The accolades are countless. The songs etched in our collective conscience. Whether you first made a Memory seeing Cats, discovered What’s the Buzz about Jesus Christ Superstar, or felt The Music of Night in Phantom of the Opera, the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber have made Broadway memories and magic for decades. Vancouver based Sound the Alarm Music Theatre Company has brought the best to the stage with it’s touring concert show, which arrives at the Grey Eagle Event Centre September 29^th.

GayCalgary.com caught up with musical director Frédérik Robert and Artistic Director Alan Corbishley to talk about the show. The tour is hitting many smaller cities like Red Deer, Hinton, and Williams Lake. To bring music to places that wouldn’t get a large-scale touring production is one of the key factors to the tour.

"Sound the Alarm, the company itself has a mandate of reaching out to smaller communities. It’s a pretty amazing thing to be able to bring high level, quality, professional singers, and musicians with a very full sounding show to a smaller venue such as Camrose or a Lethbridge that wouldn't normally get those kinds of shows. We are eight cast and musicians, and those eight people make a gigantic show," explained Robert.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the greatest Broadway composers of all time. At least one of his shows ran on Broadway from 1979 to earlier this year, when Phantom wrapped up it’s run as the longest Broadway show in history, and the newer production Bad Cinderella closed.

"He was a phenomenon in the 70s and 80s. He was the Lin Manuel Miranda of the times, where people really flocked to the theater just to see his shows. And his collaboration with Tim Rice, it was just transformative," said Corbishley. "It’s impacted every single theater artist in some way. Ot's always on people's bucket lists to do his shows. To be able to just present all of the greatest hits within that for our performers it’s a really great thing. It’s all the best pieces. It’s a demanding show, we only have 4 singers, but they are powerhouse vocalists and storytellers. They transport an entire audience with their voice alone, we don’t have sets or costumes. We’ve invested in some of Canada’s best vocalists."

Many people can remember when The Phantom of the Opera became a massive show in Canada, running for months of sold out shows in cities like Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. For others, it was the explosion of Cats in the 1980s. Still others were first introduced to Lloyd-Webber’s work in the 1970’s with Jesus Christ Superstar. Many people, especially musical theatre fans, have memories tied to these songs which also inspired both Robert and Corbishley to work in theatre.

"When Cats was all the rage, we had sent my parents from Northern Ontario down to Toronto for their anniversary to see the show. down to, we were in Northern Ontario at the time, and sent them down to Toronto for an anniversary to go see the show. When I was a teenager, we went to see Phantom in Vancouver with Jeff Hyslop. It was the first moment where I was like, Oh, I want to do that. Phantom was really that pivot point for me, that inspiration of making a life in the arts. And it has been for so many musical theatre artists," Corbishley recalled.  "Being able to live through this concert and this music is really exciting. It just gets straight to the soul very quickly. And you just radiate with excitement when the big Phantom piece comes on, or some of the music from Jesus Christ Superstar. We have such an amazing cast who are really powerhouse singers. It’s thrilling to sit through night after night, it's not a show Fred or I ever get bored of watching, so I could watch it forever."

"I think we have a deep well of memories in relationship to Andrew Lloyd Webber. I remember as a young kid was seeing Phantom of the Opera and I remember just being completely blown away by that music and it inspired me to, on some levels, it inspired me to be a singer and to have that career path. And it was an extraordinary experience as a child. So, it's an amazing feeling in my heart and in my soul to sort of revisit all of this stuff as having had a full professional career and being able to come in as a music director and make this kind of show happen. It's sort of a dream, to be very honest," added Robert. "And to echo Alan's words, we do not get bored of this show at all. I mean, we must have seen this show now hundreds and hundreds of times because we've rehearsed it and it's had three or four tours already. So, we've seen this show and we still love it. I mean, we watched two dress reversals of it yesterday and I was totally engaged again. I think the audiences who will see it for the first time will probably be craving to see it a second time and I hope they do. I hope they drive down to their neighboring smaller city that's around them and you know if they go and see it in Calgary maybe they want to go to Medicine Hat or maybe they want to go to Lethbridge and then we certainly hope that they tell their friends in surrounding areas to go and see this because it's something not to be missed."

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Contributor Jason Clevett |

Locale Calgary |

Topic Theatre |