Box Office at 87 Broadway and, while you are there, they have a donation box you can “tap” to help with the very important “I Love My Theatre Orangeville” fundraising campaign.

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