NEWS

St. Mike’s theatre dazzles picky producer of musical

Carl Pucl in seats at St. Mike's theatre.
FRONT ROW SEAT: Producer Carl Pucl takes a seat near the stage at St. Michael’s College School Centre for the Arts. Seating for 440 close to the action is part of why he found the midtown theatre the ideal venue for his dream production of the musical The Last Five Years.

The St. Michael’s College School Centre for the Arts wasn’t the first venue Carl Pucl imagined for his inaugural show, but when the fourth-year Ryerson University theatre student began researching venues for his dream production of The Last Five Years he found most downtown theatres lacking: the majority have a seating capacity of 1,000 or more, or 200 or fewer.

Putting on a show in a 200-seat venue “and not have a lot of people see our work” was not an option, Pucl said in a recent interview, amid preparations for the March 19–21 show that will, indeed, take place at the midtown performing arts facility.

Opened in 2010 at the Bathurst and St. Clair private school, the St. Mike’s facility boasts a large stage, finely-tuned acoustics, cutting-edge lighting and sound systems, a balcony and 440 seats, none of them more than 65 feet away from the curtain.

“When I got here I thought, it’s a little bit north of the city but the venue is absolutely beautiful, the area is gorgeous and the people take well to the arts,” Pucl mused.

Originally performed in Chicago in 2001, The Last Five Years has become a favourite in musical theatre circles, not only for its eclectic soundtrack — drawing from pop, jazz, classical, folk and rock, among other genres — but for its ease of staging: little is needed except two actors and the barest hint of a set.

But that wasn’t Pucl’s vision. The 32-year-old Woodbridge native’s goal was to rival a Mirvish production, with 20 costumes, shards of mirror highlighting the play’s theme of multiple perspectives, and an abstract blue and white set that could depict 14 different environments, one for each song.

Like the character of Cathy, who has a showstopping number about how difficult it is to impress producers as one actress in 200, Pucl said he wanted to show Toronto’s theatre community what he and his peers can do.

“We wanted to take this intimate show and blow it out of the water.”

He is confident the St. Mike’s venue, and nearby theatregoers, can accommodate his goal.

“It gave us everything that we needed to create the production value we were looking for,” he said.

St. Mike’s theatre manager Steven Cline said he isn’t surprised by Pucl’s enthusiasm for the venue.

“We’ve hosted a bit of everything,” he said, listing the TSO Youth Orchestra, charities such as the Griffin Centre, children’s entertainers, classical musicians and the Classical Theatre Project among events staged there.

He said the theatre’s obvious appeal is that it’s a midsize, performance-grade theatre in a city that has very few of them, and is staffed by industry professionals.

“I think Carl is putting together the largest outside musical that we’ve had come into our space,” Cline says. “It’s going to be a great show.”