Joseph goes Las Vegas in Theatre Aquarius’s holiday show

Modern staging of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat sees dreams of a rock career, and Sin City characters, along with the musical’s glittery comedy, big musical numbers, and central themes of forgiveness, redemption, and finding home. It runs Nov. 8 to Jan. 3.

Las Vegas is coming to Hamilton when Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat opens next week at Theatre Aquarius. 

One of the most staged musicals ever is getting a decidedly modern twist, inspired by the energy and characters of Sin City, says director and choreographer Robin Calvert. 

When we speak to Calvert and actors Kaleigh Gorka, a Hamilton native who plays The Narrator, and Kaden Brett Forsberg, who is Joseph, they are in the midst of long days in the rehearsal hall and about five days away from hitting the stage for technical rehearsals.

“It's a mega musical,” says Gorka, who earned rave reviews as Elsa in Frozen – Aquarius’s last holiday show. 

“This is just massive, and every day is packed with choreo and lyrics and music and acting and scene work. And I just think how lucky am I?” 

Acting as both director and choreographer in a dance-heavy show with a huge cast is challenging, says Calvert, who came up with the concept for a Joseph centred in Las Vegas. She relies on associate director and associate choreographer Michele Shuster to share the load during rehearsals. Patrick Bowman is the musical director.

“It’s just mindblowing that you start on a Tuesday, and 12 days later you have a full show,” says Calvert. “Every time I do it, I'm like, how are we doing this? It's miraculous.” 

The story

In the original story, pulled right from the Bible's Book of Genesis, Joseph is his father’s favourite son, and he has the coat of many colours to prove it. His 11 brothers are jealous and try to get rid of their brother by selling him into slavery. 

But Joseph uses his talents to make his way into halls of power at the pharaoh's palace.

In Calvert’s vision as a family friendly Las Vegas spectacle, Joseph is an aspiring rock star, and along the way he meets the likes of Elvis, the Rat Pack, Siegfried and Roy, Cher, Celine Dion, and Harry Belafonte.

“The Pharaoh character usually is an Elvis type. So I thought, well, what if we go further into that world? And who else would he meet in Vegas?” she says. 

“So the boy band (Joseph’s brothers) is jealous of Joseph and they want to make it big, so they betray him and try to get him out of the picture. As the show progresses, there are all these different styles of music, so they keep trying to reinvent themselves to make it.”

Joseph, on the other hand, stays true to himself as he chases his dream.

“The beautiful thing about Joseph is it still attracts all ages because of all the different styles of music and the themes are universal,” says Calvert. “And in the end, the story is about redemption and forgiveness, and finding your home and your community and where you belong. So everyone connects with that.” 

Though the setting has shifted, Gorka says Joseph fans will be happy.

“It's actually so deeply true to the spirit of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That show is campy. It's glitter. It's kooky. It's silly. It's funny. There's so much comedy written into the show, and Robin is so clear on the values and the message of Joseph. The Joseph that you know and love is absolutely woven into this.” 

Rock star cast

The Narrator, who drives the story, is an illusionist and guides the show-within-a-show. A 36-member children’s choir from Theatre Aquarius’s theatre school are the illusionist’s assistants.

The sung-through musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice is filled with joyful numbers, including “Any Dream Will Do,” “Close Every Door” and “Go, Go, Go Joseph” and just like Vegas itself, the music swings across genres.

This is a cast packed with triple threats, says Calvert.  

“They are all rock stars,” she says. “They are all incredible actors, singers, and dancers. It's just phenomenal.”

Calvert says there is a “special buzz” in the building because everyone is energized by the strong ticket sales that have already seen the Nov. 18 to Jan. 3 run extended by a week . 

Forsberg is a trained opera singer but says musical theatre is his true love. His first role was Joseph at a community theatre when he was 17. And now, 17 years later, he gets to take on the character again.

“I think this is the most excited I've been for anything in my career, actually, and it's just the show and this character has a really special place in my heart. So, it's a huge privilege.”

The first time around, he was thinking about how to sound like Donnie Osmond, who played Joseph in a 1999 film adaptation.

