Ian Sherwood, Julie Martell, and Lindsay Kyte in Dear Rita
Dear Rita, Lindsay Kyte and Mike Ross’ musical play based on the life of Cape Breton’s legendary singer-songwriter Rita MacNeil opens at Neptune Theatre in Halifax tomorrow August 2nd, 2024 and plays until August 25th.
The play features a strong ensemble of actors: Michelle Yu, Lisa Nasson, Lindsay Kyte, Ian Sherwood, and Julie Martell, and is directed by Samantha Wilson, with Musical Direction by Avery-Jean Brennan. I sat down to chat with Yu, Nasson, Kyte, and Wilson at Neptune during their Media Call on Wednesday.
Since the show first premiered in 2021 at the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown there have been four separate productions, with different casts and directors: one at the Savoy Theatre, directed by Ron Jenkins, in Glace Bay, which, it was just announced, is returning to the Savoy (again) for just two shows October 4th and 5th, and one at the Bancroft Village Playhouse in Bancroft, Ontario earlier this summer directed by Ann-Marie Kerr. Kyte says that getting the opportunity to create a unique production for each venue has been really neat. “Each one is so different, and people bring their heart and their souls and their genius into it, and every one feels like a different family. They’re all quite different, and they’re all beautiful.”
When Lindsay Kyte and Ian Sherwood were performing in Kyte’s play Tompkinsville they were also working with Chris Corrigan, who at that time was MacNeil’s guitar player and who was producing what would become her final record Saving Grace (2012). Rita MacNeil passed away, unexpectedly, on April 16, 2013 from complications from surgery. In 2018 MacNeil’s son Wade Langham approached Corrigan saying that he wanted to find a Cape Breton woman who could write Rita’s story and Corrigan put Kyte’s name forward. “Celtic Colours was happening in October,” Kyte, who is from Reserve Mines and went to school in Sydney, says, “so I went up to Cape Breton, booked a random day at [Rita’s] Tea Room to go visit Wade, met with him for a couple of hours, and he went through what he wanted in the show and what he didn’t, and at the end he said, ‘I think you’re the person,’ and gave me a hug and some oatcakes and some Rita Tea Room blend, and they closed the door, and [unbeknownst to us] that would be the last day the Tea Room was ever open. I guess [Dear Rita] was born out of the ashes of the Tea Room.”
One thing that Langham specified was that he didn’t want any actor doing an impression of his mother, “not even in voice,” says Kyte. It was out of this condition that Kyte found the unique conceit for the show: over the course of the play each of the five actors play Rita at different times. “I was reading her letters- her fan letters,” says Kyte, “and people from all over the world of different identities found their story in her songs, and I thought, ‘well if everyone is seeing themselves in her songs- anybody can play her.’ So I just decided that many people could play her at once, and that was how it was going to be, and it seems to have worked as a concept. It makes for a beautiful telling of people bringing their own hearts in and perspectives. I really love it that way.”
“It’s amazing how crystal clear the convention is and how easily it works when you watch it onstage,” says director Samantha Wilson. “Five people playing the same person. They don’t just play Rita, they play people that interact with Rita- so many different people- and they are popping in and out of character all the time, but you’re so easily able to track Rita’s story throughout. It’s a really, really interesting convention and way of storytelling that I haven’t seen done. It harkens back to the beginnings of theatre with Greek choral work and things like that. It’s very heightened.”
Actor Michelle Yu, who played Cinderella in the pantomime of the same name at Neptune this past Christmas, had a similar experience when she first read the script as those who used to write Rita letters from across the world at the height of her career. Yu was born and raised in Toronto, “the opposite of Rita’s life in our show,” she notes, in a family of immigrants from Hong Kong. She first read the script for Dear Rita on an airplane. “I was so embarrassed and weeping because I could relate so much of it to my life and my family,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting to have these connections or these emotions from it, but I think that’s what makes the show so special, and why it touches so many audiences. Everyone can see themselves and make a connection to Rita’s story.” Yu also saw the first production in Charlottetown, so being in the show here now, she notes, is “a real full circle moment.”
