Britta Johnson still remembers a unique response to her musical “Life After” when it debuted at the Toronto Fringe Festival back in the summer of 2016.
“It was opening night and, after the song ‘Poetry,’ a man in the audience said out loud, ‘What the f—k just happened to me?’” recalled Johnson on a recent Zoom call. “That remains one of the most memorable reactions I’ve heard in the theatre.”
I was lucky enough to have been in that crowd and that man was only articulating (albeit, without a filter) what the rest of us were feeling. We all knew that we’d experienced something special. WTF, indeed.
And so it’s no surprise to see “Life After” return this week to one of the city’s biggest stages after being developed by Toronto’s Canadian Stage and Musical Stage Company (2017), San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre (2019) and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre (2022). With each run, it has racked up acclaim.
While Johnson — who wrote the music, lyrics and book — has matured as an artist in the intervening years, she’s tried to maintain what made the show connect with audiences so much in its earliest stages.
The one-act musical about how a young woman named Alice deals with the unexpected death of her father was partly inspired by two losses Johnson experienced in her life. First was the death of her father — a musician at the Stratford Festival — when she was 13; then came the passing of one of her best friends a few years later.
The fact that Johnson’s older sister Anika, who played Alice in the two earliest incarnations — a workshop at Toronto’s Paprika Theatre Festival and the Fringe run — has been present at every subsequent production helps keep her grounded. For this current staging, Anika is acting as dramaturge.
“It’s been really important to have her as a sounding board, someone who understands my specific process and the specific needs of this show,” said Britta.
“She’s been especially helpful when I was in the U.S., working with people I didn’t know. I was terrified, and these new people had big ambitions for a show for which they didn’t know the history or roots. Many times I’ve turned to Anika and asked, ‘Are we still doing the thing we’ve been trying to do all along?’”
Anika, a composer in her own right, says the most important thing about “Life After” is that even as the production gets bigger, it should feel as intimate as it’s always been.
“This show began with songs that Britta wrote as a teenager, not even thinking they would become a piece of theatre,” said Anika.
“There’s such raw truth in the show and I feel like my job has been to be the barometer of that truth. The American musical theatre industry is amazing to dip into and we’ve learned so much from working with them. They know how to develop musicals in a way that we are just starting to learn how to do here.
“It’s much more of a capitalist economy, where everyone can make a lot of money, and so things get glitzy and shiny and big really quickly.
“Britta pulls from a deep well,” Anika added. “It costs a lot to do that and goes back to some very precious, private parts of our life that we shared. And I feel like my job has been to safeguard that.”
New York-based director Annie Tippe directed the Chicago version of the show and is back for this revised Toronto production. While the humour was the first thing about the show that caught her attention, she agrees that it needs to feel intimate.
“From the start, I wanted to bring the same warmth to the production that ripples off the page,” said Tippe, who’s collaborated on several shows with composer Dave Malloy.
“When you deal with death onstage, there can be a coldness and a distance, or a ‘performed sadness,’” she said. “But I find that this show is so warm and uplifting. I also wanted to bring an athleticism to the production. I wanted things to feel like we’re running around in Alice’s brain with her memories and her surreal, present-tense moments.”
Tippe added that the larger venues at both Chicago’s Goodman and Toronto’s CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre have dictated the size of the productions.
“If our first production had been in a black box theatre, it would have felt quite different. Our design is big and ambitious, because I think an original musical deserves that. Also, why shouldn’t a story about a 16-year-old girl get something that feels epic?”
Actor and director Kaylee Harwood was part of that fabled 2016 Fringe production and returns for this staging. As the star of jukebox musicals like “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” and “Titanique,” Harwood is used to performing in big houses for people who know many of the songs. But there’s something special about an original show.
“For a new musical, people have to lean in, and we as performers really have to communicate with our diction, our intention and point of view so it’s all understood,” she said. But she adds that one day Johnson’s music will be part of the musical theatre canon.
At a fundraising concert in the U.S. a few years ago, Harwood asked Britta if she could sing the song “Poetry” — the same number that made the man at the Fringe lose it.
“Afterwards, so many people came up to me and asked about the song. They were so moved by it — even out of context. I think that’s a testament to the writing. And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, just you wait. This is one of many magnificent songs from this show and composer.’”
Whatever happens next — Broadway, it would seem, is the ultimate goal — Britta is thrilled to have such a warm homecoming for the show that first put her on the musical theatre map.
“Anika’s here and Kaylee, and most of the rest of the cast are people I’ve grown up with,” she said. “I feel prouder than ever to be a Canadian creator, because I like how we do things here. I like our ethos and I believe in it.”
“Life After” runs to May 10 at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria St. Visit mirvish.com or call 1-800-461-3333 for tickets and more information.
