Hi, I'm Costin Manu, the Programming Manager for the Rose Theatre Brampton. As I mentioned last week, I will be contributing an entry here each Monday discussing all things “show-business”. My goal is to offer a glimpse into what I have been seeing and doing in this “business” and tell you what I was impressed with and talk about things of note in live performance that might also be interesting to you, our patrons.

Last Saturday, I finally managed to see the much-lauded production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical “Evita” at the Stratford Festival of Canada, a production so successful for them that it was extended by popular demand with five additional performances through November 6. The story of Eva Duarte, who rises from poverty in rural Argentina to become first the mistress and then the wildly popular wife of President Juan Perón, first started as a rock opera concept album released in 1976 that led to productions in London's West End in 1978, and on Broadway a year later. Blending the personal with the political, this landmark of the modern musical theatre paints a dazzling portrait of a woman who helped shape history.  Exuberant Latin, rock and jazz rhythms pulse through the score of a show that took the world by storm, winning Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier Awards for best musical.

Colm Wilkinson of the Les Miz fame played Che on the original studio recording and Mandy Patinkin was the first Che on Broadway.  In the Stratford production it was Josh Young and we witnessed a star in the making in a man who has had so many musical theatre credits at an early age and will go far. I was looking forward to seeing many of my friends and colleagues on stage in the show and especially Chilina Kennedy, who I first saw when she was a student at Sheridan College and then as Anne in the musical Anne Of Green Gables at the Charlottetown Festival. Alas, she was indisposed and I saw her understudy Lindsay Croxhall, who did a terrific job in the show and that gave an idea for one of my upcoming Odeum articles regarding understudies.

An amazing performance in front of a sold-out audience is what I witnessed and the quality was top notch as noted by many international theatre critics who review Stratford. Musicals are the type of entertainment we also continue to bring to the Rose in the near future, so please look for the announcement of our 2011 Summer Theatre Season to see what I mean. See you again soon at the theatre!