Actor Lisa Nasson, last seen at Neptune this past fall in Pawâkan MacBeth, adds, “I think Rita as a person, her story is so relatable to everyone… because it is so human and raw and real… she goes away and comes back home. She was always genuine and true to herself and her family roots, so there was no façade about her. She was very honest, and I think to play Rita or to tell the story, you just need honest actors and people who are willing to open their heart to her story to do it justice.”
While Yu’s introduction to Rita MacNeil was seeing Dear Rita in Charlottetown, for Wilson, Kyte, and Nasson Rita MacNeil’s music goes back to their formative years and memories. Nasson associates her music mostly with her grandmother from the Membertou Reservation in Unama’ki and spending time at her house when she was a child. “In terms of the Cape Breton way of speaking and a lot of their traditions… they’re very, very different from the Mi’kmaq way,” she says, but she notes one important similarity between the two cultures: “In Mi’kmaq culture it is very much humour is the medicine. You have to make fun of life in order to survive, and I think Cape Breton people share the same type of mentality, so I related a lot to this play.” She said that when she started working on the play a lot of the songs came back to her from childhood.
Director Samantha Wilson, who is from Sydney River, grew up with the music in her house, and even lifeguarded for Rita a couple of times when she would rent out the YMCA pool in Sydney. “Her home as an adult was around the corner from where my dad grew up,” says Wilson, “so I used to walk by her house all the time. I can remember decorating the Christmas Tree and her Christmas special being on TV.”
Kyte also cites the Christmas Specials as being an iconic part of her life growing up. “I’m sure we sang “Now The Bells Ring” in Cape Breton accents in every single Christmas concert of my life, and we would just scream it,” she says laughing. But, she notes that before she embarked on writing this show she knew very little about Rita’s life.
Wade Langham’s vision for the play was one where the musical arrangements would be reimagined to become “relevant and important to a new generation and new audiences”, and clearly the cast is just as passionate about sharing the parts of Rita’s life that even lifelong fans of her music might not know. Kyte drew a lot from MacNeil’s own memoir, On a Personal Note (1998), and Langham put conditions on how much she and Mike Ross could change the music. “He gave us way more licence than I ever could have imagined!” says Kyte. “It was exciting. Sometimes music is dated by its arrangements and the story can get lost,” she says, citing the electric drums and synths popular in the 1980s as examples, “you kind of lose what it’s about. But if you strip that away, then you’ve got the story of the song, and what can you do with that now to make it theatrical? It was really fun.”
“Their voices are gorgeous. I feel so privileged to get to listen to them every day in rehearsal. The harmonies are beautiful,” says Wilson.
Nasson says she loves singing this style of music that she grew up up with, similar to the country music her grandmother used to sing and play on the guitar. “It’s so nice to be in a room with people who are so kind and generous and who are so musically talented. I’m very lucky to be in this room with these people. It’s fun. We’re having a great time.” She mentions that the day before when they were walking up to the theatre she suddenly screamed, “We sound amazing together!” and laughs.
The audience in previews so far agrees. “People started crying early last night,” says Wilson, “and did not stop.”
“There’s something just so honest about this,” says Yu, “The audiences have their own connections and they’re coming into the theatre already with their own life stories and life experiences. I feel like we’re listening more than we’re engaging in our relationship with the audience, which is something I’ve never done, and I think it allows for a lot more freedom onstage.”
“There’s a visceral response,” says Kyte, noting that Nova Scotian audiences don’t often shy away from vocalizing their reactions to things that they see onstage.
“I heard a couple ‘Ah Jesuses’ last night [in the audience]” she says with laugh.
Bring your Kleenex, and your wide-open heart- Dear Rita opens tomorrow (August 2) at Neptune Theatre’s Fountain Hall Stage.
Dear Rita plays at Neptune Theatre’s Fountain Hall (1593 Argyle Street) until August 25, 2024. Shows run Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 2:00pm. Tickets range in price from $43.00 to $75.00 based on seating.
For tickets please visit this website, or call the Box Office at 902.429.7070 or visit in person at 1593 Argyle Street.
MASKED PERFORMANCE
Sunday, August 11 – 2pm
Neptune Theatre is fully accessible for wheelchair users. For more Accessibility Information Click Here.
