Frenchys: The Thrift Store Musical

The Work in Progress presentation of David S. Craig and John Roby’s new musical Frenchys: The Thrift Musical attracted a huge audience to the Alderney Landing Theatre as part of the Stages Festival at Eastern Front Theatre on Saturday afternoon. Obviously, Nova Scotians were stoked to see a feel good show set around our province’s iconic second-hand clothing franchise. Judging from their enthusiastic response, they were not at all disappointed. 

The story centres on a family, matriarch Sally (Judy Marshak), and her daughter Gail, (Geneviève Steele), and her granddaughter Tessa (Riley Reign), who are attempting to reconnect with Sally’s daughter and Gail’s sister, Marjorie (Amy Reitsma), who has been away for twenty years in Toronto building her own life. Bad weather strands them at a Frenchys store overnight, which forces them to confront the issues that have kept them apart in the first place.  

There is a lot in this musical that is really working well, and the big laughs the cast received from the audience attest to the fact that it is a really feel-good musical with a lot of humour in it. It reminded me of both Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman, and My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding by David Hein and Irene Sankoff (of Come from Away fame), which both did really well and played at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto in 2010. I think this show has a lot of potential to grow into a really successful Canadian musical that theatres around the province might be interested in producing someday. 

I think there is some room to clarify the overall tone of the musical a little bit. The really fun songs lean toward a more zany and lighthearted glimpse into the broad themes of sibling rivalry, generational misunderstandings, the ways we wear and buy our clothes, and the perils of dating after 40. The book, on the other hand, touches on issues with higher and more emotional stakes. We care about Gail having to pick up the pieces of her truly shattered life and the consequences of this for Tessa. We root for Marjorie, who has been almost entirely estranged from her family for twenty years, to find her way back to a real, genuine relationship with her mother, her niece, and her sister. Yet, there is so much each going on we don’t get the full depth of the catharsis and the characters’ growth at the end.

The cast really excelled at milking the comedy for every joke, even within the limited context of a staged reading, but they also brought a lot of depth and nuance to their characters. Geneviève Steele and Judy Marshak’s desperate search for the bottom part of a designer suit as Sally and Gail in the Frenchys store was a real highlight. The cast did an excellent job at bringing the really catchy and exuberant music to life. I especially loved Gail’s song about toxic positivity, and Gail and Marjorie’s duet about their horror in hearing about their mom’s new friend Rinaldo. My favourite relationship in the musical was between Marshak as Sally and Riley Reign as Tessa, which feels really true to life and special, and might be one aspect the writers choose to expand on earlier in the story.

Frenchys: The Thrift Musical has obviously zeroed in on a theme that local audiences are really excited about. I can definitely see it becoming a favourite with audiences in the future, and I look forward to seeing a future staged version of the show with this same cast and creative team.