“It was cool to do it when it was all instinct and passion and the joy of it, and then all the passion and joy of it is still there, but now there's experience and education and everything behind it.”

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was the first musical by theatre giants Lloyd Webber and Rice to be performed publicly in 1968. It made the West End in 1973 and found its way to Broadway in 1982.

Forsberg says the setting of this adaptation of Joseph has a surreal, timeless element to it, but “I feel like in some ways it gets really to the heart of everything about who Joseph is and about what the show is, and like that comes to the forefront.”

'Larger than life'

Calvert, who grew up in Moose Jaw, Sask. and was creating dances on her front lawn for neighbours at four years old, is one of many in musical theatre with a deep relationship to Joseph. 

Joseph was one of the first professional shows she saw when she arrived in Toronto from her native Moose Jaw, Sask. to study theatre at university. 

“It was larger than life and so high energy and full of joy through dance and singing. I just immediately was like, ‘I need to do this someday.’” 

So it’s appropriate that Joseph was the first professional show she ever acted in. (As a side note, that production at Drayton Entertainment also included Theatre Aquarius executive director Kelly Straughan.)

Calvert says she feels at home at Theatre Aquarius. Artistic director Mary Francis Moore is a mentor and last year, Calvert completed a six-month apprenticeship in Hamilton at Moore’s side.

Calvert’s acting credits at Theatre Aquarius include Music Man and Seussical The Musical. Her first professional show as choreographer was Legally Blonde in Hamilton in 2012. Since then, she’s choreographed Frozen, Christmas Story The Musical, and Sound of Music, among others, at the King William Street theatre.

Coming home

Gorka says her role as The Narrator requires a lot of dance, which is what led her to theatre as a kid. 

“So it's really cool to be in my hometown, where I trained for 15 years as a dancer before I went off to acting school, to get to dance again. So I really do feel lucky that I'm truly flexing all my muscles.” 

And The Narrator is at the centre of the action. 

“Robin's concept is really that I am making the story happen. I am the electricity that is galvanizing everything that happens in the story, and I think it's wonderful to get to be involved in the telling of the story in such a way, rather than just being off to the side.” 

Gorka is also embracing working with children. They are at the ages she loves to teach and she connects with them because they come from the Theatre Aquarius Theatre School, just as she did years ago. 

“They're very chatty and they have wonderful ideas and they say the darndest things and it's just so fun.” 

Returning to Theatre Aquarius is special, not just because it feels like home, but because it’s a place of great theatre. 

“I love working at Theatre Aquarius. I think that the team here has tapped into something really exciting and really excellent. I get to participate in theatrical storytelling with the best of the best across all departments,” she says.

“I work all over the country and I've worked all over the world and I am so proud and excited that everyone across departments at Theatre Aquarius both loves what they do and are really good at what they do.” 

'Forward looking'

Gorka and Calvert worked together on Frozen and on Anne of Green Gables at the Confederation Centre in PEI.

“I think this is our fifth project together, and that is a relationship that is really important to me, and I have such a depth of respect and trust in her as an artist, as a leader, as a compassionate human being, who understands the responsibility of leadership. I just think she's the best,” she says.

“I think what's so magical about Robin is that fear has no place in her room, and it's incredible what can happen when fear isn't present, and how excellence can still be cultivated without the presence of fear or judgment.”

Forsberg has not worked with Calvert before, but he’s been struck by her thoughtfulness about the story. 

“So even though this process is crazy fast and the musical is full of dancing and singing, you know she's made sure we've always had the time to sit and talk about like the heart of things and like what's really going on here.”

It’s Forsberg’s debut at Aquarius and he’s been impressed.

“The theatre is insanely supportive, like truly so, so supportive. I feel like we have all the tools we need. There's the people and facilities and I just feel like it's an exciting theatre to work at. It's very forward looking,” he says.

“There’s a great legacy here, decades of amazing theatre, but there's so much excitement about the next chapters as well, that those are going to be bigger, better, greater.”

NEED TO KNOW

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Nov. 18 to Jan. 3
Theatre Aquarius
190 King William St., Hamilton
2 hours including 20-minute intermission
Tickets here